" All the world is a stage and all the men and women merely players. They have their entrances and their exits and one man in his time may play many parts." There is nothing new about feeling like you are multiple people as circumstances dictate. Its ok to adapt. It's not ok to sell out who you are. Adapt to the extent that you must to exist in civil society. Don't sell out who you are. Walking that line is called life.
"I want to evoke emotions through my writing, not through controversy. Yet the tedium of constantly eliminating words and opinions that could be controversial or provoke conflict might put me in a straitjacket. All I want to do is write fearlessly. To disguise myself seems dishonest and contrary to the purpose of writing. But to some degree, it seems necessary and unavoidable. Most of you would leave if I continued to publish rants like last week’s. Many subscribers did leave. Whatever. Nothing is permanent. Once I bore or offend you, you’ll unsubscribe, too. The best I can do is find a balance between who I want to be and who I need to be. I make no promises. Every once in a while, some bitching might squeak out. Forgive me or don’t. I’ll leave the way I came in."
It was Jordan Peterson who stated in a panel conversation hosted by a university, that the word 'essay' means attempt. And later that writing is thinking.
We write to think better. To assess if our thoughts are worth keeping. If you know this as a reader, it means you will read someone else's work and take out the golden thoughts that are the jewels we are mining for within our minds when we practice attempting to think and to be able to attempt to think deeply.
Criticism is good, it helps us think better. But I think some forget that when you criticize an essay, you are also criticizing someones way of thinking or their world view. And we must be more cognizant of this and provide more grace when we provide critique.
*
I think this was a lovely way to capture the internal turmoil we get to when we have realised you don't agree with who you are anymore and you have a higher standard for yourself. It made me think of a similar thing I experienced a few years ago. Thank you for writing 🌷
Yes, "essay" was used often as a verb in older writings. It still trips me up sometimes when I come across it in that sense. I forget it has that meaning. I won't now. It does change your perspective a little on the nature of writing essays, especially of the personal variety.
Not everybody writes to think better. I certainly do. What you read is my discovery process. Writing is how I dissect thoughts and learn from them. Toying with language and turning phrases forces me to think about each idea in different ways. I love it.
Criticism has become a sport for some people, thanks to the Internet. But I think there's a point where criticism turns to insulting and nothing more.
I'm happy you enjoyed the piece. Thank you for reading it.
I appreciate this pairing to follow the last essay. This one resonates with me, as someone who will share something, then analyze and critique it from a position of "how will this be interpreted?" The "re-reading sent emails 3 times to check what I said" syndrome. I'm learning that this is a self-protective mechanism from those times I was told I was not safe to say or feel the thing...and every time I do it now, I become OK with the unsubscribes, the zero likes, the silence, the (insert the blank here). It's like a calibration, rather than me trying to people please or shapeshift to be amenable to everyone - they can take it or leave it. Meanwhile if they have feedback or want to interact with it, then I appreciate that and can choose to accept/ignore and grow from it. Your post made me feel this acknowledgement of my own path of learning to express and feel safe in however it is interpreted, and being OK that nothing will ever fully represent "ME" - it's all stuff flowing through and is open to interpretation.
Edit: case in point, editing this :) it's interesting that you call-out "self-censorship" as necessary. I feel like some people might see that as a binary "stifling your truth" to self-censor, but the way I interpret your Post (and how I see it) is that there are multitudes of self-truth, some contradictory. So "self-censorship" can really just mean we are choosing constantly. Trying things on to see how they feel for us. Tying that into your last post about Identity Labels (Writer), it leaves room for people to interpret censorship as an empowerment choice - at the end of the day if you don't want to call yourself a writer, you don't have to! As one commentor said "I'm a failed poet" - we can have fun with it and don't need to prescribe to some rigid belief or role definition.
Perhaps I was being hyperbolic when calling it self-censorship, though that was how I felt about it when writing the piece. My point of view always broadens after posting an essay. Publishing an essay frees me from the writing process, that zoomed in hyper-focus when I can't see anything outside the ideas and words I am working with. New angles and insights usually surface minutes after letting a piece go.
I think most of my "self-censorship" involves avoiding words, phrases, or controversial topics commonly debated on the Internet. But I don't do it because I'm afraid people won't like me if they misinterpret or are offended. I mostly do it because I don't want to debate people. I don't want to argue over words or be verbally attacked by some jackass who's so steeped in his own bullshit that he has no idea I am an actual human, not just a name and a profile pic, not just somebody to belittle. I can ignore those people, of course, but I can't stop myself from letting those fools live in my head for three days while I fight the urge to engage in a conversation that would only infuriate me more and have no value.
I think a lot of it also boils down to how we want to present ourselves, and how we want to appear to others, much like our offline lives. But online we have more control over what we can omit but less control over who sees us. Managing a publication makes it even trickier, trying to figure out how you want to appear yet still gain readers. If we aren't ourselves in our writing, we risk acquiring the wrong audience and then having to maintain a persona we didn't intend to create.
Thanks for expanding on that - I see what you mean. Yeah it's a balancing act of choosing the right words to reduce or limit the opportunity to be mis-understood. Or I guess the degree of genuine mis-understanding (vs. the people who you rightly call out as baiting/belittling and not being interested in dialogue). I agree about that type of discernment - it can be hard to find and is never perfect, which is probably related to how you gain more understanding after posting something. We learn a lot after we publish things, and it is a relief to some extent because it is done and no longer evolving - like a snapshot, it takes the edge off needing to control how it's interpreted because the choices are already done and read.
Your points about the audience resonance is really interesting - how some people connect with one aspect (sobriety, addiction) and may latch onto that single dimension expecting it exclusively. I see some writers create separate Sections for this, as it makes sense. Either way there's going to be an evolution as people learn if they like subscribing to the Person or the Persona/Topic of a Publication.
Many people subscribe too quickly, which is what we want but . . . I typically peruse a few titles after reading a post I like by somebody to which I am not subscribed to see if I will like other things the author writes. I've noticed most new subscribers rarely go through the archives. Maybe that's just with me. I'm also basing this on the absence of likes on older posts, which isn't the best metric. I think I lost many people who subscribed back then. That's okay. It's the evolution of a newsletter. Those who stick around are the readers I want.
I don't think you're lying; you're editing. We do it all the time. If we didn't, our words would overwhelm each other and any meaning would be lost. Being thoughtful to try to express ourselves accurately is hard work; sometimes the words I'm searching for escape me and I agonize over using lesser ones. I thought your post was very honest. I think we have lost the real intent of criticism and have settled for "You Do You" where everything is awesome and you never have to try to make something better. Make your work better. Make YOURSELF better. I appreciate that you're out here, telling how you see the world from the perspective of someone who didn't always try to do any of that. Don't stop being that person.
I might’ve been a tad hyperbolic about the lying, though when I intially wrote the first sentence, last week, I did feel as though I had been lying, kind of. It was the mood I was in when starting the essay. The first paragraph came from the same place.
Our parents are the first to urge self-censorship. "Don't use those words in this house or you'll get your mouth washed out with soap" (my mum tried this on me with a bar of Zest). Also, "Don't you dare speak that way to your mother/father", etc. Social behavior has always been important to most parents, especially mothers. They prime us to doubt ourselves: will it be considered misbehaving if I speak my mind? Probably. Although I love and sometimes miss my mum, she is the one who was very concerned with what the neighbors, friends, and relatives thought, and I still hold her responsible for my generalized anxiety. You express yourself very adeptly, Corey. Don't doubt yourself and write what you feel and need to say. 🤷♀️
Yes, mothers often seem to be all about appearances. Not all, of course, but many. I try to teach my daughter not to be overly concerned with appearances but to care about her appearance and the way she speaks to people, especially adults and people she is not familiar with. It’s tricky. I found myself telling her one morning not to care what other kids think of her. But then the next morning I’m telling her she can’t wear the same shirt three days in a row because . . . I stopped myself before I finished the sentence.
I notice a lot of people who seem to respond to internet criticism by becoming overly defensive in their writing — by couching everything, by over explaining, by tiptoeing around. I think there’s a balance to be struck between careful foresight yet not too much pre-emption. Some readers will look for controversy or be reactive no matter what. And it’s good practice to learn whose feedback to accept and whose to ignore. Firmly believe that life skill is worth gold.
I have read a few Notes recently where this gist was to simply 'be kind and supportive' or scroll on by. I would like to think it's possible to be kind and supportive AND honest with your opinions. Differences of opinion or criticism are so important, I find great value in both. I don't have to always agree or change my way of thinking and working but I'm always keen to know how others view my work.
Yes, Notes is patrolled by the walking wounded from the trauma centers of other social media experiments and all they want is for everyone to just be nice, which will kill Notes
I was a bit annoyed by the title of your previous piece when it popped up, and busy with my life at the time so I didn't read it. I am glad that I read this piece first, and am looking forward to reading your previous piece. Tbh, the title of this piece feels a bit annoying too, but a good lesson to not judge a piece based on its title.
PS - I like your writing, that's why I probably subscribed in the first place. Please keep writing. I'll have more patience with titles, lol :D
Yeah, last week’s title was a punch in the ribs to some people. I thought it might be. I almost changed it, but my stubbornness wouldn’t allow me. I’m sure I’ll write others that people won’t like, too. I can’t please everybody. I didn’t like today’s title, either, but probably for different reasons than you.
Thank you for the "mea culpa". It shows insight and maturity. Yes, we all conform to different social contexts. It is necessary for survival. I prefer to say "adapting" over "self-censoring". And it can be exhausting!
You can't make everybody happy all the time. It's impossible. A response to one situation may be different than in another. Know your audience, know the situation, and "read the room," as the saying goes.
We all make mistakes. But if can we learn and grow from them, that is the best way forward.
Yes, we self-censor everyday to avoid conflict and we select identities out of our Rolodex to accommodate different people. You raise a great point: How much of ourselves do we sacrifice in doing so?
As far as bitching goes--bitch away, bro. It's why I'm here.
I detect sensitivity and a level of people pleasing that I’ve been guilty of myself.
We want others to like us and not judge us so actually we are not completely free if our good sense of ourselves is bound up with the opinion of others. You are self reflective and aware and that is the road to healing.
I’ve been thinking a lot over the last few weeks about how much I edit myself in my interactions with people. I’ve been questioning whether it comes down to a desire for connection and belonging that’s stronger than anything else. I do spend a lot of time pursuing relationship with those outside of my immediate family. I wonder why maintaining connection to them is important though cause I’m sure I’m fine more honest vocal people that I connect with if I was also more vocal and honest.
It's a slippery slope, for sure. You're aware of it, though, which puts you ahead of most people, I imagine. I sometimes think people only want filtered honesty—if that makes any sense.
Yeah, I don’t spend time with anybody but my daughter. When she is at her mother’s, I read and write and only leave the apartment for groceries and more books, not that I have a shortage here. My to-be-read pile would reach two floors above me if I could stack them as such.
Some wonderful lines underpin this piece, Corey. I really liked this one:
“Every line is measured, every word a variation, four degrees from its original.”
I also really appreciate you acknowledging this point, it’s something I think about often. And the way you expressed it certainly kicked off a lot more thoughts about it for me. :)
Thank you, Michael. There seem to be two camps of people on this topic, as with most matters, but I think those against my loose idea of self-censorship are missing my point. Some people hear the word censorship and go immediately to the extreme. I’m speaking of the more nuanced and subtle ways we alter ourselves, typically without knowing we are doing it. You get it. I don't know why I am explaining this to you. Caught me at the right moment, I suppose.
I get you. That’s why I appreciated the piece — it’s hard notice the subtle ways we censor ourselves, let alone to notice it enough to write about it :)
I’m not all that bothered by unsubscribes. As I mentioned in another comment, most of my “self-censorship” (I used the term loosely in the essay; whether I was intentionally exaggerating, I don’t know.) happens when I try to avoid any cultural topics or topics often debated. It’s not that I’m worried people won’t like me (whatever) and more about my wanting to elude assholes dropping by to spit in my face and tell me to jump off a cliff. I have no desire to argue with people, especially irrational schmucks hiding behind anonymous accounts whose only purpose on the platform is to irritate people. I can ignore these people, as I’ve done in this comment section, but I can’t stop them from living in my head for a few days, steadily pissing me off while I fight the urge to reply, which would only infuriate me more. I’d get caught in a back-and-forth debacle of utter nonsense with no value. Nothing productive or useful comes from those conversations, as you know. So I try to keep my views to myself and focus on the writing.
Fantastic read. Personally, I think part of writing is exploring those little voices in our head. Some of them aren't really our own and some of them are. I know that writing has really helped me become more of who I am and writing has allowed me to play different personalities without ever having to write one word. I always look forward to your essays and perspective. You're insights are always razor sharp. Thank you.
The endless internal exploration that writing provides might be its biggest draw, for me, anyway. It helps me to misunderstand the world better, and myself. Thank you for the kind words. Happy you enjoyed the piece.
" All the world is a stage and all the men and women merely players. They have their entrances and their exits and one man in his time may play many parts." There is nothing new about feeling like you are multiple people as circumstances dictate. Its ok to adapt. It's not ok to sell out who you are. Adapt to the extent that you must to exist in civil society. Don't sell out who you are. Walking that line is called life.
I like how you worded that. Thank you, Fred.
"I want to evoke emotions through my writing, not through controversy. Yet the tedium of constantly eliminating words and opinions that could be controversial or provoke conflict might put me in a straitjacket. All I want to do is write fearlessly. To disguise myself seems dishonest and contrary to the purpose of writing. But to some degree, it seems necessary and unavoidable. Most of you would leave if I continued to publish rants like last week’s. Many subscribers did leave. Whatever. Nothing is permanent. Once I bore or offend you, you’ll unsubscribe, too. The best I can do is find a balance between who I want to be and who I need to be. I make no promises. Every once in a while, some bitching might squeak out. Forgive me or don’t. I’ll leave the way I came in."
yeah, let's be ourselves unapologetically.
Thanks, Jude.
It was Jordan Peterson who stated in a panel conversation hosted by a university, that the word 'essay' means attempt. And later that writing is thinking.
We write to think better. To assess if our thoughts are worth keeping. If you know this as a reader, it means you will read someone else's work and take out the golden thoughts that are the jewels we are mining for within our minds when we practice attempting to think and to be able to attempt to think deeply.
Criticism is good, it helps us think better. But I think some forget that when you criticize an essay, you are also criticizing someones way of thinking or their world view. And we must be more cognizant of this and provide more grace when we provide critique.
*
I think this was a lovely way to capture the internal turmoil we get to when we have realised you don't agree with who you are anymore and you have a higher standard for yourself. It made me think of a similar thing I experienced a few years ago. Thank you for writing 🌷
Yes, "essay" was used often as a verb in older writings. It still trips me up sometimes when I come across it in that sense. I forget it has that meaning. I won't now. It does change your perspective a little on the nature of writing essays, especially of the personal variety.
Not everybody writes to think better. I certainly do. What you read is my discovery process. Writing is how I dissect thoughts and learn from them. Toying with language and turning phrases forces me to think about each idea in different ways. I love it.
Criticism has become a sport for some people, thanks to the Internet. But I think there's a point where criticism turns to insulting and nothing more.
I'm happy you enjoyed the piece. Thank you for reading it.
You found a beautiful silver lining!!
Ha! I try.
I appreciate this pairing to follow the last essay. This one resonates with me, as someone who will share something, then analyze and critique it from a position of "how will this be interpreted?" The "re-reading sent emails 3 times to check what I said" syndrome. I'm learning that this is a self-protective mechanism from those times I was told I was not safe to say or feel the thing...and every time I do it now, I become OK with the unsubscribes, the zero likes, the silence, the (insert the blank here). It's like a calibration, rather than me trying to people please or shapeshift to be amenable to everyone - they can take it or leave it. Meanwhile if they have feedback or want to interact with it, then I appreciate that and can choose to accept/ignore and grow from it. Your post made me feel this acknowledgement of my own path of learning to express and feel safe in however it is interpreted, and being OK that nothing will ever fully represent "ME" - it's all stuff flowing through and is open to interpretation.
Edit: case in point, editing this :) it's interesting that you call-out "self-censorship" as necessary. I feel like some people might see that as a binary "stifling your truth" to self-censor, but the way I interpret your Post (and how I see it) is that there are multitudes of self-truth, some contradictory. So "self-censorship" can really just mean we are choosing constantly. Trying things on to see how they feel for us. Tying that into your last post about Identity Labels (Writer), it leaves room for people to interpret censorship as an empowerment choice - at the end of the day if you don't want to call yourself a writer, you don't have to! As one commentor said "I'm a failed poet" - we can have fun with it and don't need to prescribe to some rigid belief or role definition.
Perhaps I was being hyperbolic when calling it self-censorship, though that was how I felt about it when writing the piece. My point of view always broadens after posting an essay. Publishing an essay frees me from the writing process, that zoomed in hyper-focus when I can't see anything outside the ideas and words I am working with. New angles and insights usually surface minutes after letting a piece go.
I think most of my "self-censorship" involves avoiding words, phrases, or controversial topics commonly debated on the Internet. But I don't do it because I'm afraid people won't like me if they misinterpret or are offended. I mostly do it because I don't want to debate people. I don't want to argue over words or be verbally attacked by some jackass who's so steeped in his own bullshit that he has no idea I am an actual human, not just a name and a profile pic, not just somebody to belittle. I can ignore those people, of course, but I can't stop myself from letting those fools live in my head for three days while I fight the urge to engage in a conversation that would only infuriate me more and have no value.
I think a lot of it also boils down to how we want to present ourselves, and how we want to appear to others, much like our offline lives. But online we have more control over what we can omit but less control over who sees us. Managing a publication makes it even trickier, trying to figure out how you want to appear yet still gain readers. If we aren't ourselves in our writing, we risk acquiring the wrong audience and then having to maintain a persona we didn't intend to create.
Thanks for expanding on that - I see what you mean. Yeah it's a balancing act of choosing the right words to reduce or limit the opportunity to be mis-understood. Or I guess the degree of genuine mis-understanding (vs. the people who you rightly call out as baiting/belittling and not being interested in dialogue). I agree about that type of discernment - it can be hard to find and is never perfect, which is probably related to how you gain more understanding after posting something. We learn a lot after we publish things, and it is a relief to some extent because it is done and no longer evolving - like a snapshot, it takes the edge off needing to control how it's interpreted because the choices are already done and read.
Your points about the audience resonance is really interesting - how some people connect with one aspect (sobriety, addiction) and may latch onto that single dimension expecting it exclusively. I see some writers create separate Sections for this, as it makes sense. Either way there's going to be an evolution as people learn if they like subscribing to the Person or the Persona/Topic of a Publication.
Many people subscribe too quickly, which is what we want but . . . I typically peruse a few titles after reading a post I like by somebody to which I am not subscribed to see if I will like other things the author writes. I've noticed most new subscribers rarely go through the archives. Maybe that's just with me. I'm also basing this on the absence of likes on older posts, which isn't the best metric. I think I lost many people who subscribed back then. That's okay. It's the evolution of a newsletter. Those who stick around are the readers I want.
I don't think you're lying; you're editing. We do it all the time. If we didn't, our words would overwhelm each other and any meaning would be lost. Being thoughtful to try to express ourselves accurately is hard work; sometimes the words I'm searching for escape me and I agonize over using lesser ones. I thought your post was very honest. I think we have lost the real intent of criticism and have settled for "You Do You" where everything is awesome and you never have to try to make something better. Make your work better. Make YOURSELF better. I appreciate that you're out here, telling how you see the world from the perspective of someone who didn't always try to do any of that. Don't stop being that person.
I might’ve been a tad hyperbolic about the lying, though when I intially wrote the first sentence, last week, I did feel as though I had been lying, kind of. It was the mood I was in when starting the essay. The first paragraph came from the same place.
Thank you for the kind words.
Our parents are the first to urge self-censorship. "Don't use those words in this house or you'll get your mouth washed out with soap" (my mum tried this on me with a bar of Zest). Also, "Don't you dare speak that way to your mother/father", etc. Social behavior has always been important to most parents, especially mothers. They prime us to doubt ourselves: will it be considered misbehaving if I speak my mind? Probably. Although I love and sometimes miss my mum, she is the one who was very concerned with what the neighbors, friends, and relatives thought, and I still hold her responsible for my generalized anxiety. You express yourself very adeptly, Corey. Don't doubt yourself and write what you feel and need to say. 🤷♀️
Yes, mothers often seem to be all about appearances. Not all, of course, but many. I try to teach my daughter not to be overly concerned with appearances but to care about her appearance and the way she speaks to people, especially adults and people she is not familiar with. It’s tricky. I found myself telling her one morning not to care what other kids think of her. But then the next morning I’m telling her she can’t wear the same shirt three days in a row because . . . I stopped myself before I finished the sentence.
Thank you for reading.
I notice a lot of people who seem to respond to internet criticism by becoming overly defensive in their writing — by couching everything, by over explaining, by tiptoeing around. I think there’s a balance to be struck between careful foresight yet not too much pre-emption. Some readers will look for controversy or be reactive no matter what. And it’s good practice to learn whose feedback to accept and whose to ignore. Firmly believe that life skill is worth gold.
Balance is the key to most things in life. I've never been good at it. I keep trying. Thanks for reading, Leah.
I have read a few Notes recently where this gist was to simply 'be kind and supportive' or scroll on by. I would like to think it's possible to be kind and supportive AND honest with your opinions. Differences of opinion or criticism are so important, I find great value in both. I don't have to always agree or change my way of thinking and working but I'm always keen to know how others view my work.
Yes, Notes is patrolled by the walking wounded from the trauma centers of other social media experiments and all they want is for everyone to just be nice, which will kill Notes
Spot on.
yes, even the feedback we reject is informative. I've learned much on Substack by way of some...crazy comments.
If only more people shared your outlook.
I was a bit annoyed by the title of your previous piece when it popped up, and busy with my life at the time so I didn't read it. I am glad that I read this piece first, and am looking forward to reading your previous piece. Tbh, the title of this piece feels a bit annoying too, but a good lesson to not judge a piece based on its title.
PS - I like your writing, that's why I probably subscribed in the first place. Please keep writing. I'll have more patience with titles, lol :D
Yeah, last week’s title was a punch in the ribs to some people. I thought it might be. I almost changed it, but my stubbornness wouldn’t allow me. I’m sure I’ll write others that people won’t like, too. I can’t please everybody. I didn’t like today’s title, either, but probably for different reasons than you.
Thank you for the "mea culpa". It shows insight and maturity. Yes, we all conform to different social contexts. It is necessary for survival. I prefer to say "adapting" over "self-censoring". And it can be exhausting!
You can't make everybody happy all the time. It's impossible. A response to one situation may be different than in another. Know your audience, know the situation, and "read the room," as the saying goes.
We all make mistakes. But if can we learn and grow from them, that is the best way forward.
Thank you, Maggie.
🫶
Yes, we self-censor everyday to avoid conflict and we select identities out of our Rolodex to accommodate different people. You raise a great point: How much of ourselves do we sacrifice in doing so?
As far as bitching goes--bitch away, bro. It's why I'm here.
Ha! Thanks, Bradley.
Hi Corey
I detect sensitivity and a level of people pleasing that I’ve been guilty of myself.
We want others to like us and not judge us so actually we are not completely free if our good sense of ourselves is bound up with the opinion of others. You are self reflective and aware and that is the road to healing.
Thank you, Cleo.
I’ve been thinking a lot over the last few weeks about how much I edit myself in my interactions with people. I’ve been questioning whether it comes down to a desire for connection and belonging that’s stronger than anything else. I do spend a lot of time pursuing relationship with those outside of my immediate family. I wonder why maintaining connection to them is important though cause I’m sure I’m fine more honest vocal people that I connect with if I was also more vocal and honest.
It's a slippery slope, for sure. You're aware of it, though, which puts you ahead of most people, I imagine. I sometimes think people only want filtered honesty—if that makes any sense.
I hear ya, brother.
All of what you say is why I spend almost no time with anyone outside of my family circle.
It’s too much work otherwise.
Yeah, I don’t spend time with anybody but my daughter. When she is at her mother’s, I read and write and only leave the apartment for groceries and more books, not that I have a shortage here. My to-be-read pile would reach two floors above me if I could stack them as such.
Some wonderful lines underpin this piece, Corey. I really liked this one:
“Every line is measured, every word a variation, four degrees from its original.”
I also really appreciate you acknowledging this point, it’s something I think about often. And the way you expressed it certainly kicked off a lot more thoughts about it for me. :)
Thank you, Michael. There seem to be two camps of people on this topic, as with most matters, but I think those against my loose idea of self-censorship are missing my point. Some people hear the word censorship and go immediately to the extreme. I’m speaking of the more nuanced and subtle ways we alter ourselves, typically without knowing we are doing it. You get it. I don't know why I am explaining this to you. Caught me at the right moment, I suppose.
I get you. That’s why I appreciated the piece — it’s hard notice the subtle ways we censor ourselves, let alone to notice it enough to write about it :)
Do your thing, man. Don't let the unsubscribes get you down. Happens to me all the time. Then I get new ones.
I’m not all that bothered by unsubscribes. As I mentioned in another comment, most of my “self-censorship” (I used the term loosely in the essay; whether I was intentionally exaggerating, I don’t know.) happens when I try to avoid any cultural topics or topics often debated. It’s not that I’m worried people won’t like me (whatever) and more about my wanting to elude assholes dropping by to spit in my face and tell me to jump off a cliff. I have no desire to argue with people, especially irrational schmucks hiding behind anonymous accounts whose only purpose on the platform is to irritate people. I can ignore these people, as I’ve done in this comment section, but I can’t stop them from living in my head for a few days, steadily pissing me off while I fight the urge to reply, which would only infuriate me more. I’d get caught in a back-and-forth debacle of utter nonsense with no value. Nothing productive or useful comes from those conversations, as you know. So I try to keep my views to myself and focus on the writing.
Fantastic read. Personally, I think part of writing is exploring those little voices in our head. Some of them aren't really our own and some of them are. I know that writing has really helped me become more of who I am and writing has allowed me to play different personalities without ever having to write one word. I always look forward to your essays and perspective. You're insights are always razor sharp. Thank you.
The endless internal exploration that writing provides might be its biggest draw, for me, anyway. It helps me to misunderstand the world better, and myself. Thank you for the kind words. Happy you enjoyed the piece.