What am I here for?
And what was stopping me from sharing my opinion
What is it that I really want to say? What do I want people to know about me? What do I want to be known for?
These questions are stopping me from writing.
I’ve been wanting to start a Substack, just to have a place to think out loud, share myself, my point of view, my observations. But I keep delaying it (and hey, I’m not judging myself. Part of starting something new is cherishing the idea of it before taking action.) because I don’t know what to SAY.
I guess this is perfectionism - how it shows up for me, anyway. If it isn’t going to be perfect, why bother? Better wait until everything is aligned and ready so that I can execute perfectly. But I already know that’s not how it works. You can learn conceptually how to drive a car, but you can’t REALLY know or get good at it until you take it out of park.
It makes me think of a spiral, or iteration. A friend described to me the other day the image of going up a spiral staircase. You may keep revisiting the same themes in your life over and over, but as you move up the spiral staircase, you reach a higher vantage point, and you see things a little differently each time. You can’t avoid your patterns altogether, but you also won’t see them any differently if you don’t move forward (and upward).
And the idea of iteration. I draw in this app called Procreate, and I like to watch videos of how others use the app. I’m like “wow, they can draw so beautifully, I can’t IMAGINE doing that.” But then I see that they sketch the drawing lightly and imperfectly first, and then they draw over it more boldly and precisely. OH. They actually didn’t nail it the first time, they iterated. The first iteration was in pencil, and then next was in pen. (Metaphorically, since this is all digital.)
And not only do we iterate in one work of art - there is the iteration of a concept in one art piece after then next. I have drawn dozens of mandalas now, and this practice has been cumulative. I learn a little more, see things a little differently, refine my style a little further, every time I draw a mandala. I couldn’t get to where I am now with mandalas without drawing them poorly many times.
I figure this is what it will be like with writing and surfacing my ways of thinking. I’m really not trying to “Be a Writer”. But I’m trying to give myself an outlet for processing my ideas. I have a LOT of inputs. I consume a LOT. Podcasts (I went on a SPRINT getting ready for Google Podcasts to be discontinued), books, tiktoks, music, shows and movies. I have lots of observations waiting to be invited into consciousness.
Wondering why this feels like a struggle, I realize that for most of my life I have identified as someone who is not curious and does not have opinions about most things.
I remember being a teenager in my church Youth Group. We’d all go out bowling or something, I had a nice time and was happy to join, and then afterwards I’d hear from the others how they thought it was stupid and boring. Ok, now in my thirties, I can see that sometimes those teenagers just liked to hate things. Whatever. But I guess I also questioned my reality a little bit - why did everyone else hate bowling and I didn’t? Was I actually even having fun, or was I just glad to feel like I was part of a group? I think very often growing up, I was just “fine,” and with the passage of time, it hasn’t gotten any easier to parse out how I really felt.
My perceived lack of curiosity, and my inability to identify how I felt, I think comes from a sense of acceptance that has deep roots in feeling powerless. If someone states “I had a really terrible day today,” my response would be “Got it.” You had a terrible day! Nothing to be done about that, right? I can hear the hopeless, victim voice in that, and it sounds a lot like the voice of my young inner child. My adult self knows that I’m not powerless. I can respond to “I had a really terrible day today” with a desire to understand that person, to connect with them, to witness them. My support, attention, and reflections are actually very powerful and appreciated.
All of this to say: I know that my curiosity and viewpoints are here, but they’re buried a little bit under the conditioning of my upbringing. That, and I tend to wait to be asked what I think.
My Human Design is super validating of this tendency - I’m a Projector, and my Human Design chart says that my “strategy” is to “wait for the invitation.” (My chart also says that my most important gift is “concluding.” I’d like to assert that I have the gift of JUMPING to conclusions, with full awareness. I have to put forth a lot of effort not to let this gift run rampant.)
I DO like to be invited. I like to be asked “what do you think?” This also feels so different from “What should I do?” or “What’s the best way forward?” I may or may not have clear ideas of what’s “right” or “best,” but I CAN tell you what thoughts and questions come up for me, and we can see if that helps you get any closer to what’s aligned for you.
So maybe that can be one aspect of my Substack journey - responding to inputs with what I THINK about it.
Here are some topics I have in mind to explore:
Relating and communicating in relationship with others
Graphic design trends
Information organization in regards to page layout
Productivity, hustle culture, laziness, rest, wasting time
Tiktok and meme trends
Defying the tactics of white supremacy culture
Who knows if this is even the direction I’ll go? I don’t like to make a big statement of “here’s what I’m doing now,” because I tend to feel things out and allow myself to change my mind. And if I say I’m going to do something, I take that very seriously. (Hello, again, perfectionism!) But I also don’t force myself to stick to something I’m not interested in - therefore, I don’t commit to things that I’m not sure I’ll continue to be interested in.
ANYWAYS, if you read this far, thank you for being here and giving me your valuable attention. What I can say is that this will be a place for me to share my thoughts and observations. So your reading and valuing my insights is not something I take for granted.