I’ve allowed myself to be seduced by the desire to be popular.
I’ve fallen into a trap which makes me crave the attention which would tell me that people like me. That some of them love me and adore me.
I’ve been struggling for months to figure out why a little voice inside me kept saying that I’d gone completely off course with my media efforts. Over the last few weeks, I’ve had some insights that shook me up. It’s complicated and I don’t know that I can really explain it well enough. It’s the interplay of a lot of things.
It’s about the narcissistic father I grew up with. It’s about the mother who abandoned me and left me scared about whether I’m really worthy of love. It’s also about changes in technology and society. It’s about how all of that intersected with a media culture that values nothing other than popularity. Those are the things that allowed me to pursue the new cultural equivalent of love — which is a shallow counterfeit of the real thing.
I lost sight of the intellectual and psychological and creative values which are important to me. I didn’t realize that while it was happening, of course. But I let myself be seduced into trying to fight a dysfunctional culture by becoming part of the monster I wanted to kill. That can’t work. And it’s been destroying me.
Tap or click below if you’d like to hear more of my struggle to explain how I allowed myself to get so badly off course. I have to warn you, though, that it’s long — and it’s not entertaining. Most of you shouldn’t waste your time with it. Honest.