This morning, while perusing assorted blogs and adding my new reads to my blogroll, I came across this post from Cafelog titled “Blogging without overthinking”.

I’ve always had plenty of ideas about what to write, but I used to overthink what I was going to publish: Is it interesting? Is it well-written? Haven’t dozens of people already written about this topic? Do I have the legitimacy to talk about this? And so on.

Well, this hits hard.

Do you know how OFTEN I have sat here in front of my site and just been like “Ehhhhhh no one wants to read me talk about The Thing. I don’t know enough about The Thing to post it.” Or, worse yet, REALLY wanting to post about The Thing, coming to the realization that I need to research it more, and then getting d-motivated to talk about The Thing after doing HOURS of reading and research?

For Jebus’ sake, Karen, it’s a post about The Thing, not a damn thesis paper.

I NEVER had this problem in the early 00s. I just POSTED. If it was three paragraphs or twenty, it got posted. Blathering, squealing about the things I was watching or reading or listening to, telling people what I did that day, ranting about work (this MAY not go over so well now, haha), whatever. I posted to my site, to my LiveJournal, whenever and wherever I could. I talked about fashion and makeup and dates with my boyfriend and going out dancing and posted pictures from my wee little digicam of the random shit I was doing, eating, looking at.

Then came Twitter. Microblogging! Great!

Then Facebook.

Then everything else.

And suddenly…I was afraid to post. I felt like it was all futile. No one was reading, because my life was BORING and nothing to look at. Another plus-sized woman, getting older, chattering about the banality of her day. Who cares? it’s not all about you, Karen. No one cares. Only post GOOD things, BIG things, things you are qualified to talk about. Only post hot takes or snark or memes.

Where the FUCK did this fear come from? Can I blame it on social media, or the fear of not wanting to be lumped in with anyone too vapid or too vain or too stupid? I don’t know. I do know I got TIRED. Tired of having to keep up with tweets and posts and pictures and people. Too many sites, so little time, all just…screams into the void.

But there’s SOMETHING beneficial about screaming into the void, isn’t there? Scream therapy. Grabbing the pillow and just yelling into it. The mind clears, the breaths even out. The stress is released. Is anyone there to listen? Does it matter? The pent up feelings is released and that’s the ultimate goal. Doesn’t matter if someone hears. If they do, and they take the time to commiserate, great. Otherwise, it’s still good.

Last year, I started cutting cords with things and people that didn’t benefit me. And I found in late 2023 that a lot of that was standard social media. I found an article about the Indieweb and Mastodon and discovered that there were still people who enjoyed the simple act of screaming into the void and seeing if someone yelled back. Stop thinking, and just TALK. Stop wondering if it matters to everyone. If it matters to ME, that’s the important part. If it matters to someone, fantastic. But otherwise, just let it out.

I’m going to scream into the void a lot more this year, without fear, without overthinking. I’m gonna talk and yell and holler whenever I like. No matter how big or small. I’m gonna stand on this little cliff-side space here online and just…let it out.

If you’d like to come by and holler into space with me, that would be lovely. I’ll make coffee and put out a picnic blanket to sit on. The ground can get chilly up here, after all.