Back

in some capacity.

For a long, long time I didn't think I was going to come back to Substack. 

Even now, on my fourth rewrite of this post, I am not sure if I'm going to hit the "publish" button.

But I think I will this time.

I really hope I will. 

But before I can properly rejoin Substack, before I try to like this platform again, I feel like I need to empty myself of my past frustrations with it.

It took me a while to figure out the things I disliked about posting here, which is stupid because I think I secretly knew all along. 

In its simplest form, I just wasn't having any fun. I was bored with the routine I had for my posts, and this caused me to grow neglectful of it, and then I would become stressed about my neglect and so I would write something terrible to feel like I was doing something... but then the terrible writing would only frustrate and bore me further.

Whilst I believe that constraints can boost creativity, making myself write "x" amount of posts per week was not helpful to me. Neither was making myself overthink the reactions of others (both positive and negative). 

And thinking of my writing as something disposable, something that only exists in this weird, social media, writing echo chamber, vacuumous void, and not as a valuable form of expression and identity, was stupid. I thought I was better than all of those things at the time, but I wasn't. 

I think (and I hope) I am better than that now. 

I must admit that these frustrations were only further compounded by the way it seemed like everyone else had Substack figured out. 

I know this is how social media works, the most confident things end up with the most eyes and the most likes, and so most of our feeds are made up of these confident things, and when we see them we cannot help but compare ourselves and think "what the hell am I getting wrong?" "why can't I do what these people are doing?" "when is this finally going to pay off for me?"

I know this is how social media works, but knowing this doesn't mean it feels any less shit to experience.

And it feels weird to say it made me feel shit because... I didn't start Substack to be validated by strangers. I never needed validation to write before, why would I need it now? Why should I avoid saying certain things because I fear it might frustrate someone I don't even know? Why should I sacrifice time to write something I don't really want to write just because "it's been a while since I did a blog post"? Why should I betray the parts of myself that enjoy writing just so I can validate the parts of myself that are anxious about the online ecosystem it exists in? 

Why?

If I'm really honest with myself, I think I know the answer to this "why" too. 

Substack was the first online community I properly tried to join, alongside being the first place I properly shared my writing with others (by which I mean, with strangers), and I don't think I'd worked out how to correctly engage with social media in relation to art. It is something I am still figuring out (given that social media is borderline essential for creative jobs these days), but I'm more confident in myself now, and I am finding new ways to deal with the backend of the creative process, the affirmations (or lack thereof). I have reframed my mindset on the whole thing, and I think I'm going to be alright this time around. I am here to express, not to meet standards.

Despite all this, I do not regret my previous posts on Substack. I don't exactly look back at them fondly (candidly, I've gotta say that Mountain of Fire may be the biggest piece of shit I've ever written), but I certainly don't regret them. I think I learned a lot about what the creative process means to me and how my wellbeing and enthusiasm fit into it, and it's made me more confident in my writing.

I'll be keeping the old posts up because I think they're quite an interesting case study of myself, but I don't recommend anyone read them. From late June to November 2024, the posts read to me as completely passionless. 

To turn my frustrations outward, I feel like I also have to say that the community on Substack is so kind, and it is its best and its worst feature.

I struggle to say this next bit because I worry some people will interpret it as "stop being nice," but that isn't what I mean. There is simply a strangeness to kindness online. 

I feel as if 99% of positive interactions I have had on Substack are only positive in order to promote one's character, as opposed to genuinely express oneself. 

I dunno, maybe the interactions feel a bit transactional? Maybe it feels like everyone is trying to gain another subscriber or another like (the Notes often feel like this)? Maybe it feels like everyone is only reading my stuff so I'll read their's? Or maybe I'm just not used to seeing so many people be kind and creative online? Maybe the issue is that I felt like I wasn't adequately expressing myself and so it felt like everyone else was interacting with this strange half-person instead of my actual self. I don't know, there's a very real chance I'm just pessimistic and bad at interpreting people, but I would love to know what other people think about this, because I cannot shake the feeling. 

And just to reiterate, none of this is to say I don't think there are nice people on here. I definitely misread things at times, and I know sincerity can be difficult to convey in a comment section... but I cannot ignore that this is how I feel, and so I felt I had to say it. But yes, I do love the community here. It's such an engaging and positive and thoughtful and inclusive community, and I do love it (I just have a hard time believing anyone actually enjoyed reading Mountain of Fire, and yet people liked it anyway).

(((HAVING SAID ALL THAT NICE STUFF, as a little tangent (and to follow up on my "avoiding certain things that might frustrate others" comment from earlier) I just want to say that anyone who presents themselves as creative and then uses generative AI in any form can get absolutely fucked. I don't care if it's so you can generate the perfect image for your story, or so your page has a "professional" looking logo, or to find inspiration or prompts or to get the ball rolling in your head. Being creative and endorsing generative AI is like being a delicious meal that endorses mould. It makes you look fucking stupid. If you are using generative AI in any "creative" way, then you are no exception to the problem. This is such a tangent but I needed to get it out of my system. Too many of you guys are way too comfortable with it))) 

So, in an effort to be more sincere with myself, I'm going to refresh this whole Substack page upon returning. This will be the last post under "Stories from the Crusis Compartment" and I will continue forward as "Daniel Barber." 

I am going to write without imposing any frustrations on myself. I'm not going to set any deadlines, not going to schedule any posts, not going to force myself to make Notes, not going to kill myself trying to reply to every single comment. I am not going to participate in Substack in the ways it wants me to. I'm just going to write. I'm just going to work on things until they're done, and then I'm going to publish them. 

And I only say this to you so that I may hold myself accountable for these things. 

I don't exactly know what is next for this Substack. I have a few different ideas, creative and otherwise (I want to do more spur-of-the-moment blog style pieces), but I don't know when those things will come. Hopefully soon. 

I hope you'll stick around for it, but I understand if you don't too. 

Thank you reading. Please yell at me in the comments if this all sounds self-indulgent and dumb.