Being Perceived and Grappling With It

Writing from the gap between myself and my image

It’s been over a month since I’ve written in my Substack. The last post I wrote was the night before my WWTFYW episode came out.

Since then, I’ve been posting on every platform but this one - on Instagram, Facebook, Tiktok, my website, my email newsletter, even Spotify and Youtube. More online activity than I’ve ever logged before. And of course, it’s because of all the people finding me online from the show. 2000 new website visits, 500 new Instagram followers. I want to give them things to engage with. Here are my thoughts about the show; here are my paintings you can buy; here’s a song I wrote.

Resonate with me. Deepen with me. My energy is infectious; my joy is life-giving; my journey is inspiring. This is the feedback I keep getting from the show, from friends and strangers alike. It feels wonderful to receive. I’ve never felt so much confidence in myself, and I’ve struggled with confidence my whole life - especially as an entrepreneurial artist at the beginning of my career.

And yet, now I feel a new kind of self-doubt. A new kind of pressure that comes with the knowledge that I’m being watched by many more people than before.

It’s a huge opportunity, and I don’t want to mess it up. It’s so strange - I want so badly to be perfect, and yet my imperfection is part of what people resonate so much with. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t have a slick mastercourse to offer with a 20% discount if you order in the next 2 days. I don’t know how to market my art. I don’t know the strategies for attention-grabbing reels. But I feel like I don’t even want to do those things. Like it makes me just another online content creator.

I don’t know. I feel very confused about it all.

I just read what I wrote so far to my friend Miriam, and expressed my ambivalence about it. Did I say anything worthwhile at all? Am I just talking in circles and wasting everyone’s time? She expressed how valuable it felt to her - it’s valuable for her to hear me grappling in the gap between myself and my image. Being in the uncertainty.

I’m marveling at how immediately my perception of my writing changed after that. Like her affirmation made all my doubts about the post vanish. I’m grateful for her.

We both have 5 more minutes to write before we have to post our pieces. I’m grateful for the time cap we put on ourselves. It’s impossible to say everything - all we can offer is a snapshot into our experiences. And in this moment, this is mine.