I’ve been here before. It’s a cycle for me. The compulsion to exist on social media, followed soon after by silence. I’ve posted variations on this dilemma before. I’ve almost posted on it many times more.

I want and need to just live my life, do my things, think my thoughts, and not be performative about any of it. I despise so much in life that is performative, and I want not to contribute to it. I don’t want to be that person, although I probably still am.

But then, I do want to share and bring to light cool things. People have good ideas, they’ve made interesting or useful things, they need to be supported.

And I want to sort-of connect with people in my weird, limited ways. I usually fail or fear doing this in person. The asynchronicity of some social media platforms is everything to me. I’m not that interested in chat or video calls. I don’t want to get together with you. I just want to share stuff, see other people share stuff, maybe have some sort of time-delayed conversations. I should start writing letters. Or a blog. That’s it.

And yes, wanting to be performative after all. Wanting to make art, or at least something kind of interesting, out of the details of my life, to share my thoughts and perspective.

Is that a performance? A curation? Something always has to be left out.

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I recently re-read Ross Gay’s Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, and right now I’m listening to the audio of his Book of Delights. I’m fairly inspired by how he is working his way through this. I love how he pays attention / gives attention to so many regular, mundane things. I want to do more of that in my writing, and photography/video, whatever I choose to mess around with and share.