Just Do You

I just talked to my therapist so I figure right now is a good time to let the good times roll so start that timer please:

The last few days I’ve been feeling more melancholy than I have in a little bit and I think there’s plenty of reasons for that because there’s plenty of not-the-most-ideal things happening in my life right now (same with the lives of everybody else in the entire world), but part of it I think is that I’m trying to take a break from social media. 

For so long, social media has been an integral part of my life whether it’s dumb status updates I posted in middle school, funny pictures I posted in high school, or extremely cryptic puzzles that I started to post last week. As a result of this, social media has both become my greatest and worst creative outlet. On the one hand, it’s given me a chance to make things that I’m proud of and that I can get instant feedback on, but on the other, it’s forced me into a place where I feel that anything I make only matters if there’s an omnipresent audience to validate it as so.

However, I didn’t get into the business of “being creative” because I had people watching me be creative. In fact, I was at my happiest and most creative when I was a little boy drawing in the corner of his bedroom in sketchbooks that nobody would ever see. And now years later and many many many likes, comments, and (a few) retweets later, it feels like I’ve forgotten what it’s like to create simply for the act of creation.

And I think the idea of walking way from this constant spectatorship is scary and even sad because if no one is watching, then how do I know what I’m doing matters? And if nobody is there to tell me if it matters, then why the heck am I even doing it at all?

Because in my brother’s words, I like “just doing me.” Even if I’ve forgotten what it feels like to just do me.

Does any of this address why I’m sad? I don’t really know and I’m gonna pretend there’s not enough time on the timer to go back and check so I’m just gonna keep going. I think the sadness comes from walking away from constant virtual validation and realizing that what I’m left with is the seemingly insurmountable task of having to validate myself all on my own and who am I to say I’m worth anything at all? 

On second thought, I’m the best person to say whether I’m worth anything at all so I’ll say right now that I am worth a whole lot and I validate myself completely, entirely, and wholly.

And I know that’s not gonna make me not sad anymore, but I validate that too.