{"id":39603,"date":"2026-05-29T00:39:52","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T05:39:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=39603"},"modified":"2026-05-29T00:39:52","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T05:39:52","slug":"i-need-to-communicate-meaning-but-my-words-vanish-into-a-void","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=39603","title":{"rendered":"I need to communicate meaning, but my words vanish into a void"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Facebook recently told me that I needed to convert my personal account into a \u201ccontent creator\u201d account. Why? I have no idea.<\/p>\n

As a minor show of rebellion, I changed my work title on there to \u201cdiscontent creator.\u201d Because I refuse to define my work as \u201ccontent.\u201d<\/p>\n

I hate that word.<\/p>\n

To the current culture, a novel is content. A film or documentary is content. A poem is content. A painting is content. A thoughtful essay is content. A comedy sketch is content. A cat falling off a table is content as long as a camera is running.<\/p>\n

The word treats all of those things as interchangeable cogs in a system whose purpose is to capture attention long enough for someone to show ads. I don\u2019t object to someone making money, but I do object to a soulless system which offers no real value for the attention it steals.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t want to create content.<\/p>\n

I want to write.<\/p>\n

I want to make films.<\/p>\n

I want to create images.<\/p>\n

I want to communicate ideas and feelings.<\/p>\n

I want to create connections with others.<\/p>\n

Those distinctions matter.<\/p>\n

Some people vaguely object to social media \u201ccontent\u201d because it\u2019s poor quality slop, but that\u2019s far too simplistic.<\/p>\n

There is plenty of technically impressive work being produced today. Much of it is high quality. Some of it is astonishingly good in some respects. A film can be beautifully shot. A song can be brilliantly arranged. A video can be expertly edited. A Facebook \u201creel\u201d might be captivating.<\/p>\n

My concern isn\u2019t quality alone. It\u2019s substance. It\u2019s significance.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the difference between trying to communicate something true about the human experience and merely trying to capture attention so Zuckerberg and Co. can make another buck or two.<\/p>\n

Those things are not the same.<\/p>\n

When I was growing up, I believed that if someone became genuinely good at something that mattered, society would eventually make some place for him.<\/p>\n

Not necessarily fame. Not necessarily wealth. Just a place.<\/p>\n

A writer could write. A filmmaker could make films. An artist could create art. A thoughtful person could contribute thoughtful things to the culture and find an audience that valued them.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m no longer certain that\u2019s true.<\/p>\n

Sometimes it feels as though the entire system has been reorganized around attention instead of meaning.<\/p>\n

The question is no longer, \u201cWhat are you trying to say?\u201d<\/p>\n

The question is, \u201cWhat will perform?\u201d<\/p>\n

And I\u2019ve discovered something about myself.<\/p>\n

I cannot make that my primary question.<\/p>\n

Not because I\u2019m noble. Not because I\u2019m morally superior. Simply because I don\u2019t know how.<\/p>\n

Even if I wanted to, I don\u2019t think I could build my life around creating things whose primary purpose is manipulating people into looking at them and sticking around long enough to view an ad.<\/p>\n

I understand how attention works. I understand outrage. I understand shock. I understand novelty. Those aren\u2019t mysterious things. Late-night television hucksters and carnival barkers have been doing it for years.<\/p>\n

But it used to be easier to escape from those things. And it used to be that those snake-oil salesmen were confined to a few slimy places. Today, they’re invading every form of media or art. They’ve forced creative people to turn away from meaning and turn toward attention-seeking content.<\/p>\n

But I don\u2019t want to spend my life manufacturing meaningless slop. I want to spend my life trying to say something that matters. That realization has forced me to confront another truth that is more uncomfortable.<\/p>\n

I am hungry for recognition.<\/p>\n

Not fame.<\/p>\n

Not celebrity.<\/p>\n

Not strangers telling me how wonderful I am.<\/p>\n

Something else.<\/p>\n

I want something that might be described as applause, but not necessarily in the form of ego gratification. The applause I want is “soul gratification.”<\/p>\n

When a reader says, \u201cI knew this, but I didn\u2019t know how to say it,\u201d something important happens.<\/p>\n

When somebody says, \u201cThis helped me understand myself,\u201d something important happens.<\/p>\n

When somebody says, \u201cI thought I was the only person who felt this way,\u201d something important happens.<\/p>\n

The applause is not the point.<\/p>\n

The connection is the point.<\/p>\n

The applause simply lets me know that the connection has occurred.<\/p>\n

Writers are often portrayed as solitary people who create entirely for themselves. That has never rung true to me.<\/p>\n

I write because I need to understand things. But I publish because I want to communicate them. I desperately need my ideas and feelings and meaning to be communicated to you.<\/p>\n

The deepest satisfaction I\u2019ve ever experienced as a writer has never come from money or popularity. It comes from those rare moments when another human being encounters something I\u2019ve written and says:<\/p>\n

\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not \u00a0yes, you\u2019re brilliant.<\/p>\n

Yes, that\u2019s true.<\/p>\n

Yes, I\u2019ve felt that.<\/p>\n

Yes, that matters.<\/p>\n

Those moments are difficult to describe to people who don\u2019t create things.<\/p>\n

They feel less like praise and more like recognition.<\/p>\n

Two human beings meeting each other through words.<\/p>\n

And perhaps that\u2019s why I\u2019ve been struggling lately.<\/p>\n

I feel as though I have been producing some of the best work of my life.<\/p>\n

Not perfect work. Not work that everyone would agree with. But honest work. Serious work. Work that reflects years of thought and observation. And much of it disappears into silence.<\/p>\n

The silence is what hurts.<\/p>\n

Not because I think I deserve applause.<\/p>\n

Not because I think the world owes me attention.<\/p>\n

But because communication feels incomplete when there is no evidence that anyone is receiving the message.<\/p>\n

I sometimes wonder whether I was psychologically designed for a cultural environment that no longer exists.<\/p>\n

A world in which writers were writers.<\/p>\n

Artists were artists.<\/p>\n

Filmmakers were filmmakers.<\/p>\n

And creative work was valued primarily for what it contributed to human understanding rather than how effectively it captured attention.<\/p>\n

Maybe that world never existed quite as fully as I imagine. Maybe I\u2019m romanticizing the past. But I know this much.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t want to spend the rest of my life optimizing myself for algorithms.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t want to become a professional attention-seeker.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t want to build a career around saying whatever is necessary to generate clicks.<\/p>\n

I would rather fail honestly than succeed that way.<\/p>\n

And despite everything I\u2019ve written here, despite the frustration and uncertainty, there is one thing I know with complete certainty.<\/p>\n

I am not going to stop creating.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Even if nobody reads the essays.<\/p>\n

Even if nobody watches the videos.<\/p>\n

Even if nobody shares the jokes.<\/p>\n

I will still be trying to understand things.<\/p>\n

I will still be trying to communicate them.<\/p>\n

I will still be looking at the world and asking what matters. I will be begging you to see what I’ve come to see.<\/p>\n

Because that\u2019s who I am.<\/p>\n

What I hope \u2014 perhaps more than I care to admit \u2014 is that somewhere out there are people asking the same questions and needing the same connections.<\/p>\n

And I hold out that that there will be times \u2014 at least once in a while \u2014 when more of them will be able to say in return, “I understand you. I really do. What you said matters to me, too.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Facebook recently told me that I needed to convert my personal account into a \u201ccontent creator\u201d account. Why? I have no idea. As a minor show of rebellion, I changed my work title on there to \u201cdiscontent creator.\u201d Because I refuse to define my work as \u201ccontent.\u201d I hate that word. To the current culture, Keep Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1x9iR-aiL","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39603"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39603\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39613,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39603\/revisions\/39613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}