Impostor snowflake

It’s been a while since I finished writing and publishing something. I would love for this to be because I have an exciting thing to announce that I’ve been painstakingly working on for the last however many months.

But I don’t (at this point at least). I have personally nothing to add to the cesspool. (My wife does, though, and you should go to her new website, yay!)

It’s not like I’ve felt no emotions or accomplished nothing in the past year. I’ve gone through a lot — my family has gone through a lot. I moved twice, settled twice, changed roles at my job, put out an album of music. I’ve felt anxiety, rage, excitement and joy through all of it. But none of it seems worth sharing.

Why is that?

I’ve also noticed my unwillingness to share things on social media platforms. I even had to set up a daily habit reminder (in an app called Streaks) to remind me to post a photo at least a few times a week.

Am I depressed? Maybe I’m depressed. Maybe I’m the old soul my wife keeps telling me I am. Mostly it never feels genuine. Except it is — I have real joy that I feel, but usually it’s in small quirks that my wife and I share. The occasional lyrical idea that comes to mind and gets written down but never gets seen by anyone but myself and Apple’s servers. The most public things I do currently are this obscure blog and my day job work, which is conventionally sexy but often feels like something everyone in e-commerce is already doing.

I don’t get off on winning. I get off on originality. Why is it so hard to find that? Am I just too risk-averse to go look for it?

Do people who actually share also exhibit these same feelings? What is the hurdle one must jump over to get past this feeling?

Do I just feel a need to individualize myself? I hate the idea of thinking that I’m a snowflake, but I think I feel awful and not worthy of anyone’s attention because I’m not a snowflake.

Is this ridiculous? Do people feel this?

Posted on June 12, 2019