funontheupfield (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
funontheupfield) wrote2017-08-02 04:29 am
funontheupfield) wrote2017-08-02 04:29 am
Sucking at something is the first step to being sorta good at something.
Its 4:45am and I'm not sleeping. At 4 in the morning the most constructive thing I think to do is to hop onto the internet and start writing.
There was a time when I wrote blog posts, put up pictures of my travels and generally used social media as a form of socialising. Then I got lazy, spent more time passively consuming social media rather than creating it. I allowed a workplace social media policy to be an excuse not post on stuff that interested me (I once had a bunch of friends whose primary connection was riding bikes and bitching about how 'the government' should 'do something' to make riding better and saver, then I got a government job doing bike stuff - and bitching about bikes with my mates became something I ought not to do in public).
Eventually I deleted my facebook account (for about the third time) in a fit of pique.
Several months on I'm thinking life would be better with social media. Keeping in touch with friends happens via social media - especially when you've moved city and have good friends in multiple cities. Without it I've become quite withdrawn, and apparently unhappy enough for it to disrupt my sleep.
I'm not yet ready to come back crawling to the Facebook behemoth, but It looks like a total opt out comes with a big cost. It seems smart people these days have a presence outside FB, cross post there (because thats where the audience is) and visit the events tab to find out fun stuff happening in their broader circle of acquaintances.
tcip does the social media thing well - his is 'life lived on line' doesn't really involve FB (other than as a cross post) and is a proof that there is a life outside of the walled garden. Leena has a different, more of a curated business promotion, internet presence but it is a good example of that type. Henchwench has done both - turning her life lived on line into a profession - by being the kind of nerd others aspire to emulate. And for a quarterly blast of journal worthy commentary I remain impressed by Chris Loader's Charting Transport blog.
I don't know what I can create, but I know for sure that I'm going to have to write and write regularly if I'm to produce anything. At first I will suck. At first it will feel like a waste of time. Reading my old posts here, I can see this is not the first time I've been here. Perhaps its like quitting smoking, for it to eventually work you have to give your self permission to try, fail, and try again. To make it work I'll need just keep producing crap in the hope it gets better.
Podcaster Dan Carlin recommends preparing 5 broadcast quality episodes of a new podcast, and never releasing them. They are your opportunity to make the dumb errors everyone makes when starting out in privacy. I'm not going to do that, I'm going to be terrible in public and be OK with that.
Or in the words of 'Adventure Time' Jake, " Dude, sucking at something is the first step to being sorta good at something".
There was a time when I wrote blog posts, put up pictures of my travels and generally used social media as a form of socialising. Then I got lazy, spent more time passively consuming social media rather than creating it. I allowed a workplace social media policy to be an excuse not post on stuff that interested me (I once had a bunch of friends whose primary connection was riding bikes and bitching about how 'the government' should 'do something' to make riding better and saver, then I got a government job doing bike stuff - and bitching about bikes with my mates became something I ought not to do in public).
Eventually I deleted my facebook account (for about the third time) in a fit of pique.
Several months on I'm thinking life would be better with social media. Keeping in touch with friends happens via social media - especially when you've moved city and have good friends in multiple cities. Without it I've become quite withdrawn, and apparently unhappy enough for it to disrupt my sleep.
I'm not yet ready to come back crawling to the Facebook behemoth, but It looks like a total opt out comes with a big cost. It seems smart people these days have a presence outside FB, cross post there (because thats where the audience is) and visit the events tab to find out fun stuff happening in their broader circle of acquaintances.
tcip does the social media thing well - his is 'life lived on line' doesn't really involve FB (other than as a cross post) and is a proof that there is a life outside of the walled garden. Leena has a different, more of a curated business promotion, internet presence but it is a good example of that type. Henchwench has done both - turning her life lived on line into a profession - by being the kind of nerd others aspire to emulate. And for a quarterly blast of journal worthy commentary I remain impressed by Chris Loader's Charting Transport blog. I don't know what I can create, but I know for sure that I'm going to have to write and write regularly if I'm to produce anything. At first I will suck. At first it will feel like a waste of time. Reading my old posts here, I can see this is not the first time I've been here. Perhaps its like quitting smoking, for it to eventually work you have to give your self permission to try, fail, and try again. To make it work I'll need just keep producing crap in the hope it gets better.
Podcaster Dan Carlin recommends preparing 5 broadcast quality episodes of a new podcast, and never releasing them. They are your opportunity to make the dumb errors everyone makes when starting out in privacy. I'm not going to do that, I'm going to be terrible in public and be OK with that.
Or in the words of 'Adventure Time' Jake, " Dude, sucking at something is the first step to being sorta good at something".