👋🏻
It's time to call it. I'm calling it. Memory Card is done, or in the interest of sticking with the theme, the memory card is "full." No more data to save and I won't wipe old "saves." It is time to put a close on this chapter and move along. Despite being the obvious and right thing to do, my heart is heavy.
When I fell out of the rhythm of making video essays, I fell out of the rhythm of writing this newsletter. While not uploading to YouTube is easy, not writing this newsletter was proving much more difficult. What began as an effort to shine a light on the creative process became a dark cloud that loomed over me. The drops of guilt that poured down on my mind, while unfounded and unnecessary, still soaked me to the creative bone. No matter what project's shelter I hid under, the cold of neglecting this letter bit.
I don't enjoy feeling like this. At all.
I share too soon. I think when I share, a part of my ADHD-addled brain says "Cool! That's done! No need to do more. Let's find something else" and the self-loathing creative in me goes "Yeah. Finishing that is pointless anyway. No one cares." It's easier for my brain to roll with the perceived excitement ADHD provides while being complicit with the ho-hum artist. This sharing so soon releases the dopamine of "publishing" without actually publishing. I was self-sabotaging with each letter. I need to be free of this little storm I brewed for myself and go back to just blogging to the anonymous masses.
For a couple of months, I have feared that this idea of shutting down the project was admitting defeat, letting myself and others down. It would be another badge of creative shame. It hasn't been healthy. I wonder if I am giving into that doubtful part of my self, confirming their bias, and feeding the gremlin. Is this the example I ought to set?
After chewing on it all this time (which I find is how long it really takes me to process anything meaningful) I think it is. There is value in knowing when to quit, pivot, restart, shake-up, try again, etc. etc.—but more importantly, there is untold value in identifying a burden, confessing and confronting that burden, and being free of it. What was always intended to help others and myself had become a detriment to my process. In this final letter I am identifying, confessing, and confronting it. After I hit send, I will be free of it.
I want to close out with an excerpt from Kevin on his site Overkill in his A day is short, a life is long birthday post, only slightly censored by me (I am sure you can fill in the blank):
I am also increasingly okay with abandoning things.
If somebody depends on me finishing something, that obviously changes things. But if I start a project because I am curious, spend three months on it, learn everything I wanted to learn, and then stop caring before I reach whatever arbitrary finish line I invented at the beginning...
Okay? What exactly would finishing achieve? I got what I wanted out of it. Kthxbye.
Maybe that's the kind of change I need. My interests shift. I follow them. The rest can stay pretty f— stable...
...I don't need to write today. I don't need to go to the gym today. I can spend an entire Saturday playing Pokémon and drinking coffee and eating pains au chocolat (I love pains au chocolat) and call it a successful Saturday because I enjoyed Saturday.
It only becomes an issue when "not today" becomes "not this year."
If I haven't written anything in six months even though I still claim writing is important to me, maybe something changed. Maybe I don't care about writing anymore. Fine.
Or maybe something else ate all the time that used to belong to it.
Abandoning Memory Card is not a failure. Perhaps it is actually a triumph. I came. I saw. I learned. I wrote. I created. Now I am doing it in a different way. This was the ebb and now I go flow.
As for the methodology, I'll be deleting the entire Buttondown archive and email list. There's like eight of you (three or four of you are my family, three are dear friends so its not information I don't already have, but nevertheless, I shall wipe the info). I'll do that at the end of the week and let this email percolate a bit.
This does not mean that the newsletter is being wiped from existence. Far from it, the entire catalog will live on Max Frequency like it has from day one. You know I am not one to delete old articles.
Thank you for taking the time to go on this journey with me, whoever is reading this. The clouds are breaking up and the sun is starting to poke through. I am still blogging. I am still writing essays. Perhaps one day I'll re-read all these and find new insights. It's been a fun run. I almost made it to 100 letters! On to the next thing! You know where to find me.
Until next time...