THE LOOP OF IMAGINARY CRITICAL FEEDBACK

I’m trying to write something for a book, but I’m going through a really weird loop of imaginary critical feedback.

I think this might be a modern phenomenon, a result of everyone’s ability to self-publish on the Internet. As I said once before, we’re all experts on everything these days.

That isn’t a problem. Having a voice is a good thing, and expressing an opinion ought to be a right that we all have access to. The problem, at least for me today, is that I am a nobody shouting into a void of nobodies, and there’s entirely no reason why anyone should read my attempts at vaguely pointing out the obvious.

Enter the loop of imaginary critical feedback. I have a fresh, original thought; I write it down; you read it and wonder how I didn’t know that already, or you totally disagree with me and argue your case; I realise my thoughts aren’t always that fresh or original, and even when they are, the best I can hope is that nobody says anything; I think twice before writing. Then, add in to that the need for gratification (likes, favourites, retweets, whatever) and it looks like I’m so insecure that I need the Internet to validate me.

That’s the loop, and I believe it’s partly the reason that flumpbook will eventually evolve into a huge network of isolated individuals pretending to be connected by sharing videos of nuns falling into swimming pools.

But it’s also making me hesitate to write for this book. I need something else, new, fresh, and really different.

You know what sparked this off? Jeff Goldblum releasing an album of jazz piano music. It almost doesn’t matter if it’s good or not, it’s Jeff Goldblum, the Hollywood actor, playing jazz. It’s uh tiny ripples uh, imperfections in the skin, it’s uh chaos theory, uh, you know what that means uh... checkmate.

I will probably still write my anyone-could-have-thought-of-this chapters. But I’m trying to do so for the love of writing, not for the love of people reading it. And I will sprinkle my own anecdotes between the not-so-deep stuff, just to keep it light. Hey, that’s how I write these blogs anyway, so it’s no different, right?

I think probably, ultimately though, I just need to stop caring what other people think. That might be far and away the best exit from of the loop.