001 – all creative work is vulnerable

I’m stuck in a new place. I’ve 5 word-vomits sitting in my notes app, I’ve set up a WordPress website and everything, I’ve tried making one post public and hidden it again. Just five days ago I was super excited to write quickly and publish quickly, and get to ten published posts as quickly as possible. But today I feel like it’s a hard act, I’m feeling hesitant. I’m feeling hesitant about being vulnerable. Not about the writing per se, since we’ve established that we don’t need to worry about the quality, but about the content. It’s real, it’s raw. 

I first saw the words “all art is vulnerable” on one of Timothy Goodman’s posts, and it resonates a lot from time to time. And while I’m not at the stage where I can call these word-vomits art (hence the title), the feeling’s still the same, of course. And since I’ve taken up this project at a time where most of my “battles” have reached their brim, of course all of my writing is going to be about all of it. At present, there’s three big rocks in my life that are not fully resolved and sometimes (often) cause me a lot of shame and pain. They’re 1/ my body dysmorphia, anxiety and occasional depression, 2/ my sexuality 3/ my relationship with my work. I’m also aware that they might never feel fully resolved and that’s okay too. But of course they’re going to show up if I talk to anyone honestly. And of course I’m going to be honest in a word-vomit, how can I not be? 

So I guess I need to accept that the only way I can write, write, and write, is to accept the following few things

• These three things are a big part of me 
• These things do cause me some shame and hence I’m a little afraid to put them out into the world 
• There’s things that people will think (if they read this) and opinions that they will form 
• There’s a big part of me that worries about what they’ll think and what opinions they’ll form 
• The only way out is through 

Well, there it is. Maybe it’ll be easier now. A lot of amazing people have said a lot of amazing things about vulnerability. It was slightly over a year ago when I’d first seen Brené Brown’s – A Call to Courage. This was the first time someone had made me think about life from the lens of vulnerability. Nobody had ever explained the word better than she had done it, or at least – nobody had ever talked about it the way she had. And I knew then that that’s all there is to life. Vulnerability and connection. So, I know, that it’s okay that I’m feeling this, and that maybe I’ll continue to feel this all the time. Yet, it’s hard. So I’d love to think about, in a little detail, what I hope to achieve by being vulnerable with these word-vomits. Why should I publish these? In the best case scenario, what do I get? In the worst case scenario, how do I cope and continue doing it anyway – if I need to? 

I do have some experience with being vulnerable on the internet, so I’ll probably consider that as well.

How have I been vulnerable in the past and how have I benefited from it?

• I started posting “artsy” pictures on Instagram a few years ago. I think I’ve developed as a “photographer”. I started from super basic stuff, really really basic phone camera stuff. Got a good amount of validation from various kinds of people – people whose skills I admired, people whose tastes I admired. Unexpected, genuine compliments. Great conversations. Confidence. Development of skills. Development of taste. Stronger connections with some of these people.
  
• Then, I started posting some music stuff a couple years ago as well. This one was actually harder since it was much more vulnerable, since I’d had negative feelings about my voice in the past. I also posted videos, which was very hard too since I’d had negative feelings about my ~aesthetic~ in the past as well. Regardless, a similar thing happened. The compliments and validation made me genuinely wonder and eventually believe that I’m not “as bad” as I’d thought I was. I ended up starting singing lessons. I got better. I started owning the fact that I like to play music / sing. I even started dreaming about composing music someday.
  
• Lastly, I joined twitter and started posting about my body dysmorphia and anxiety. Again, terribly hard when I started. Got a ton of engagement on all of that “content”. But so much to be grateful for! I remember it being super scary when more and more IRL friends started following me. But it opened the door for amazing IRL conversations as well. I realized I like conversations. I realized I like meeting and talking to new people! (Something I’d never thought about myself before.) I met new people through Twitter – it was pretty cool.

I mean, it’s all here. It’s all good things. So let’s get to the next question. 

What do I hope to achieve from this project? 

• For starters, it’ll probably be a good additional point for the next time I’m questioning something like this again. Instead of 3 points in the previous paragraph, I’ll have 4.
  
• Just based on evidence, I’ll probably be a slightly better writer at some point of time if I keep doing this. Or at least, my perspective on my writing could become more holistic. I could become okay with calling it writing instead of constantly calling them word-vomits.
  
• @visakanv mentioned this in his reasons for doing this, but yes, I’ll probably be a different person by doing this, and doing it publicly. And I’m excited to meet her!
  
• Of course, I could make some new friends because of this, have new and/or deeper conversations. Good ol’ connection. 

In the worst-case scenario, what happens, and how do I cope, and go on if I need to?

• People will know of details about me that they decide they didn’t really wanna know. I suppose they wouldn’t tell me if they realize something like that. So I wouldn’t really know that they thought something like that. Even if they say something like “oh you’re being too vulnerable”.. well, what is too vulnerable? It’s me. Of course I could be judged for these parts of me, but that’s probably a small price to pay for all of those benefits I listed above. So I’m sure I’ll cope.
  
• I mean that’s all there generally is, right? Fear of judgement. The one that I feel most vulnerable about is my sadness. I don’t know. There’s this one word-vomit that’s super raw, reading it makes me feel a lot of pain. Now, I’m not assuming that a third person will feel it just because I do. But maybe I’m scared of the feelings of pity. Nobody wants to be pitied. Well, compassion is different from pity. So maybe people will know how to be compassionate instead. Regardless, I wouldn’t know. Or I probably wouldn’t care in the grand scheme of things etc. So I guess I’ll cope? I guess we’ll see. 

Okay, things make sense now. I’m not sure in what order I’ll start posting these. In the order I wrote them or in some other order.  But I think I’m ready.