Luck, Loneliness, and a Following
So Iâve been told frequently, as of late, that you donât exist. That you lack the time or attention span or desire to invest your attention towards any of the work I might produce or have to offer. That in order to garner any kind of audience at all, I must employ the use of mass-marketing techniques to even hope to find you, to position myself and my work before your discerning eyes, which means tailoring my work to fit and appeal to the standards and presumed attention span of people who are not like you, who are not the audience I desire to possess, to cultivate, to establish.
Apparently youâre not out there and thereâs nothing I can do to find you, to make only precisely that which might get your attention, might draw you to me and my endeavors. And youâre the only person that I want, the only sort of people that I hope to have as a following or an audience. And I know youâre out there. There are other people out there doing things similar to that which I would like to do and theyâve grown a following, established a platform providing complex and intricate and in-depth content. You exist, somewhere out there in the wide world, youâre more than willing to join me on this journey, the only problem is I donât know how to reach you, how to get my stuff in front of your eyes such that you know that I am here.
And maybe itâs because I havenât really established what it is I seek to offer. Maybe itâs not quite a concrete product. I want to offer an opportunity to embark upon a journey of self-discovery and self-expression. I donât want to just write novels and publish short stories and be around just for those who want to read fiction. I want to offer more than that. I want to offer a look behind the scenes at how we might tell a story, how we might express ourselves. I want people to follow along as I seek to create content. I want to encourage people to do the very same, to push themselves right along with me, such that we might all become better writers and better artists, that we might all push ourselves towards fulfilling whatever dreams we might have for ourselves.
Itâs what I have a passion for. It is of more value to me to help you get what you want than it is for me to just lock myself in a room and write all on my lonesome. I once entertained the notion that to tell a story is much like the making of a puzzle or building of a car. That product is meaningless if there are none to drive that car or assemble that puzzle. I need you and your attention and your discretion for my work to have any value, to serve its function. Without you, everything that I might do, everything for which I might strive is meaningless, because then my work is just out there, sitting still and being stagnant and gathering dust and thereâs no one to take it appear and scrutinize it. I want to encourage people to not only consume content but to dissect it, study its assemblage and reverse-engineer it in order to tell their own stories, make their own art, express them selves.
And my work is out there! Iâve published my projects and made them available to the public for free, but no one is interested. No one has the time, no one is interested in reading. Itâs not like I havenât invested my time in creating things, but itâs simply not true that âthey will comeâ if only you âbuild itâ. It has to be seen, and no one can tell me what I must do to get my stuff to be seen by the very people who might see in my work any value. All anyone can tell me is that I need to cater to other people, people who donât want what I want, who donât care to join me on this journey, who wonât offer for me the opportunities for which I strive and endeavor to accomplish. The general audience doesnât care about me, my work or what I want. Theyâre not like me, and I donât know how to make whatever it is they might be interested in.
All I know is what I like, what draws my interest, what pushes me and motivates me and drives me forward. And I canât be the only person in the world sharing in just such things. Youâve got to be out there, somewhere. You just have to be. Itâs far less likely that I am just this lone wolf out there in the wide world with none who share in my passion and tastes. Youâve got to be out there, too, and every bit as lonely as me. Youâve got to be looking for the very same stuff which drives me. And thatâs the stuff I know how to make: what drives me. And if it works for me than itâs got to work for you, and the only obstacle between us the positioning of my material such that you might find it.
I donât know if youâre an artist or a writer or a casual observer, and I donât know if your endeavors are full-time or more of a hobby. I donât know if you watch the same YouTube videos as I do or if youâre on Instagram or Tumblr. I donât know how to find you and I donât know where to put my stuff such that you find me. But youâre real and I know you are. And if Iâm lucky, youâre hear now, reading this. And likely still wondering if this has been worth your time.
I donât know how to convince you to stick with me, other than to say that I feel very alone, right now. That no one is ever going to give a shit about me and what Iâm doing and that Iâll never gain just the sort of following that Iâve seen other artists get. It seems like Iâm burdened with only just the sort of luck that Iâll never have what other people manage to get, that youâll never find your place, here, and that youâll never care for this petition of your time.
All I want is an opportunity. Iâve seen this work for other people and I just canât figure out why this shouldnât work for me, too, why I wouldnât deserve just the opportunity to engineer some new thing. Why not me? Is that presumptuous, to think that I might be able to offer you something in return for your time? That I might be able to help you get what you want, whatever it is it might be? To answer in the negative just seems unfair, to meâI know Iâm not owed a single thing, but at the same time, it just seems like everything that I want to do is engineered expressly and explicitly to serve as a hindrance to what I want and what I strive for. Why shouldnât I find a following making podcasts? Why shouldnât I be able to grow an audience? People are doing this all the time and finding an audienceâwhat am I doing âwrongâ, why is it not working for me?
I canât help but ask these questions because it feels like Iâm doing everything that I can just for this lone opportunity to engage with you. And nothing works. Nobody cares. And sometimes it almost seems like itâs personal, like Iâm wearing some scarlet letter that says âDonât follow this guyâ. But if youâre willing, I can promise that I will do whatever I can to help you get whatever it is you want out of life. Itâs the only offer that I can make, and I believe in that, Iâve seen it work for other artists, so why shouldnât it work in this one instant? Is it a writing thing? Do people just not care about writers anymore?
I donât know what else to do or where else to be, so here Iâll stay. I promise that I will maintain a presence in this space and will continue to write for you, to appeal to you. And whenever youâre ready, whenever youâre willing to join me on this journey, youâll know precisely where to find me. Otherwise, this is it. This is all I know to do. Everyone else wants to tell me that you donât exist. But I just canât believe that, canât buy into that. Youâve got to be out there, somewhere, thereâs got to be a way that I can connect with you. And thatâs all I want: the opportunity.
