The Struggles Of An Introvert Online
It would be simpler to be a tree.
Do you want to be read? Are you ready?
This is a question that I ask myself, and then push down. My instinct says no, and then yes, and then no. My inner introvert, it’s not even that she doesn’t want to be seen (though that is true too), but she just doesn’t want to bother with it all. She is so content to be on her own, happy to write for only herself, to spend her days with the trees.
Do I want to be read?
Yes, and only when it is perfect and wise and brilliant and beautiful. Let me hermit for the next forty years and then you’ll see.
Except… it doesn’t work that way. Practically speaking (yes in the practical moneymoney sense and also in the larger sense), that isn’t work. Work happens in relation to the world, in relationship. Putting the hermit-dreams aside, and accepting that some things are best said in cliches: growth happens in the spaces outside of your comfort zone. Growth happens when things are put out into the world, imperfect as they are, self-important and riddled with cliches and run-on sentences and tenacious authenticity.
Am I ready?
Yes, but in my own way.
This culture of 24/7 newsfeed and everything immediate, the texts to reply to and the lists of to-dos, the self help protips and startup success stories and (side note: I guess these are the things that I follow online? Sometimes you forget that everything is curated and we each live in our own information bubbles. But I digress…) —the rush and pace of it all, this is not my way.
What is my way?
I’ll tell you, but not here, not now. Now is an unabashed personal practice of showing up in a space outside my comfort bubble, and doing whatever this is.
There’s more to be said, always and always, and insight and wisdom and brilliance and beauty to be written. You’ll read about it when it’s ready.
(& for now, that was twenty five minutes)
