So yesterday I published a tiny little thought which I know at least three people read. It felt good to put something out into the world and get some feedback. Part of my intention of publishing a thought, comes from my admiration of so many great thinkers who have mastered the ability to think and express cohesive ideas and opinions. I too would like to master this ability. For a while I thought that having a podcast would be the way to do it. I’m trying writing instead, because it may be a faster and more precise way to get myself to express a complete thought instead of a general ramble on a subject.
Immediately I’m freaking out. Is this going to be a daily thing? A weekly thing?
How will I find time and things to say every single day? What if this series of writings goes on for a total of four days never to be seen again? I can already envision the shame I’m going to feel by looking back at this writing project as another failed experiment where I quit a good thing too quickly. Can I ever be consistent at anything or will it always be short bursts of output followed by months of radio silence?
But maybe my idea of being a consistent content creator is flawed. Look I get it, people have to work for a living and getting good at anything requires consistency. But perhaps we have gone too far with the culture of accountability, putting out consistent content, and just making stuff and putting it out on a weekly/ monthly basis if the original point was doing a thing for fun. It seems to be that today, the moment one discovers a talent, they are bombarded with thoughts of content creation, email lists, growing your audience, building a fanbase and blowing up on tiktok. And I’m all for these things. Really. No really!
But there is a voice inside my head that closely scrutinizes me any time I do a creative thing. It is the coarse voice of a cheap talent scout who is desperately trying to salvage his failing career by discovering the best way to exploit any talent that I have by scaling it, monetizing it and hopefully making both of us very famous. And I like fame but also wouldn’t it be nice to have at least one creative outlet that is not under some kind of obligation of consistency and fan base building?
I know I’m going against the grain here when successful people are consistently posting video content of every child, sunset and coffee cup in their vicinity and here I am saying that not all creative output needs to be sold as consumable audience building content. Hopefully I’ll feel the pain of wanting more feedback on this piece of writing, not getting it, and realizing just how dangerous my line of questioning is.
I can picture God planning the release of His Five Books of Moses. He originally wanted to do it as a trilogy and release one book per year but his editors convinced him that he should do five books and drop the whole thing at once because people don’t have the attention span to wait a year for a new book. He also wanted a smaller outdoor book launch, but the producers rented out a mountain with pyrotechnics and sound equipment so loud it literally killed the audience members. And they made sure God had the sequel ready (Book of Joshua) even before the first launch. Keep milking that audience!
I’ll conclude by saying that I have all of the love and respect for content creation. I’ll always be interested in sharing stuff. This topic of demanding consistency from yourself goes way beyond content creation. It’s every time you do something good for yourself and this gruff voice in your head says. “Ok man! Cool! Now every single day you’re going to do this again and again! And you’re going to get better! Once percent better every day! That’s thirty three percent per year! Snowball effect!” And Mr. Inner Voice is not wrong about anything he is saying besides for the fact that he is a tyrant who thinks he can control every aspect of my being. And I like to overthrow tyrants whenever I have the opportunity.
So work is work, and if releasing content every day is your job, amazing! But I am hereby absolving myself from being on any schedule regarding writing these articles. Chag Sameach!