baby steps into the elevator
My current facebook profile picture is intended to reflect my feelings on the narcissism-of-the-age. It is a reference to the book of Ecclesiastes, where the (miserable) poet begins with the words "Vanity of vanities... all is vanity."
I chose a decrepit-looking font as a tip-of-the-hat to the way time obliterates our little vanities, and appropriated the equal sign (most recently in use by the gay-rights-equality movement) in order to reference the universality of this vanity.
Look at me! Look at me! Look at me!
I chose a decrepit-looking font as a tip-of-the-hat to the way time obliterates our little vanities, and appropriated the equal sign (most recently in use by the gay-rights-equality movement) in order to reference the universality of this vanity.
Look at me! Look at me! Look at me!
If the internet is a popularity contest among "content creators," then I have got to be one of its more prolific contributors:
I justify all of this as somehow being a part of my work, saying (to myself, as I suck my thumb in a fetal position on the floor) that I'm an artist, and need to use the tool-of-the-internet as a way to share my stuff with the world.
It doesn't really work, though. Despite all the time-suckers I've added to my life, my traffic on this website—which is sorta the central hub of my internetual activities—has stayed fairly consistent over the past several years. I sell a tiny trickle of books, and zero prints of my artwork, ever.
But I spend an ENORMOUS amount of emotional energy.
The internet-at-large is a clickhole, but even before I get to the cat videos and the latest issue-outrage, I've already spend inordinate amounts of time just cycling through my own corners of the internet. All in search of that tiny little dopamine-hit of "they love me—they really, really love me."
Nonsense.
Vanity.
So I'm trying to quit. And like all addicts, I'm finding this difficult. It all starts with baby steps, though... and the first little baby step is always to admit you have a problem.
Baby steps towards admission.
Baby steps away from facebook.
Baby steps back out into the light of day.
- On the current iteration of this website alone, I've posted over a thousand times.
- I'm on facebook.
- I'm on twitter.
- I'm on tumblr.
- I have a website for samples of my scripts.
- I have a website promoting my first book.
- I have a website promoting my first feature film.
- I'm an admin on facebook pages for myself as a writer, for two short films I wrote that were produced and one that wasn't, and for that same feature film.
- I have an Amazon author page and a Goodreads author page and a page on Stage 32, a film-persons-social-networking site.
- I have profiles on a number of other sites like couchsurfing.org, all of which link back to my personal website and book-sales-pages.
- I have a youtube channel.
- I have online albums for my photography, painting, and drawing.
- Oh, and I'm currently running a kickstarter for a puzzle I created.
I justify all of this as somehow being a part of my work, saying (to myself, as I suck my thumb in a fetal position on the floor) that I'm an artist, and need to use the tool-of-the-internet as a way to share my stuff with the world.
It doesn't really work, though. Despite all the time-suckers I've added to my life, my traffic on this website—which is sorta the central hub of my internetual activities—has stayed fairly consistent over the past several years. I sell a tiny trickle of books, and zero prints of my artwork, ever.
But I spend an ENORMOUS amount of emotional energy.
The internet-at-large is a clickhole, but even before I get to the cat videos and the latest issue-outrage, I've already spend inordinate amounts of time just cycling through my own corners of the internet. All in search of that tiny little dopamine-hit of "they love me—they really, really love me."
Nonsense.
Vanity.
So I'm trying to quit. And like all addicts, I'm finding this difficult. It all starts with baby steps, though... and the first little baby step is always to admit you have a problem.
Baby steps towards admission.
Baby steps away from facebook.
Baby steps back out into the light of day.
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