It feels like I’m slowly falling away from the moving crowd. I find myself sitting, lost in my own thoughts, rather than reading and contributing to the online communities I have played a small part in for so long.
A few days ago I scrolled through the endless stream of posts at WordPress, Facebook, Instagram, and Tumblr - and wondered what purpose they really serve. Why do so many people share so many moments from their lives - places they are going, places they are leaving, happy thoughts, sad thoughts, and everything in-between ?
For a little while I wondered about pulling the plug on all of it, sitting down on a comfy chair in our back room, and reading one of the books I’ve been promising myself to read for the last couple of years.
I’m not sure why I didn’t pull the plug. I’m equally not sure why I’m still here. This is awfully existential, isn’t it. The entire post is bordering on “why are we here?”, and “why do we bother?”.
Perhaps the reason I bother is because of you. Because you’re reading this. And because you’re reading this, you might think “I’ve thought that too, from time to time”, and you might reach out - and we might find out that we’re not alone in this endless questioning of everything - and we might find out that part of the reason to keep going is because we know we might read each other’s words.
I wonder though - at what point does writing for an imaginary audience turn into pressure? At what point, when you know a few people will read - at what point does that turn into pressure to provide something for them to read, lest they forget you?
There’s probably some inspirational crap that can be spun about your voice being unique among the thousands surrounding you. I’m not sure I have the energy to counter that right now.
I’m off to make a cup of tea.