When I first opened this account, my friend at the time was trying to show me the ropes. And sure, it’s a new platform, it can do a lot of things I’m not well versed in, but fundamentally, this is a blog. I am not new to blogs, I had a Wordpress site for years.
If you want a good laugh, you can check out Past Me's rants and tirades. Just don’t tell me about it. I can’t stand revisiting old content. I feel completely disconnected to what I write very shortly after I’ve written it. They sound like the deranged thoughts of a weird little sister rather than my own words.
Also, I’m mortified that there’s been unexplainable traffic to that page throughout 2021 when I have not promoted it in any sense, and my last post was mid 2020. Shit, maybe I’ll suck it up and transfer some posts over here as throwbacks. I didn’t mean to get this off-track, I’m just so confused as to how anybody even found that site.
Let’s get back to this friend trying to teach me things. During their little touring spiel of the site, they told me I really needed to use the drafts feature for my thoughts. I responded with a thanks, but no thanks, essentially. Drafts, for me, are where my thoughts go to die.
As I already mentioned, my words do not resonate with me after they’ve been inked. So if I don’t complete a thought and try to return to it at a later date, I’m SOL every single time because whoever wrote that half-a-blog-post is basically dead now, and Me Renewed has no clue how to follow up. I know this about myself. I’ve had this wrestling match in my head many a time. That old blog? There are 110 published writings, and 45 drafts. Nearly half of what actually made it out stayed in drafts never to be seen. It’s a frustrating stat, and I accepted that my process must involve sitting and writing a full cohesive blog post in its entirety within one sitting or its not getting done. This is the only way I have so far discovered to align with how my brain functions.
I wasn’t trying to get into all of that when discussing drafts. But one among the whole catalogue of reasons I refer to this person as friend at the time is that they can’t accept a simple answer for anything and must challenge you into oblivion because their way is right and not only must you succumb to said way, but you must understand and agree to the full argument of why it is so. Thus I had to explain everything I explained to you earlier. And somehow we were still at odds with him trying to sell drafts to me as if he gets commission on them.
The only way I’ve learned to escape these cycles is similar to how I handle catcallers on the street. Say something outlandish that both confuses and intimidates. Confusing to give them pause so I can put some good distance between us and intimidating to ensure they don’t care to continue the interaction. I don’t mean intimidating like a threat sort of way but moreso in a “there’s nothing scarier than crazy” sort of way…so possibly a threat? A threat with extra steps? It’s dependent on the subject’s imagination, so however they choose to percieve it. A threat in which I’m not liable.
So I told him that my creative process is more like an affliction than a talent. In order to stay sane, I need to purge the arts from my mind, lest they spiral in my thoughts and render me mentally catatonic. My writings are nothing more than brain vomit, and you can’t save a puke for later. That’s disgusting, likely unhealthy, and just the right kind of confusing intimidation needed to end the conversation and cement my unwavering point. I appreciate advice, but not more than I appreciate knowing myself.