I have longed for clarity. I crave acknowledgement for things I have perceived. But the window to my soul is heavy and the drapes are all but weightless.
Have you ever had a dream of being pertinent in the digital age? Of course you have. We all have. That’s why we type our thoughts with hopes of siezing the infinite sea of screen-gazers and capturing their approval. We are the bloggers of the digital era. We are the hopeless romantics of the world wide web.
I have spent years writing songs, writing poems, standing on stages pleading for acceptance. Then came the internet with its promise of the fabled audience of true understanding. I began spending my time contemplating just what the masses wanted from me and I was unstoppable. I stopped interacting with people and started reconditioning myself to be exactly what everyone else would want me to be. The only problem, I didn’t know everyone. I didn’t know very many people at all. But I was convinced I was on the right track.
I started changing myself internally to fit what I presumed was the star behind the keyboard. I was becoming an introvert. “This is different,” I would tell myself. “I’m just finding out who I really am.” I played right into the hand of all the hype and made my way down a spiral to a life of depression and low self-esteem. I poured my heart out every day in a set of words strewn along in an artistic manner but no one was noticing. No one was commending me on my insight or my talents, no one was thanking me for being the voice they didn’t have. Where was I going wrong?
Then the world got connected. Facebook, twitter, cell phones, smart phones, Pinterest, narcissism found a new outlet. But I was here first! I was above these things! I don’t use hashtags, I use a pound key after entering my password. I don’t use emoji, I use punctuation marks. I was a founding father of a world that had long since faded out. And like all founding fathers, I was lost in the annals of history.
Well, this is what it has come to. Writing to appease my creativity on a ghost town of a blog I have only to pour my heart out on when the time feels right. When I feel the need to pretend someone is listening. I am the narcissist too stubborn to knock on the door and ask for help. I am the hushed whisper that never leaves the lungs of the starving artist. I am living and dying in the digital age.