Following last week’s weird political rant, which I can only blame on my drug addled, delusional state as I fought to overcome dengue fever, I have decided to bring this week’s blog back to centre.
So the whole purpose of both this Blog, and my Youtube Vlog, was to do more and contribute more. At heart I would say I am a creative person, who for various reasons often lacks the focus/impetus to create, both of these outlets along with Instagram and Twitter were designed to give me not only an outlet, but a raison d’etre, a clear goal for each week: To produce something, anything, to put into the public sphere. The problem with this, is firstly the age old task master of time. It is hard to find time to do this, to produce something of note or interest or just worthiness. Last week’s Blog is a perfect example. In the absence of anything truly meaningful or thoughtful to say, the void was filled by an ill-informed diatribe at democracy, and while I do believe in principle a lot of what I was saying, it was for the most part badly expressed and poorly thought through. But at least I produced something, surely something is better than nothing. Surely. Maybe.
Secondly, is what it comes to represent. As soon as you put yourself out there for the public to judge, then you cannot help but care what they think. In my case, it is less about what people think, and more about whether anyone is even engaging with what I have created. I quickly became obsessed with statistics and viewers and all that crap, desperate to validate the time I was spending producing content for the various social platforms. Everyone whoever, writes, films, or produces anything that is open to the public hopes in their heart of hearts that it will immediately be picked up by the public, they will be hailed as a genius and the plaudits will come raining down. Anyone who says otherwise is a liar. Yes I want this to happen, but I am not naive enough to think it will happen. Ever. Not just a kind of ‘It will take time’ deal, but I don’t really believe anyone will ever read or view my stuff in any great or significant numbers. However, I have set myself a goal, and I guess my hope is that if I produce enough content, eventually I will strike on something that resonates with the public, even if it is just in some small way.
My final concern is that producing content does not enhance my life. Time spent doing this is time I could be spending with my family. Time spent filming or writing about my life, is time I could spend living my life. Are my own memories and experiences not valid enough on their own? Do I need to evidence my life so that one day I can look back and justify my existence. Perhaps we will all one day stand before the pearly gates, or whichever symbolically religious threshold that applies to you, and present our digital portfolio for inspection. The question is not about whether we lived worthy lives, but did we record, share, tweet about our lives enough. Did we garner enough likes, favourites and retweets to justify our very existence?
There have been many moments over the past few weeks when I have wished I wasn’t blogging. Wished I could spend a few more minutes with my family, give my daughter a little more attention, but I have been forced by the self-imposed deadlines to get back to writing, filming, or editing. And here I am still, today neglecting work in order to write this, because despite everything I have just said; I do feel compelled to share my thoughts and my ideas. The world is a vast place and maybe no-one will ever care or listen, but I still want to have my say, and I have the right to it. Isn’t that what millennial generation has taught us? What is the point of demanding our right to freedom of speech, or embracing the democracy of the internet if we don’t have a say? Even if no-one ever listens we have had our say.
Turning Forty and Making it Work 