Stop the World
“He turned from that path a long time ago. He has chosen exile.” (Elrond, Lord of the Rings)
We shouldn’t use blogs to personally vent, right? These spaces are supposed to be vehicles to promote your brand and your authority around a subject, not really to journal a personal life, not if a blog is a professional one, anyway. Once upon a time, social media was a very personal place for me. Even on Facebook, which I once littered with updates on my personal life and philosophies and contemplations, I no longer feel comfortable with sharing the human side of me. With a change in approach, I seem to have lost my broad footing for content here, and drawn a stark distinction between Art and Artist.
As the blog became more about brand and message and product, I lost my genuine and unique voice that powered my work.
As my voice shifted to a more professional tone and presentation, I lost my outlet to contemplate this life.
I need to bring back unified passion to this blogspace, regardless of how personal these posts are. This time last year, I was working through “Daily Thirteen” updates, which got me a bump in traffic for a while and pushed me in the direction of writing, allowing me to finish “Xenomorphine”, but I generated posts that were filled with lists of somewhat forgettable observations. They may not have been helpful, but at least they were entertaining.
I work in social media, and it is also the vehicle to promote my brand. Unfortunately, social media has become my everything. It’s how I network, keep up with friends and family, meet women, share Sere product and plans and brand, and grow awareness and interest in what I’m doing. It is all things to all avenues for me.
But recently, the foundation has shaken. I really feel like I need to take time off, get away from any limelight of Sere social media and focus on healing myself, writing again, producing material along the lines of my creative goals, but I’m tied too directly to the wheel. I have two books to publish in the next 13 months, and these projects could define my success for the next decade.
All I have to do is focus.
In social media, it is hard to maintain an internal equilibrium and a vast network, and keep everyone happy in the process, much less keep myself happy, which I’ve dropped to the bottom of the priority list.
It’s hard to let your Klout score slip.
It’s hard to abandon those rare people that actually enjoy your contributions to social media, and their orbit.
It’s hard to trust that my accounts won’t get hacked.
It’s hard to accept that my fans and follower numbers will dwindle away as I step away, forcing me to spend more resources to regain footing.
It’s hard to know that people will still be there when I return from my away. Life is so fleeting, health and fortune and love and fame seems to change in a blink. If I told everyone that I only had 10-15 years to live, it really wouldn’t change a thing, other than deliver me pity. Ironically, the truth doesn’t actually bring people closer without a war or dust-up.
It’s hard to know anything for sure in social media, or anyone completely.
It’s hard to know myself through the megaphone of pixels and characters.
Who am I? A human haunted, a ghost in the machine, an artist with a 21st century fanbase and product to push, a lonely guy just trying to be heard, a true friend, an accessible family member… A composite of all? Pieces of each?
In the end, social media fragments your orbit so much that you end up fighting, defending, arguing, or debating on too many fronts. You are drained and stressed by drama that you seldom create, by always-on accessibility that keeps you from growing. Social media isn’t about harmony; it’s about selective fallacy.
I think I’ve been going about this strategy and game plan for Sere social media a bit wrong. At the end of the day, you can’t buy the attention of people (either through love or integrity or honesty), you have to earn it. And just because they’ve locked into your social circle, it doesn’t mean that they’re actually interested in you or what you have to say. Behind the digital veil, few are who they seem or say they are.
All the social numbers in the world won’t make me a better, more complete person, and through my failings as a human, I am failing Artemis.
It’s time to stop this world for a while, return to shadow and reassess the light.