It’s the Age of Information. The Era of Regurgitation. The Time of Accelerated Communication.
And I am riddled with frustration.
I’m not an expert in ANYTHING. You know you have those friends, cool friends, friends with niches. Friends like Alvin who is a music maestro and Simon who’s read every book ever published and Theodore who can recite the name of all footballers, past and present (and he’ll make pretty accurate predictions about the future).
Friends like Tom who’s seasoned in mountain-biking and is even dating a bloke called Tyre-one because he’s a wheely good time.
Friends like Jerry who’s so integrated with British History that he might simply be an apparition of times that once were.
Friends like all of these that know all this stuff and are so clued up on whatever their “thing” is that the BBC would go bankrupt if it let them all on an episode of Mastermind.
Yeah. I’m not that friend.
Sure, I know things. Enough about certain stuff.
I have deep-rooted passions, innate loves, intrinsic activities and meaningful experiences I think about in all the moments I’m not living them. I’m like a southern-friend chicken (pretty seasoned) when it comes to:
Space. Particularly the moon. I have an astrophysics degree and 4 moon tattoos — but I still can’t remember any tangible information about it that will win me a pub quiz.
Journaling. Micro-journaling, daily journaling, collecting memories and moments and ephemera. I’ve tried several formats (travellers notebooks, A5 clothbounds, pocket-journal, journal apps, journal prompt templates, email journals, one-page-a-day, gratitude, manifesting, stream-of-conscious, YOU NAME IT) — and I still haven’t perfected a system useful enough to share with anybody.
Exploration and adventuring. Wandering. Hiking. Camping. Travelling. Mountain climbing. Kayaking. Paragliding. Snow-shoeing. Solo travel. Couples travel. Travelling light, travelling heavy, travelling sweatily — but who hasn’t?
Mental health. I had OCD for a decade. I don’t anymore — I wish I knew how to help others free themselves from its clutches.
Cats . Yeah — but nobody will ever truly understand those mysterious creatures.
Reading . Recently I’ve read The Book of the Moon, Time, 10 Things You Should Know, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, The Guest Cat, and I’m currently reading The Art of Noticing and Chilling Effect — but Satan knows that I can never remember the author, the title or even the bloody contents of the thing more than 6 hours after finishing it. What use is that?
Movies and shows and games . I just adore suspending disbelief and absorbing stories in as many formats as possible. Last week me and my Ben watched Puss in Boots 2. I sobbed. We recently finished The US Office (I’m rewatching it already). I sobbed. We’re now watching Race Across the World, series 3, and currently playing Minecraft in which we’ve built our little home and I’ve since tamed 3 cats. I almost sobbed — but never can I ever remember quotes or directors or actor names or soundtrack info or anything. Ever.
Storytelling . Well. That’s how I’ve arrived here.
I love so many things and therein lies the value — to me. But what about you?
How can I provide meaning to somebody else?
What value can I give them? What lessons can I teach? What insight have I seen that they have not? What knowledge can I give that a quick Google search can’t? What human experience do I understand more than any other? Who am I to say that I can better anybody else’s life?
And then bloody ChatGPT came along.
As if I didn’t already have enough HUMAN competition.
In saunters the suave, the sexy, the storytelling machine that is our AI mate from across the programmed pond. He’s an aid, an ally, an answer to innumerable questions. Sure, he’s lacking the “human element” but sometimes I, myself, feel so out of touch with humanity as I scroll mindlessly through Instagram, my brain gasping for water as I reach out for a Lucozade before shutting the curtains and returning to my blanketed fortress (the only thing human about it is the stench). So why am I any better than him?
AI, he’s a good guy and I’m just being bitter and sulky. Why? Because I have two purposes in life:
To be a good writer and a good person
So of course, being able to combine the two is DING DING DING GABRIELLE SINGS “DREAMS CAN COME TRUE.”
But not being able to do so just leaves me feeling a little… flat.
So that’s why I want your help. I want to know. How can I use my writing for good? How can I make the world, your world, a little sweeter, more main character, draping it in fairy-lights and brightening up your days?
I want to do that, more than anything. That would me everything to me if I can help you, help somebody. Anybody. Especially using my stories.
I just need to figure out what value I can provide and where. And to do that, I need to find you where you are and ask you exactly what it is that you want. That you need. That you love.
So here I am: asking.
*Waits patiently. And hopefully. And with an episode of The Office playing in the background. Don’t ask me which one.*
About the Creator
em
I’m a writer, a storyteller, a lunatic. I imagine in a parallel universe I might be a caricaturist or a botanist or somewhere asleep on the moon — but here, I am a writer, turning moments into multiverses and making homes out of them.
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Comments (5)
Well, for starters, the fact that you’re writing this right here helps me not feel so alone. I ask myself all the time how someone with a whole specialized degree, a desire to help others, and more interests than I can keep up with has nothing of value to offer other people with my writing. Thank you for getting vulnerable and offering that value to all the others who feel the same way that you do.
Em, you help each & every one of us every time you put yourself out there. Just to be granted the privilege of reading your words, hearing your tales of adventure with Ben, & just the fact that you're a damned fine writer provides a little boost to our day. It may not fit neatly into a resume or bio, then again, maybe it does. Your bio: You are quintessentially you. And we are made better by that fact. Whenever you write down on the page (or screen) the things that are in your heart, allowing yourself to become vulnerable to us, you lift us up. That may seem like skirting the issue, but I really do mean it. We're told that we live in an information age. But what is information without communication? And communication is something you do extremely well.
You’ve actually helped me… The topics that you talked about on the same things that I’ve had concerns about I have a lot of interest and I love to write and I just can’t find the platform. You’re right because you enjoy writing and it’s human nature to want connection, and even more divine as a pertains to God, and his will to love and help others, just keep writing I go to Corus digest and I answer impose questions they are I’ve come to vocal media and I’ve only written one article but I think of journals that I write so post them wherever you can all over the Internet because somebody is searching for somebody that has the words to say what they’re feeling but can’t express.
First of all, the US Office is a sacrilege and you are dead to me. Second, just write, darling. It's not what you say, it's your voice that has value.
Ooof. If you figure out how to figure it out, let me know.🤣 I’ll be watching Stargate reruns in the meantime! I guess I’d say that I like reading things that feel authentic and unforced, I don’t particularly like reading things from people trying to be something they aren’t…hopefully that makes sense 🤔. (And ChatGPT doesn’t usually feel authentic or unforced to me)