Why are we even trying that hard? I mean we’ve all heard the saying: you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink. You can try as hard as you want, but when it comes to people and subjectivity, you can’t make them feel what you feel or do what you want. You can give 110% of yourself and only receive 20% back, or have people say that what you thought was 110% was more like 30%.
A huge frustration of mine lies in caring so much and trying so hard only to be rejected because, “I don't want to read or do that”, “I don’t care about that". And I guess not everyone should give a shit about what you do, and it’s selfish to think that what you do is incredible and important to everyone.
Everyone leads busy lives, so why would they take the time out of their life to read an article you wrote about nothing really in particular? I don't know what's more frustrating-- thinking I want to share my writing with the world, but they don’t want to listen, or thinking that world should even want to listen to what I have to say.
What's so frustrating is watching mainstream and appealing media trend and thinking that's what I have to do to trend, but sitting down and not being able to write about that stuff.
Knowing what people take the time to read and click on, but disagreeing with them that that's what they should click on. Trying to sit here and think that society is different than what society actually is. That they want thought-provoking content popping up on their Facebook feed when all they want are short, funny, relatable gifs. And who am I to judge?
There's nothing wrong with wanting that! We all want funny gifs to make us laugh and feel better. So give the people what they want! That's what every form of media does, regardless of whether things are important or biased or right at all. The media feeds the human brain and emotion, so why can’t I? Why am I searching for something more than gifs, because gifs are the best.
One of the things a writer constantly balances between is what the content is and what the audience wants. I don’t know what to do. I want to reach out to people and make them feel good, but I can’t post about gifs to do it. I’m supposed to be striving for as many views as possible, but what's the point of those views if they don't reach out and affect someone for a little longer than 15 seconds? What’s the purpose of my writing if it doesn’t reach out and affect one person in a life-changing way?
I’d take that over 3,000, 30 second-long views that I feel like just wasted people’s time. But there’s the terrible thinking again, because everything is essentially just a waste of time, when people are bored they want to waste time. What if the people want their time wasted? How mean is it for me to call something a waste of time when others may not think it a waste, but well worth their time. Every time I think about what life is, I think it's just people trying to do things they want to do as the inevitable time ticks by.
Life is basically wasting time away for memories that are worth it or wasted. And it’s up to the people experiencing the memories to decide whether they're wasted or worth it. So how arrogant am I to think that my writing could have an impact instead of just being a waste of time? It’s not my choice-- it’s up to the readers. Speaking of, why are you even reading this? What kind of thing led you to click this article link thinking you wanted to read this? Do you even still want to continue reading this?
What do you hope to gain from reading this? Sadly, I feel like readers will gain nothing. I feel like this article is selfish and all about my thoughts instead of what you want to read.
I need to write about what the audience wants to read. But I can’t stop hoping that maybe some people will just change their wants, to wanting to read my content. I know people don’t change easily or don’t like change because culture straps us into the typical and change is met with adversity or disregard, but right now the minuscule hope for change is the only thing I’m holding on to to explain why I even try.
Why am I even writing? I hope there’s a good answer, but the answer isn’t up to me. I can only imagine that it is. Will we ever have some great impact? No matter how much we hope and try, it's not up to us to decide.
We all want to pretend we make a great impact, but how do we do it? Is going against the grain the answer... or going with the grain?
