I had an impulse in me to write, far longer than I should have. I would think, "it doesn't matter if I do this or not, I will still know how to" and yet, to my surprise (but why really?) you do forget how to write if you don't do it routinely.
I have so many stories to tell, I feel things very deeply. and sometimes, I take that out on the people in my life, asking for more, more, more when honestly I am in desperate need of myself.
To write is to taste life twice, to quote the lovely, comical, Phoebe Waller-Bridge. Sometimes, tasting it once is hard enough and you end up in a therapists office trying to make sense of it all.
In a world full of cloud based media, a twenty-four hour news cycle, endless Instagram reels telling me how to "glow up" I find the act of creating terribly lonely. You'd think it would be the opposite, as if I was in need of it more. No, not the case.
I get this pang of isolation, a twinge I just can't shake off. When I'm totally offline I start to panic, as if there's this world going on without me. Which is silly, because the world is right here. It's the keys in my hands to unlock the door to my apartment, it's the grass under my toes when eating a popsicle from the farmers market. It isn't the instagram reels telling me to glow up, is it?
And yet, in my creativity I feel so alone. In the books I pick up off the shelf that aren't recommended to me on BookTok, I feel so alone. In the books I find in the little free library with the author I don't know, I feel so alone. In the cyanotypes I make, unless I post about them, I feel alone. The only exception for me is photography, as I often take photographs of other people and so there's a sliver of connection in it all.
But, it's hard to explain. It's like this invisible thread I can almost touch but certainly can't see. It's like, I am not alone. But, the Internet and how often we are on it has abandoned life itself. When I part take in these offline acts, I feel the abandonment that is the world left behind to the Internet. I feel the absence of it all.
Partly, this is why I chose to start writing and creating on Tumblr as opposed to Substack or a different platform. For one, a certain kind of anonymity. For two, the community on here feels less for the trend and more for the experience of sharing one's work. For three, I couldn't shake that I need to share what I am doing in some capacity and I can't just do it in isolation - I think that's the humanity of it all. Or maybe, feeling like if I do it totally offline, what is my purpose? How uncomfortable to think about.
Although, right now, don't we all ache? The world has lost its opportunity. I feel it so deeply, but when I look around somehow we still function. We are policed more than ever, everyone has a job yet no one has a job? No one has money, yet we keep on trekking. I am so confused, all the time.
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