In Defense of Nothing 08/26/24

The beginning of writing is daunting.

Especially so if you have nothing new to add to a certain topic. I sometimes feel compelled to write stuff down, and once I'm done, I go through what I wrote only to realize it is literally nothing to write home about.

It is like a need to be heard, not only by other people, but weirdly, it is a need to be heard by me. When you spend too much time online, you risk making other people's thoughts your own.

In some perverse sense, I started losing my own inner voice.

My ability to think critically for myself started to slip from me in favour of other people's well-formulated and exciting takes on various topics. I touched on this topic somewhat briefly before, but from a different angle - letting go of the fear of other people reading (and ultimately judging) what I write has helped me tremendously in actually managing to write down my thoughts, but then came my inner critic which stopped me from moving forward and improving my writing.

My main criticism is this:

If I bring nothing new to the conversation, why say/think something to begin with?

The main fault here is the fact we feel this need to "keep pushing the envelope" with our opinions. I feel as though I'm not entitled to simply thinking about nothing new. There is a fine line between always criticizing myself for not coming up with genuine thoughts (which brings me to a screeching halt), and blabbering on page in an incoherent manner.

This attempt to write, maintain and post my notes online is my attempt at finding that exact balance. It is my attempt to reclaim my voice from the gallows of the hive-mind we've created that is the modern internet.

Here's to anyone reading this - let's jump for joy in defense of absolutely nothing, with hopes that one day, we just might have something to say.