A necessarily anticlimactic call for personal peace.
2020 has been one of the strangest and harrowing adventures I’ve ever experienced, and for me that is saying a lot. I can, with certainty, assume you understand, relate, and have the receipts to back it up.
What’s worse… this year is not even over, and the forty days that remain at date of publication are slated to last about six months.
Many of my creative and business projects are on hold, by default or by choice. Personally, I am yielding to the important task of processing the blizzard of changes happening to our health, safety, civil liberties, finances, mobility, and our relationships to one another and to the world.
From where I sit…
This is not the time for a burgeoning content calendar. It is a time for listening, and for getting creative with how we all take care of what is most valuable and important to us.
This is a full-tilt media diet. Nothing in, nothing out. I won’t be sheepish about exacting a policy of austerity when it comes to letting chaos in.
This is not a time for aggressive goal setting and growth hacking. It’s not a time for launching industry disruptive products, or leaning into hustle culture. This is a time to slow down and notice every last thing we have to be thankful for. To make use of what has been earned so far. To mend what’s been broken and pay attention to what’s been taken for granted.
For the reasons above, I’m simply removing the self-imposed pressure to update this or any of my public pages, in an unapologetic pivot into radical self-care. That kind of deadlining no longer sparks joy or whatnot.
It won’t be a cakewalk, but being more selective than a Twitter or Facebook feed is a fairly low bar.
Also, I am getting as far away from social media as humanly possible in modern times, with the exception of a once-weekly scheduled check-in and anything required by my job. News is on deck to be slashed from my daily mental landscape, as well. I consider this to be an act of self-preservation.
This is a full-tilt media diet. Nothing in, nothing out. No demands, deadlines, or compulsion to say something clever. It won’t be a cakewalk, but being more selective than a Twitter or Facebook feed is a fairly low bar.
Right now, isolation is the name of the game, and if I’m doing this thing, I’m damn sure going in for the restorative benefits solitude. I won’t be sheepish about exacting a policy of austerity when it comes to letting chaos in.
I want to be clear: nothing that we haven’t collectively witnessed together is “driving me” into going dark. This bow-out is certainly not a cry for help or an attempt to be dramatic. Rather, it is a promise to myself that, as I stay socially distanced this winter, I won’t be taken down by a foe as banal as doom scrolling.
Those of you who know me personally, feel free to get in touch somewhere off of social. Send a letter, call, text, email. I will be very happy to share a good conversation.
What will I be doing with my time, you ask? I suspect revisiting some of the things that forged my early creativity, reveling in the sacred anonymity of paper journaling, drawing, shower singing, and daydreaming. Working with a pen or pencil, and my imagination. Maybe cultivating some porch tomatoes. Hard to say.
Nothing to monetize.
Nothing to market.
Nothing to publish.
Nothing to do but be here and be enough.
11/21/2020