I've noticed how many of my favorite activities have become less and less fun for me over time. Hobbies such as blogging about movies, or posting on forums, tweeting, what have you. Or hell, activities that are related to career oriented goals, including releasing comics or videos and such online. I used to have fun doing all of these things. But now, though I continue to do these things, it's not with a sense of fun, but rather, a sense of obligation, with a looming feeling of dread constantly at the back of my head.
Let's tackle these things one at a time. For instance, back when I first started blogging, I did it out of sheer fun. I did it for myself, and for the few friends who I knew read my stuff. But then one day my blog started attracting other readers, which eventually dragged me into a whole world of other blogs out there. Blogs who I followed, and left comments on, and they'd in turn do the same for me. But as this went along, I soon found myself not blogging out of fun, but rather, to gain more viewers, to get more comments. And I'd start comparing myself to these other blogs, who got far more views and far more comments than mine. I'd beat myself up, genuinely confused as to how they continued to gain more and more of a following, despite my efforts to do the same things they were doing, commenting on other blogs, sharing their links on social media and such, mirror their actions, but not being able to mirror their results, no matter what I did.
And this made blogging an endless stream of stress for me. I just realized that I used to write blogs because I had the idea in mind and I NEEDED to sit down and get it out of my head right then and there. But lately, assuming I do get an idea in mind, I've found that I typically have to FORCE myself to sit down and get that idea written out these days. I force myself to blog, to keep content on my site, in the fear that, otherwise, I might lose those precious readers and commenters. And even despite these efforts, my commenter count has continued to be on the decline regardless, meaning that even the act of getting a new blog out there can't even satisfy me anymore. This wasn't why I started blogging, though. I started blogging because it was personally fun for me. But now it's not fun anymore, it's stressful. And I can try and block out those other things and just go back to blogging for me, but I just know that, in the back of my mind, after I post a new blog I'll just be obsessing over why so few are commenting on it, why nobody's talking about it.
And this leads into social media, such as facebook and twitter. I like to promote my work, such as blogs, but also my comics and movies that I release online. Well, actually, that's wrong. I don't LIKE to promote my work, but I tend to do so anyways, because, after all, how else am I going to get the word out and let others know about it? But the thing is that even this promotion aspect becomes dispiriting over time, as I've noticed people appear to grow less and less enthused in time. For instance, when I posted my very first link to my comic on facebook, it was met with quite a high number of likes. But with each subsequent link posted over time with the release of newer comics, that link is met with fewer and fewer likes. And I know this sounds really fucking stupid and it shouldn't be something I even worry about, but I find I just can't help it, and for me, this only makes me more and more self-conscious about even posting them in the first place.
I'm already extremely self-conscious about promoting my own work, but, as I mentioned, and has been told to me by a number of other people, if I don't do it, nobody else is gonna do it for me. So I supposedly have to keep promoting myself and my work, but now I hit the dilemma where I dread posting my latest link, because I just know that it's gonna be met with little to no reaction, which is just gonna make me wonder if anyone even cares about it anymore in the first place. Now, the already stressful act of forcing myself outside of my comfort zone in order to promote my work and try and get the word out there has become even more stressful due to the seeming indifference it receives for a response.
And that indifference continues to spread into my general postings on forums and twitter. When I first started out posting on forums way back when, people appeared to respond to me, to actually talk back with me. But lately, I find that when I make a new post somewhere, it generally goes ignored, as if I'm talking to myself, as if nobody's even reading me anymore, as if nobody even cares about what I have to say. And it just makes me feel worthless.
Hell, the internet used to be an escape from the stresses of my real life, where I really only have a small number of friends, and even fewer who I feel completely comfortable around, and this year alone I had more than one friend completely shut me out of their life. I try to stay positive and I try to just keep on going, keep on working towards my goals, to be a novelist, a writer, a filmmaker. But I used to go online as my escape from the stresses of life, and I used to have fun doing so. I used to be well integrated within the forum communities I was a part of, and I used to have people respond to my posts on social media as well. But lately, more often than not they don't. And it's like I'm all alone all over again. I already feel so crushingly lonely in my real life, and that sense of loneliness has only followed me online in recent times.
I'm just so stressed, and the 24 hour news network worth of content being dragged onto social media has only made me even more stressed. There's a reason I don't watch that shit, but now that it's all over my feeds, I find myself consuming it all up anyways, and stressing out about the world outside as well. On more than one occasion I've visited a friend and gone on an endless rant about the latest bit of news doing the rounds on my feed, and I didn't use to do that. Hell, lately I've found that I just tend to bitch about a whole lotta things, and I find myself questioning if I really am just that negative a person, and how others must perceive me as such, all of which only piles on to all of the other stress.
I dunno, I'm just so god damned stressed all the time, and the internet used to be my escape. But hell, honestly, I really think that is why I go to see so many movies these days. I mean, I used to do it for fun, because I genuinely enjoyed myself at the movies. And I still do, truly. But I think there's a new reason on top of that, and that's to act as my NEW escape from the stresses of life. Because, while I'm at the movies, that's about two hours where I can just be removed from not only the stresses of life, but also the stresses of the internet, and just be consumed by the story and the images on the screen.
So yeah, that's where I'm at right now. I have a number of ideas for a number of blogs, but if this was a couple years ago, they wouldn't be ideas, they would be written, because I wouldn't have to force myself, they'd just write themselves. But now I'm just consumed by the stress of it all that I'm not even sure when or if those blogs are going to be written. And likewise with my professional stuff, I want to leave social media, but then I'll be even more stumped than I already am as to how to get the word out there.
It just feels like this sorta thing comes so much more easily to other people, like one local filmmaker acquaintance of mine who has over twice the number of followers as I have on twitter, this despite the fact that he's notorious for merely announcing projects, and then announcing their cancellation. He doesn't help spread the word on other people's work, and he barely even says anything of substance at all online. And yet despite all this, how is it that he has garnered so many more followers than I have? This is just one example, but it's the sorta thing that I can't help but beat myself up over, comparing myself to him, and I hate that about myself.
The thing that scares me the most, though, is that I've become so addicted to the internet that I don't even know what to do without it. I've tried unplugging before in the past, and I've had some mild successes for a time. But this was also during a time when I didn't have any of my own work to promote, nor did I have constant access to the internet via my phone. These two things alone make that infinitely more harder than it ever was before, but even so, I'm just not sure what to do.
I've found that when I'm hanging with specific friends is when I have the easiest time staying offline, or if I'm keeping myself busy with something, such as filming, for instance. But anytime I'm doing something a bit too passive, like sitting back and reading a book, I get that constant nag to just check something online real quick, look this one thing up. And it's the same when I'm in social situations where I begin to feel either uncomfortable or bored or annoyed, I just pull out the phone and disappear again. And let's not even get to writing, that's become the biggest hurdle to keep me away, I essentially have to leave my house and head somewhere that doesn't have internet access at all to get any kind of real productivity done anymore.
It really is a battle, it's a struggle, and it's stressful, and I don't know what to do. I feel like I just want to unplug, but then I find I have NOTHING to do. And I get bored, and lonely, and ultimately find myself crawling back to that fucking hole, that depressing, shallow hole, where I don't feel like I'm good enough, in a life where I already find myself questioning just what I have to do to get people's attention... but I dunno, on the contrary, I don't want to COMPLETELY unplug either, because there are still a few more things I'd like to blog about, and I do want that outlet available for when I do have things such as new comics, new books, and new movies to share. But now I'm just rambling, and I feel like I'm just going in circles, so the point being is that I used to do all of this because it used to be fun for me. But now it's not fun anymore, now it's just a whole lotta stupid, stupid stress, and it's been that way for a long, long long time now.
Anyways, I dunno what I'm trying to accomplish by sharing this. Like I said, I guess it's just been brewing for some time, and I feel like I need to get it off my chest, even if I do feel especially exposed in the process. So apologies for rambling on like this, assuming any of you actually read this monster of a rant.
Quoting Donald Glover
forum
Reply With Quote
