The trouble doesn’t start with using the internet per se–it’s using the internet like an ol’ fishin’ hole where I trawl around looking for something that will spark an idea or fuel some sort of creative endeavour. IG is the worst for this because it’s blip blip blip blip -1000 words- -1000 words- -1000 words- including stuff I didn’t ask to see [“suggested for you”]. It’s just junk and trash and like a bad thrift store and I’m scrounging through dirty clothes trying to find one nice shirt.
But when I have an idea–a subject, a theme, a narrative for chrissakes–and then I go looking for supporting images, info, addresses
then that’s ok
and that’s a good use of the Information Superhighway.
Writing was the main thing I was good at that had any future as a way to earn money/receive positive validation.
I was good at writing from a young age because I had a complex, colourful inner world. It was about the perspective I saw things from. It was my insight, my ability to draw conclusions about what I was seeing. I noticed details, I found the magic hiding in corners.
But that stuff’s not really what I had to do in classes.
My synonym game was INTENSE. I read the thesaurus.
Like many other things, writing was a happy thing that I ground down into a nightmare because I had to
GET POSITIVE VALIDATION TO SURVIVE
You spend your whole life trying to fit through that round hole as a square peg; and even when the relief washes over you that you don’t have to keep trying, you still look through that hole at the happy, peaceful world you were trying to get to and realise you’ll never be able to get there.
The blog post I just read was about one of my favourite places ever: a cluttered vintage store that was another world. I was transported when I walked through the door. The trumpet-heavy music by female jazz singers, the nooks and crannies hiding treasures, the smell of old fabric and fur coats. I can close my eyes and imagine the feeling of being there. But the descriptions in the blog post were all head-heavy descriptions, anxiety over readers drawing judgemental conclusions: let’s quickly say “some could say it’s too cluttered but….”
Poor younger me. I wanted to share the transcendent, magical experience of spending an hour in that place. And all I knew how to do was nervously intellectualise everything, preparing for skepticism and devil’s advocates.
I love her and I love myself. She didn’t have any unconditional love. None. None at all.
clover asterisk 