Whats Left For Only Us?

I like to write. I enjoy trying to put words together to express a thought, to try to paint a picture with just the characters in the English language. It brings me joy, and however close you can get to peace in this little world of ours. I also love to draw, though I am far less good at it. 

Why am I mentioning any of this anyways? Especially since I'm sure this article has some snappy clickbaity title that makes some grand statement, why don't you get to the point already? Well, my dear reader, the whole point is that I may like to write, I may like to draw, but its all on a public platform.

This is a public space, for absolutely anybody to see.  When I think, when I laugh, when I bleed for you people, its all warped for content, watered down or made more complicated so it seems more intelligent. What are thoughts in my brain become little words for the entertainment of others, even my darkest moments become something for others to gawk at, to be a puppet on a stage for 5 people. 

And is that even healthy? Is this obsession with sharing, that I and many others face, it makes me wonder if we have lost having personal thoughts. Having things in our lives simply for us, to have thoughts, or ideas, or even just things that we keep just for us. 

This is the only social media I use, dear reader. I've never liked it, its only made me scatterbrained and sad. I don't have a phone with data, I work a full time job, I have plenty of hobbies, yet I still feel like this. Modern life has sapped basically everything that has made me unique and makes me feel like I'm supposed to compartmentalize it, and ship it out to whether it be an article or just a friend, to not have anything that i can simply hold just for myself.

And for those with social media, I can only imagine how much more pressure people have for something like this. That everything you post can be scrutinized, but also feeling like every small thing that happens has to be shared. Its practically self made mass surveillance, and its genuinely extremely strange and scary to me. I look at these things and they feel like a monolith of ideas, but at the same time a mountain of garbage, with hate and sadness as its very foundation. 

All social media as an experiment has given us is hatred, apathy and advertisements. Sure places like this are less full of those things, but its both a niche website and also it still can have those things at its core. It makes starting new things incredibly difficult, especially if you would like to share them. 

Sharing things that might make you feel better, like amateur art or drawing, or your first sewing pattern, or a complex meal gone slightly awry, will only beget comparisons to something better or being told what you're doing just isn't good enough. Which might be true, but everyone has to start somewhere, and that kind of thing can be extremely negative to hear when you're just starting something.

So just don't post it right? So you don't. And what did that accomplish? One less piece of art in the world, and thousands more pieces of fake information, more hatred, more cynicism, more apathy. And nothing to combat it. With hatred begetting more hatred, a more negative space becomes even less comfortable for those who just want to share something.

I like writing. I like sharing my writing. But I hope one day I can find a way to separate my self worth from posting that writing, that maybe someday I can have something just for me.

And dear reader, I hope you can find something just for you.

-Your unluckiest Clover,

Rachel Rosethorn