Not long ago, I had a couple of blog posts that, as the kids say, “went viral”.
It was pretty exciting I’ll admit; seeing some thoughts I had typed from the quiet confines of my 10″ x 12″ bedroom, quite instantly get sent shooting around the globe, reaching dozens of countries, and connecting me with thousands of people, with whom those thoughts resonated (or outraged, as the case may be).
I remember a good friend saying to me in the wake of this news, “That’s awesome. So now you’ve just got to write all the time.”
“What do you mean?”, I asked. She explained: “Well, people will follow your blog now, but you have to write regularly, or they will lose interest and stop.”
So the concept, if I understand it, is that you need to give people regularly scheduled thoughts, regardless of their quality or inspiration, and they will value these, more than simply occasional ones, which you feel specifically compelled to share with them.
In this line of thinking, the message from the world is essentially: Give me lots of thoughts, all the time, and if you don’t have any, well, make some up.
It’s odd, though not at all surprising, when one considers the multiple platforms that social media gives each of us every day, for uploading our brilliance to a waiting and weary world. In our pockets, we hold devices that give us instant access to the masses, and our job; our duty, is to educate, inspire and sustain them with the specific and singular greatness we possess.
And in exchange for this gift, they will Like us, and reTweet us, and share us. As a result, we wake up in the morning, and most of us, don’t feel at all burdened to know people, to communicate and share ideas with them, or to engage in real discussions on things that matter.
Now, when we greet the waking world, most of us simply feel pressured to create content.
And so, we blog, and update our statuses, and Tweet (incessantly), and Instagram every fleeting thought; every microscopic observation, every random emotion, every morsel of food we consume, if for no other reason than we are convinced that people need these things to survive.
That’s a misrepresentation of the world outside of us for sure, but more importantly, it’s a distortion of ourselves; one that insidiously pollutes, not just the way we interact with that world, but with our own sense of identity as well.
There’s a huge difference between the phrase, “I have something that I have to say.”, and the phrase, “I have to have something to say.
One, is an expression of bubbling passion; a burden to share something deep and heartfelt with the world; something you cannot keep with in you, while the other, is an ego-driven deadline, based on a false idea of worth; the lie that you and your every thought, are that critical to someone else’s survival.
Survey your social media existence today friends; everything you composed; all that you shared with the world of your opinions and feelings and desires and appointments, and ask yourself how much of it came from the unhealthy feeling, that if you refrained, even for a day, you might be excluded or forgotten or replaced.
Consider the cost of that kind of dependency on approval, and as you wake in the morning, choose not to let your Friends, or your Followers, or your analytics, or the calendar, drive what you give to the world. Speak when you feel called to speak, not when you are expected to do so.
As for me, I don’t have anything to say… and that’s all I wanted to say.
