Scroll Less/Create More

Maybe the path to happiness is to reject passive consumption and move to actual construction

It’s the last day of March, which means like clockwork my birthday depression is kicking in about twelve hours before my birth month hits. According to Very Well Mind, birthday depression can be caused by:

1. Depression

2. Anxiety

3. Traumatic childhood memories

4. Fear of aging

5. Feeling behind in life’s plans

6. (and now we can add the downfall of democracy)

My magic number is 5.

For as long as I can remember I’ve wanted to be a writer. It’s something knit into my DNA and the desire and drive to write is an inescapable reality of my presence on earth. Words are juicy to me; they shape themselves in my head like trapunto with all the meaning stuffed inside sinuous loops touched by sparks. I used to read the dictionary for fun. My favorite course in my undergrad was etymology.

Words, when strung together, can change lives. They can change history. They can construct meaning and deliver big ideas.

I write each and every day, but I do it in order to afford my life and what I write is evacuation procedures and business continuity guidelines. Not the novels I dreamed I would write when I released my first volume, aptly titled Flowers I Love, when I was in second grade.

So, every year when my birth month hits I lament again that I’m not writing the things I want to write: the pieces that play with words for no specific life safety purpose.

I mean, I’m honored people trust me to get them out of a burning building or away from a tsunami or to keep their business in business, but there’s no playfulness in that writing.

So, this year I’m going to do something different with my Magic Number 5 of Dread: I’m going to be publishing something here every day.

Maybe by moving through the backlog of things I’ve built up and wanted to write I’ll get myself past the idea that because I haven’t published a novel I am somehow letting my second grade self down.

Stop Scrolling

When the idea of presenting myself with this challenge first surfaced in my head I think I was concurrently playing my fourth game of Tiles while also scrolling Bluesky and glancing at the Buy Nothing Facebook page for my neighborhood. In other words, I was keeping my brain real busy . . . doing . . .nothing of any importance at all. I began trying to imagine that I spent those moments in other ways. Like gathering up all the envelopes stuffed into a desk drawer that have essay ideas scribbled on them, or the ones fully outlined in my journals, or even the ones I’ve actually written and left sitting in Scrivener.

Maybe instead of matching circles and shapes and colors (tiles is a righteously addictive game, to be fair) I could resolve my reticence to actually publish the things that run through my head every minute of every day.

I could just stop scrolling.

Start Creating

Writing isn’t the easiest thing to say you’re going to do every day. I’m aware I might fail. But even if it ends up being every third day, that’s way ahead of where I am today. The power to create lives in every human being; it’s a conjoined twin with the desire to be useful and meaningful.

But creativity as a word is a passive construct. Creativity is the nebulous something that we use to describe the force that wants to make something that does not exist.

It’s not the actual making. It’s the spirit behind the making. You can be creative in your thinking and have that never manifest itself into the act of creation.

In order to create, you have to construct. You have to take your creativity and express it as something tangible.

And that divide - creativity vs construction - is where I am stuck. This is an envelop I found today:

This came from a moment of creativity. I know I wanted to write about how standing on a street corner on my first visit to Stockholm forced me to very suddenly confront a sense of homogeneity that I had never before understood. I know I want to write about racism and the pull of sameness and uniformity and the seductive power of fitting in. But all I did was write some words on the back of an envelope. I did not construct anything. But, I can look at these scant words and feel the entire essay bubbling up nearly fully formed.

And it is usually at this point that I decide to see if there are any newly posted Dutch doors for sale on FB Marketplace.

Maybe There’s Some Fear Mixed In

Anyone who wants to write wants to just shove the written piece out there and then run and hide under a quilt. Why the universe decided to give some of us a burning desire to write coupled with a crippling fear of judgment is just beyond me.

The Challenge

I’m going to write every day for the month of April. Okay, let’s be real - it might be every other day and it might be every third day. But what I am for sure going to do is write out every single essay or poem I have scratched out or scribbled down or even fully created and I am going to hit the publish button here.

I am going to move from creativity to construction - the leap that has stopped me so many times.

If you’re a subscriber - I am so grateful and I’m . . .sorry? I’m going to slam your inbox. And it’s okay if you don’t read everything I’m going to produce. So, my rules:

1. Publish every day.

2. Don’t just write to write. Deliver some meaning.

3. No judgment. Not even about commas. Because I tend to hate commas.

So, that’s it. Thank you for being here. I am going to make this the best birthday month I’ve ever had.