For a while, I had these grandiose visions for the pieces of writing I could include on this flash drive. I seemed to believe this was my opportunity to publish elaborate, well-crafted positions on matters of great relevance. Or at least something good enough to justify having made such a fuss about the whole thing in the first place. I had yet to finish these pieces but assumed I would be able to.

I assumed wrong. While I am likely the least qualified person to evaluate my own writing, I am also the only person evaluating my writing. I could, and have, shown drafts to friends in the past, but there is a limit to what one can ask — especially of one’s friends. The release of this album has me calling in too many favors as it is — further evidence of how indebted I am to those who show up when it matters most.

One never ought to expect one’s luck to last, yet somehow, for reasons I can’t fully understand, things keep coming together.

Except the writing. The writing did not come together as planned. And the problem wasn’t the content. It was my tone. A realization that brought me right back to my childhood. Vivid memories of hearing my outraged parents tell me to immediately change my tone. “Who do you think you’re talking to?”

Most people have an idea of what they would like to say, or at least a sense of how something is making them feel. It’s when they start to address that feeling that things start to get distorted. Because it’s rarely what we’re saying that makes an impression — it’s how. My parents weren’t responding to my content; they were displeased with its form. If words on their own had fixed meaning, they wouldn’t be subject to interpretation. But that’s all they are: an opportunity to project anything you are prepared to see in them. The ever-growing number of genuine morons in positions of power today proves that.

Which brings me back to that uncomfortable question: who do I think I’m talking to now?

If not for myself, who exactly is this flash drive — or anything I make, for that matter — intended for? Strangers on the internet — people who don’t and won’t ever know me? How could a hypothetical, potentially non-existent opinion warrant such consideration? It’s like getting ready to leave the house and at the very last moment deciding to change one’s entire outfit, just in case some stranger walking down the block might prefer you arranged yourself more to their liking than to your own.

The premise of this drive was to create a context for my art (or whatever) outside of the terms dictated by social media companies. Companies that continue to make billions by incentivizing us to think not about who is right in front of us, but to consider everyone who isn’t. As it turns out, those terms are all I’m familiar with, and divorcing them has proven far less intuitive than imagined. It comes as no surprise that after 15 years of questioning how to best represent myself on the internet, it is only after I ceased placing any stake in the matter that I could come up with answers. Now that my hesitations are no longer rooted in insecurities over what I have to offer the internet, I wonder what the internet has to offer me. Very little, as it turns out. I’m hardly the only one to realize this. Everyone around me is exhausted by the thought of being online and — consciously or not — finding ways to avoid it. Spiritually drained from competing for attention from someone who does not even know you exist. We may depend on the internet in countless ways, but doing so offers nothing resembling fulfillment.

So how about simply addressing those who are right in front of you? The people who are already in your corner — who know and understand you, and even if they don’t understand you, love you nonetheless. How could that not be enough? Who are you trying to impress? 

Who do you think you’re talking to?

Read More