I’m Not Doing This For You
Blog like nobody is watching
My son came into my office the other day and asked me what I was doing.
“Writing my weekly newsletter,” I said.
“Newsletter?” he asked, confused. “How long have you had a newsletter?”
“Almost a year,” I said.
Do people read it?”
“Not really,” I admitted.
“Do you have a lot of subscribers?”
“Oh, no. Definitely not.”
“Then why do it?”
I paused. Considered my response.
Why am I doing this?
Then —
“Because sometimes it’s important to spend time considering your thoughts and forcing your brain to articulate them into structured sentences. It’s good to wrestle with ideas or criticism or cultural commentary in a format that is longer than a micro-tweet or internet comment. Writing is really hard. And, forcing our brains to do the hard work of translating our synaptic responses into a comprehensible format is necessary, and in the age of force-fed AI suggestions and text generation, perhaps more important than ever. What gets put into those resulting paragraphs is never as good as you want it to be—the pure essence is always distilled down as it passes from electrochemical response into keyboard presses. But, still, the attempt is a worthy endeavor.
In a world where everything is content, it’s important to care about what you are actually producing. Although the structures of capitalism have taught us differently, the goal isn’t subscribers or profit or growth. No, the goal is fulfillment, and fulfillment can only come through making things that matter to you, regardless of how many people click the little thumbs up icon underneath said creation, even if that creation is just words put into sequence.
It’s important to think critically about things. It should never be enough to simply “like” a movie or TV show or video game; it’s important to interrogate why. And, through that interrogation you might, ultimately, discover something deeper about yourself, and—perhaps more importantly—those around you.
It is not enough to simply consume the world. We must participate in it.
My son looked at me blankly. A long beat.
“Oh, that’s cool. Can I have your laptop to watch Ryan Trahan?”
I sighed.
“Fine. But, only for an hour.”
“Bet.”