I know this takes a lot of self-belief and practice, too. Like, you have to do this a lot of times to get good at it, and it’s not going to be perfect. You know, you don’t need to expect yourself to never turn to cheap dopamine again and only write as a means of healing yourself. It’s not where I’m at.
You want to give yourself another option, basically a healthy option for emotional expression or recovery when you’re feeling overwhelmed or stressed, or, you know, when something’s challenging you because the challenge isn’t going away. You’ll face difficult emotions throughout your life, and it’s probably in your best interest to give yourself tools.
Tools that you can use to give yourself what you actually need. To give yourself the medicine you actually need to get the feelings out of you and to figure out what you’re actually working with.
Because when you really, when you overwhelm yourself all the time with distraction, you never figure out who you are. You live in a constant state of escaping pain without any level of self-discovery. And the cool thing is, I think you’re a pretty interesting person.
I think you might feel that way too if you gave yourself just a moment to reflect. If you actually looked, paid attention to what’s going on, gave voice to your thoughts, and trusted yourself to get better at that, you might figure out who you actually are. You might be pleasantly surprised by what you find.
I think you will understand that it’s difficult, and it’s normal for it to be difficult. Last thing I’ll give you right now: immerse yourself in written work and fiction that does a good job of this practice. Difficult emotions or writing about experiences of substance abuse and then turning it into really accurate psychological prose.
So, remember we talked about writing the physical details of the experience to ground yourself in the writing practice; this is a good example of that. You know, you’re often not aware of what the narrator is thinking or feeling. You are invited to construct that. Answer yourself based on the journalistic, physical details she provides. That’s a writing practice. Or that’s a technique also employed by Ernest Hemingway, Raymond Carver and many other fiction greats.
On the other side of things, you can go to David Foster Wallace, who brings you right inside the voice of someone’s psychology. That’s why I really like his writing. That’s why I resonate with his writing. Riding on addiction and substance abuse, ‘cause he really captures that anxious, obsessive, hyperverbal voice that I personally deal with and that you might as well.
So you can read all of these things to immerse yourself in fiction that does a really good job of voicing dysfunction and writing about the Ugly, not-super-clean elements of human experience.
If you can learn to create that kind of narrative or writing based on your own experience, you will be able to relate to it more meaningfully. You will figure out what you’re actually feeling, and you’ll face your discomfort rather than run away from it.
Combine that with really effective rest strategies like getting 8 hours of sleep and reading fiction instead of, you know, turning to scrolling all the time, and you will feel better. It’s so simple in theory, and it’s so difficult in practice, and that is the reality. I struggle with this every day. For me, the last five years have been a constant reset as I try to get back to this.
On the day I’m writing this, it’s like I get back on track, a type of day where I, you know, start to do the things that are good for me again. That’s what life is, and that’s what life is as a creative. It’s like it’s dealing with entropy, the inevitable waves of chaos. It’s getting swept away by the tidal wave of that entropy and then having the courage and the humility and the patience to swim right back into the flow you were in.
And to say, no, I’m not perfect, and I didn’t get it right, but I’m still going to try again, and I’m going to go back to the page, and I’m going to write about what’s going on within me, and I’m going to forgive myself. And I’m going to write about the challenging things. I’m going to go into the pain pocket and face the vivid emotion that I might want to run away from or sweep under the psychic rug.
And I’m not going to do that. I’m going to put it on the page. And then if you dare to share that, that’s often the work that resonates most with people. Seriously, if you want to learn more, read the essay “The Nature of the Fund” by David Foster Wallace. Just Google it; it’ll come up, and you can read a PDF.
It’s about facing the uncomfortable, unhealthy parts of yourself, turning them into art, and sharing them with the world, because that is often what people want most, rather than the Idealized, perfect version of yourself you might want to present.
Social media has programmed us to do that. But if we can learn more about our imperfect, rough-around-the-edges parts, we’ll connect with more human beings and make this Internet place more human, which I think would be good.
OK, that was a lot of ideas for you, but those are some very basic first principles on how to replace doom scrolling and distraction-based tendencies with creative writing. Pour your ugliness onto the page, learn to face your discomfort through creative work, and you will get the release you’re looking for.
Then you won’t even want to scroll because you’ll have gotten the out. This is how you be a creative. This is how you become a creative person in the modern face. The ugly parts, they’re some of the most beautiful pieces of who you are.
You don’t have to become a perfect writer, and you don’t have to stop reaching for your phone every time you feel overwhelmed before you can start making a change. What matters is learning to give yourself another option, one that allows you to slow down, understand what you are feeling, and express it in a way that helps you grow.
Some days you will write pages, while on other days you may struggle to put even a few words together, but do not let that discourage you from trying again. Your experiences, including the painful and imperfect ones, are part of your story, and they may hold the beginning of something meaningful. Instead of always trying to escape what is happening inside you, give yourself the chance to listen, write, create, and discover what you are capable of becoming. Here is the part 1 in case you missed it.
I love you. Good luck.
