Trying to get my shit together on a Monday morning and failing miserably. I don’t want to work on any of my priority projects. My brain is mulling over a post on why I hate the word “content” because I’m trying to decide what “content” I want to post on my blog, Instagram, and BlueSky and it sucks. I’m deep in edits on my book Strange Loop (coming in March) while writing a newsletter magnet story for a newsletter I don’t even have yet, which will also need “content.” Then there’s the actual marketing of these things, which is a whole other pile of “content.”
I lack the desire to make “content.” The word implies a lack of connection between the audience the artist and the meat of their work. Content is consumed rapidly, piece after piece, without stopping to think too hard about it. It’s junk food for the mind in perfect little 10 minute chunks (since our attention spans apparently can’t handle anything longer than that). It’s the infinite scroll of images that you, maybe, press the “like” button for and move on.
The planet is dying from a glut of mindless consumption, from SHEIN hauls that go straight into landfills to generative A.I. “art” that uses gallons of water per image. Mindlessly consuming internet content is killing our minds, too; the plasticity of our brains is conforming to short-form, easily digested content, making it harder to think deeply and even focus for long periods of time. Reading Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows is making me want to run into the woods and live a life of quiet asceticism (or at least severely dumb down my phone).
I am no saint in this regard. I spend stupid amounts of time online, though I am trying to cut back as well as spend my time having meaningful conversations with my internet friends. It’s a tough row to hoe, to be sure, but I am trying.
Yet the hamster wheel of content-making remains. If I want people to read my book, I have to let them know it exists. At the end of the day, I have to feed the beast.
But on a beautiful sunny Monday morning, I really don’t want to.
