Other people's opinions have stopped me writing for so long. SO long. People keep telling me to write more but then I don't because other people have been trying to teach me to write better! No more! It's making me unhappy and I say no more! This whole article isn't even for you. In fact, don't read it. I don't care because I'm no longer losing sleep over how good my writing is.
Ok, cool? Are we still friends? Hopefully.
Anyway, there's logic behind this, and it's simple. Human society keeps straining for people to specialise. To me, that screams no fun allowed. Here's some examples:
- Can't dance well? We're going to shame you for it. Get off the dancefloor!
- Can't sing passably? Don't you DARE do karaoke. The only place you get to sing is the shower and you cannot under ANY circumstances let the neighbours hear you!
- Can't do competitive exercise? Don't do any exercise at all. Die fat and alone or pay thousands in fees for a personal trainer who is paid to pretend to like you!
Honestly it's all dumb and I hate it so why am I prescribing this nastiness to my own writing? Yes I have writing experience, but who says I need to follow the rules of a copywriter? This isn't some in depth SEO building article. I'm writing this because if I don't write it I'll probably never publish anything again ever and that's worse than the public embarrassment of posting a hastily written slam piece against your own anxieties.
And like, YES writing is a necessary human skill. But you can tell when someone has some insane creative writing locked up deep in their mind that is dying to be regurgitated and slammed into the nearest open earhole. Why do we not encourage that? Just because you are good at one thing doesn't mean you can't be openly terrible at something else. If you want to write a little fantasy story and show it to people you do it, Rockstar!
And here's the thing. Here's the skinny. My blog posts automatically go up on Hive, and then I crosspost them on Cent. These excellent services reward writing and publishing. So surely not publishing anything is a negative for everyone involved? So they might as well skim read whatever vague brain farts you're having than never hear a word from you at all.
I am an extrovert! I introduce myself at parties by shouting "Hey everyone!" when I enter the door. Why can I not do that with my writing? Let's all collectively drink too much wine and shout up from the gutter of our unintelligible jottings. Perhaps those from the grand above will look down at us and decide, yes, actually, maybe we should be listened to.
Also- this post is taking absolutely no time to write at all. I have divorced myself from the end product and at this point in the writing experience it's been 15 minutes and I've written 500 words. That's super cool! I feel amazing! I highly encourage you try this yourself. I've barely been using the backspace button this whole time, my anxiety has been silenced, and my soul is glowing.
I've had none of this "Oh but what if they think I'm a horrible garbage person because of my horrible garbage writing?" Because guess what? You can think that! You are allowed to have your own opinions and neither of us should care about each others unless this was a contracted writing job. If you want to pay me to write, I'll do a better job of it than this. But until I get that cash in my hand and a good idea about what you want- let's just enjoy a bit of improv in this grand open mic we call the internet.
Uhh. Call to actions. That's usually what I get told to put at the end of posts. But do I want to sell anything to you? Not really. Why don't you write an article and tag me on Hive or Cent or anywhere else? We can all get drinks after and laugh about how freeing it was! I'll see you then!
This post is decentralised by being made available on Hive dapps, Ethereum dapps, and my personal website. Find my personal blog at: https://benhaley.co.uk/your-imposed-perfectionisms-mean-nothing-to-me-a-dumbass/