I aspire to do everything with good intentions but end up with my good intentions on the shit end of the stick.
I try to better myself so much that I fall for self-help scams and online gurus. Because of this I’m even deeper in debt and those money manifestation exercises aren’t paying off because of course they’re not. The others in the program would say I’m not “trying” hard enough. But how do you try with self-help? There’s no self-help topic that covers trying. Every book, every self-made guru with the same rags-to-riches story, and every content creator doesn’t have a “try” section in their content. Even a wise Jedi Master once said:
What’s the point of trying when all that happens is complacency. That happens to me when I take on a new venture. The online technical writing certification is nearly done, yet it’s been weeks since I’ve opened the site to start the last section. I have piles of drafts either 80% complete or in the middle of a total rewrite, wasting away in a digital folder until I feel the “inspiration” to open them again.
Either the inspiration isn’t there anymore or maybe I’m ignoring it. No wonder creators procrastinate. Putting something new into the world is scary, something that was only meant for you, so why bother publishing; or hell, why bother finishing any of your drafts?
Distraction is the reason I squash the inspiration lately. I come home from work and go to the gym or I go for a walk, and I feel great afterwards. Then I turn on the TV and I’m locked in until bedtime.
Another four hours I could have spent at the computer, writing or editing even just a few lines of one of my projects. I have to force myself to pick up the remote and hit the Power button and force myself to sit in silence even if all I do is pick up a book.
I tell myself every day: if you’re not going to write, then read. Read until you can’t keep your eyes open anymore. Don’t even look for inspiration in what you read; something feasible will come to you.
Speaking of which, your other inspirations are collecting dust on your laptop. Remember the 50,000 words you wrote back in November 2020? Sure it was the pandemic and you had no job, but you’re able to put in at least two minutes now! What’s two minutes? A few sentences that turn into a paragraph that maybe spawns more paragraphs.
Otherwise, don’t call yourself a writer. Dammit.
I’m my own harsh critic. I’m open to others giving me corrections and critique, but when it’s the frustrated voice in my brain I merely turn up the TV to drown her out. I think that’s why I can’t sit in silence: that voice is crystal clear in it.
I know that I’m stating the obvious but we are living in an age of distraction no one anticipated. And I believe that it’s starting to affect our psyche.
If you haven’t noticed yet, it’s definitely affecting mine.
We are bombarded every day with notifications on our phones, emails (personal and work), ads on TV, ads on YouTube, and now ads on Amazon. I will admit to paying the extra $2.99 to keep Amazon ad-free because isn’t that what Prime was supposed to be in the first place?
I deleted Instagram because I was doom-scrolling constantly even though I followed people who were not celebrities or politicians. You still can’t escape the political posts, however, as the people you follow for health advice, easy recipes, or certain rituals to perform at the next Beltane sabbat will still post their views. Don’t get me wrong: that’s their choice. It’s their page after all, and I can just keep scrolling.
But see, that was my issue: I kept scrolling and I couldn’t stop. I deleted Instagram since it was a big distraction for me and went to YouTube instead. I can at least learn something there, right?
I am now distracted by YouTube.
YouTube is vastly different than it was at its conception. Since its buy-out by Google, it’s been desperate to keep up with the likes of Facebook (I refuse to call it Meta) and Instagram, mostly in the form of Shorts. On Instagram they’re called Reels, and that was where my scrolling needs were met. Just an onslaught of quick dopamine hits from people I’ll never meet and companies I have no interest in but, hey, the video they made looked cool so why not watch and see where it leads?
Well, it led to me feeling exhausted to the point where I bypassed that customary promise I made to myself earlier that day that after “this one last video” I would write something. It’s interesting how mindless scrolling makes your mind tired when you don’t have to think about anything while scrolling. Social media will do the thinking for you. Give yourself over to the algorithm and see what happens. It reminds me of that scene from the movie Tommy where Tina Turner’s Acid Queen injects Roger Daltrey’s entire body with drugs in an iron maiden device covered in heroin syringes.
“Gather your wits and hold on fast.
Your mind must learn to roam…”
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that scrolling is akin to drugs. And now I’m feeling the lure of it with YouTube. I’ve tried unfollowing drama channels and reaction channels and have attempted to find channels that are more educational like cooking videos or ones that raise philosophical questions and actually try to make you use your brain. I recently started listening to Gorillaz again, a band I haven’t listened to since my twenties and have discovered lots of songs I missed out on over the years, including ones that were once considered ‘lost’. There are tons of channels that have archived over twenty years worth of their content and they are like discovering hidden treasures. I could easily build playlists on Spotify, however, where almost their entire discography is kept now.
My new favorite creator is called Books ‘n’ Cats. You can guess why. She’s also making me fall in love with Victorians all over again.
And though I enjoy these types of channels I am still drawn to the short clips of the latest YouTuber drama (of which I shamefully admit I know way too much) and clips from shows I no longer watch like Family Guy and The Simpsons.
It’s great that we are able to digitally archive media. I’ve been into audio and visual media since I was a kid, mostly movies, and it’s nostalgic to see a compilation video of old film scenes and even commercials that used to come on TV when I was a kid.
But as Uncle Ben told Peter Parker: “With great power comes great responsibility.”
I’m not knocking creators on YouTube. Many of the ones I’ve followed over the years have put in hours of filming, editing, writing scripts, and building a sort of brand for themselves to eventually make content creation their job. However, at the start of 2024, many longtime creators have either left YouTube completely or are taking a break from making videos and not posting as much. Everyone needs a break, sure…but has the drive to create something new become a roadblock for them due to tons of newer content? Can they no longer keep up?
Distraction has become my creative roadblock. I fear that I have consumed so much online media that my ability to create something new has been wrecked. I procrastinate with my writing not because I fear that no one will read it but because of something much better “out there.” Is what I’m writing been done before? How much more different can I be?
And again, why even try?
We humans were born to create. It’s an outlet for stress, heartbreak, and happiness. Even if you can only draw a stick figure, you can still make a comic strip featuring them. There are countless creators online with no talent but they have fans. There are popular podcasters that people can’t stand, but other people listen to them all the time. There are also crap writers out there that sell millions of books that eventually get turned into crap movies.
But I find myself saying: “If they can, why not me?”
I’m sick of getting stuck in a cycle where I’m at my creative best only to be sucked back into what’s happening on social media. I never used to label YouTube under that moniker, but it’s quickly becoming like Instagram, and the scrolling once again becomes a hard habit to break.
Social media is beneficial, but there are blurred lines between entertainment and distraction. The phrase “go touch grass” has become an insult hurled at those who are chronically online, but there is truth in this meme.
Really though: go touch it. Sometimes that’s all I need to feel better when even the silence gets to me. To feel the moss on a tree and stand in the sunshine and allow myself to do nothing in it. To get a hit of dopamine from the fact that I made it to another day, and though it will be tough, I can change my need for distraction into something more profound. But there’s no need for me to do it big. I have two minutes to spare each day. I can start there.
That way I won’t be trying: I’ll be doing.
Mysti Gayle 
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