Sharing

Hey mum,
Work this week was insane. The project lead made me work overtime. And I swear Mark doesn’t know what he’s talking about…

How was work ?

Worked sucked? Aww man, is Phill giving you a hard time again ? Well the last time you told me Phil was …

Someone on the train was on the phone with their mum. Just talking about their day. It sounded so easy. So natural. I wish I had that.

I envy people who can just share. People who post random photos on Instagram, or tweet stray thoughts without worrying whether it “matters.”

For me, it doesn’t come easy. Part of it is this belief that desire is embarrassing.

That telling someone about my day or sharing what I want feels selfish. It’s like saying, hey, look and listen to me for 15-60 minutes even though it’s not relevant to you (Bob did this today who’s bob?). It’s a tall ask in the age of TikTok and Instagram.

There’s also a challenge behind this. It’s saying can you love me enough to hold your attention on me, just because I’m me? Not because it’s useful or funny or entertaining, just because it’s me ?

When something happens, my instinct is to write it down and process it alone. I will tell my partner but no one else. Sharing things with others feels wrong and selfish. Why would you want to hear about my day ?

And part of me thinks, Why would anyone care about my day? Why should I burden them with it?

Maybe that’s why I romanticize (maybe too strongly) about the idea of posting in public. Because if even one person reads it, it feels like someone chose to go through the effort of reading my writing (which again, is a tall ask) to understand me.

I want to be someone who shares just because something was interesting. To be able to share photos in Instagram because I found it interesting. To post on Twitter because I had an interesting thought.

But it’s hard. It still feels like effort. Well, a lot of effort. Like I still have to stage the post or write it in a way that other people will understand.

It’s funny. I think there’s a lot of value in making things that are “valueless”. Take away the “know your audience”, “stay in your niche” and just write.