March 25, 2004
I realise it’s been over two months since my last real update which might make one wonder if I’m still around.
I am.
But this past year I’ve become a lot more private and to a certain extent, guarded. My want to share has dwindled and it�s only now I’ve fully realised why.
For over two years I’ve felt I’ve been highly open and public and that had begun to wear down on me. The expectations from others that I felt seemed like demands. Demands to always have some great new insight, to be happy, to show that this dream-life rocks socks. I felt the demands to always have some new work to show, a new publishing credit and a fancy paycheque to be proud of. There also came the expectations from others that I would change their lives, promote their work, make them famous. I felt this incredible personal drain because of what people wanted, what they demanded.
So I stopped writing and thinking about others and went completely internal. I started to ask myself what I wanted.
That was scary as hell.
I realised what I wanted might not be complimentary with what my readers wanted, both on my web site an in print. I wanted to write less about writing and more about high-end travel. I thought, what if my audience won’t follow me and they lose interest? When I sat quietly one night I realised that I would just find a new audience. When I realised that I didn’t want to write just about the good bits anymore because truly for the past year, I’ve been witness to and experiencing a lot of the negative side of the business, I was afraid that people would think me whiny or ungrateful. But I sat quietly and realised that I can’t be afraid to talk about the bad, especially if I think it’s universal. I have to be truthful because so many people fail to be honest when they reach a certain level. I can’t complain about what I dislike if I’m doing the same. I also realised that I�m tired of sharing my work in the sense that it began to feel like a sales job every time I mentioned something. I felt pressure to say, “Oh I’m doing this job and that job.” I didn’t want to do that anymore. I just wanted to work without it having to be a big deal, without having to justify or explain. I didn’t want people to think I was no longer a writer because I am doing artwork for books and magazines as well.
This introspection was so needed and really helpful but it lead to me being quiet on the writing front. I’m still quiet, still learning how to adjust my wants and needs whilst being of use to others but I’m not going to lie – it’s hard. It’s hard to learn how to keep some for me and share some with you. It was easy in the beginning but now with so much more demands and expectations, it’s become harder. ‘m working on it.
The other bit that has been truly hard for me is how much people want from me and the enormous amount of insincerity I receive as a result. I wrote about this on the March 25th entry on the site so I won’t elaborate here. But the want from others has really drained me and made me feel isolated. I can’t recall the last time I asked someone for a favour or help because I feel like who do I go to, will I sound demanding, will I come across as fake? The amount of output expected doesn’t equal the input and that’s really hard. I talk so much about community and support and I think I do this because it’s something I crave but haven’t really found. People put me on some weird level which keeps me distant from so many. It’s as though people think I don’t need support or they have nothing to offer me because they’re not where I am. Well, that’s just plain ridiculous. I’m human. I’m just doing my thing and sometimes I stumble, get confused, get overwhelmed, get lonely, get uninspired and I think everyone of us has those emotions at some point. We can always offer each other something. No one is ever better than, more important than, has all the answers, has it made, is too cool or what have you. Everyone is just everyone.
So as I grow into this new phase of mine, as I adjust to the public and private me and as I adjust to people putting me on a different level, there will be some growing pains. I’m not sure what direction I’ll be taking with writing on web sites but I’m going to try to continue as much as possible without feeling drained by it and without being fake about it.
Because one thing that hasn’t changed is I still want to be useful and I still want to share enough as to take the fear out of someone else doing what I’ve done. I still want people to feel possible.