I’ve been pretty quiet on social media lately. After two decades of daily immersion in online spaces, gulping down other people’s opinions, hot takes, think-pieces, tweet threads and TikTok diatribes (and contributing plenty of my own perspectives) my voice has all but dried up.
Oh sure, I’m still on the socials. But not the way I used to be – online all day, composing thoughts on everything from religious commentary to fashion; from the viability of world peace at any given moment to the best way to eat fried potatoes. I had things to tell people. And they seemed to enjoy hearing what I had to say.
Lately, though, (and I’m speaking of the past twelve months or so), my ability to compose my thoughts and share them with the public feels like it’s evaporated. Every once in a while I’ll sit down to write something ‘profound’ but after a few moments, I’ll give up. I’ve assumed this is some kind of temporary ‘creative block’ situation and haven’t given it much thought. I figured it would come back to me at some point.
But this past week I realized something really big. What I’m experiencing isn’t a creative block.
See, I’m writing a novel, and that’s coming along swimmingly. I’m not at all blocked creatively when it comes to writing fiction. Granted, the process is taking its sweet time, but there’s no block there. And in fact, I realized that I actually do have a lot to say right now. Probably more than I’ve had to say in my entire life. I just… can’t bring myself to put my thoughts, opinions and feelings out there on the feeds and wait for some random person to discover it at any random time and make it all about them.
Sometimes, I’ll begin to write on a subject I feel strongly about only to halt as an imagined voice makes some completely irrelevant statement that manages to miss the entire point of what I’m trying to say and insult me and my work; or worse, the voice of someone who has no idea what I’m saying and either takes some offense that needs assuaging or requires a basic education on the topic at hand, both of which are a waste of my time.
So no, there is nothing wrong with my creativity. Turns out, I’m just sick of people. (Present company excluded, of course.) More specifically, I’m sick of having to litigate, defend, educate, explain, or otherwise take any amount of my precious time to make sure someone else feels okay about something I’ve written. I’m actually not interested in discussing my opinions that much, forget debating them. And the big, important ideas that I care about – that I want to put into the world – are precious to me. I shan’t be casting anymore pearls before swine.
The important thing here – and the entire reason I wrote this blog post – is that something else occurred to me shortly after this first realization: this is why artists make art.
See, I think that like most artists, I have so much to say it’s not even possible to get it all out there during my lifetime. I have an entire universe (multiple universes, even!) inside of me that I need to share and there’s a special kind of masochism in choosing for this task the worst possible medium for communicating with other humans. One that dehumanizes, caters to the lowest-common denominator, shits on privacy, lacks nuance and emboldens people to not only identify with their egos, but to demand attention and a personal response from everyone from The Pope on down.
Social media is not art. I don’t think it’s really even that compatible with art. It’s certainly not a great place for artists. Most artists (and I include writers, musicians, photographers, etc.) participate online dutifully because it’s ‘required’ for marketing purposes. But the vast majority of people I consider artists would much rather sit alone for hours every day doing their art than be on the internet trying to explain the meaning or purpose of anything they’ve created to whichever jackass who happens upon it and feels like they deserve to have their opinion about it heard and respected.
I guess what I’m saying here is this: I’ve been quiet online, but it’s not because I have nothing to say. It’s because I’m using a different medium to convey my message, now. It’s because I’ve realized that if I want to impact the world at all for good it will have to be through my fiction writing, which is where I can say what I need to say and release it into the world for people to take or leave at will.
My responsibility (to myself) is to do art that reflects my most authentic experience of life, not to convince people to like it (or me).
