Sometimes I put a lot of pressure on myself to write. To write not just anything, but the PERFECT thing. I think it puts undue stress on my body. Or if I don’t feel the stress, I just don’t even write.
I have gone many long streaks of not posting things online and I think it relates to this fear of not posting something perfect. If I hold an event in person, I feel pretty OK with going with the flow, seeing what happens. However, when it comes to the internet, and creating something that will be, or seem to be, permanent, I often lock up.
I wonder if this is having an impact on more people than me. I wonder if the internet and it’s supposed promise of permanency is wreaking havoc on our desire for impernanency. I mean, I struggle enough to show my imperfections in real-time, I sure don’t want people to see them over and over and over again, at the mere reach of a Google search.
Lately I’ve been thinking that this focus on the result of the writing, the result of an Instagram post, the result of the tweet, causes us to focus more on the results of many things. Over the last few years, I’ve been worried that we in the US are focusing less on the democratic process and more on the outcomes. We seem to care less about how something is done and more about just making sure that it is done. I fear that this starts to erode the essence of democracy. Democracy is a process through which we govern ourselves. I feel sadly confident that we’re skirting around the rules and processes of democracy so that we can get the outcome we wish to achieve. And I see this as dangerous, or if not dangerous, then at least counter to the principles of democracy.
I say this not with a “I-figured-it-out-and-I-need-to-teach-you” but more of a “we’re-all-in-the-same-boat.” I fall victim to this trap, I succumb to the yearning for the answer, disregarding the process, in my work, in my personal life, and in my political views. I feel myself, as I get more angry with the current situation of things and more desperate for a solution, drifting more and more towards the ends justifying the means, and losing myself in the process.
I don’t know if any of this makes sense, and I’m worried that it doesn’t. And yet, I told myself, I will set a timer for 10 minutes, and type about what’s on my mind, and then have the audacity to post it. This is not a highly curated, highly pondered piece of writing. This is a “oh-shit-here-we-go” post, designed to elicit a sense of liveness, a sense of raw thinking that I find to be missing from most things I read on the internet. I wish things were more live, more filled with errors, more human, in a way. I’ve focused on this process and while it scares me to see what comes out of it, I also feel so grateful that I didn’t spend 4 hours writing and rewriting the same post over and over and finishing with a frustrated piece just because I wanted to go enjoy the weather outside. And three seconds left. Done.