Content is cancer.
Spreading through humanity, it is reaching a point where it might just be outnumbering the real functioning cells of actual good writing. Even before this LLM (ChatGPT and the likes) craze, we were already reaching a point where bad incentives were driving people to the point of creating content for all sorts of wrong (in my opinion) reasons. Building engagement on social media, becoming a more “prominent” voice in your domain, creating a bigger following. And now with these new LLMs around, it has become even easier to create this type of content. You don’t even need to write, to write. How wonderful is that? And yes, maybe I’m browsing social media too much and I’m sure there’s good writing out there but it feels like it is drowning in a sea of “content”. Anything that doesn’t contribute to this cancer is good. So not writing or creating content as we say now, is a good thing. I truly believe that.
You don’t need to put yourself out there. Really, you don’t and I’m saying that, an extrovert. I mean yes you should put yourself out there, be yourself, express yourself and be unapologetically you. But you really don’t need to do it all on the internet for people who you don’t even know. I feel like the idea of sharing anything and everything about yourself came from a world where it was rare to be able to do so. You needed to be popular or important to have a platform, to reach out to an audience. And so we put a lot of value on it. But now we live in a world where privacy is scarce. Everything you do, everywhere you go, everything you think can and probably is already out there whether you willed it or not. In this world, it is better to not share everything. And this sounds a little preachy and hypocritical, but this is what I tell myself. I still do add stories on instagram. Definitely a hypocrite. But still I do believe this.
But despite these feelings, I’ve always wanted to write. I haven’t always, or ever, had a very clear idea of what, but I know that I’ve thought about wanting to write something, anything, for a while now. My notes app on my phone is full of headings/titles/seeds for things that I’ve wanted to write about. Things I’ve wanted to capture my own thoughts and ideas on. So many times I’ve found myself thinking about something, being somewhat impressed with my own thoughts and then wanting to capture it or share it with people. I feel like it is worth putting out there. Obviously, there’s mild hints of narcissism there that I’m just so pleased by my own thoughts that I deem them worthy of sharing. But I can’t deny that I’ve felt that over and over. I have spent so much time Googling how to get into a habit of writing, how to start writing. I’ve spent so many years telling myself, one day I will start writing when the time is right. When I have something worth writing about. But at the same time I’ve just been avoiding it and pushing it to the future so much that I have started doubting whether I actually want to write or if it is just some sort of fleeting fantasy that has no place in reality. Do I actually want to write? Is it worth it? When I think too much about it, I always remember this comment I read somewhere that said “If you find yourself asking whether you have/are x, you are already closer to x than most people”. I think it might have been a comment on Quora. I don’t know if I should judge myself for finding a Quora comment insightful, or if I should change my opinion of Quora 🤔. Either way, I’ve spent so much time thinking about writing that might as well try it out too.
Recently I met with a friend after almost a decade and I spent the day walking around with him, looking at art, eating and grabbing coffee and having random conversations about so many unrelated, but still relevant to our lives, things. And in one of the conversation, we talked about writing, and it really felt like he understood and shared my reason/desire to want to write. That feeling of just relating and bonding with a friend and being understood was motivation enough to sit with my notes app and put this together. If nothing else, then at least we’ll have some fun writing about our stupid ideas together.
If you’ve reached this far then truly you have a better attention span than I do. Reels and TikToks have ruined it for me. Hopefully I will recover from it. And hopefully I’ll write more and this will be the first and not the last. Either way, thank you for giving me your attention. I really appreciate you. And I hope you have a great day 🙂
Filler words 