Untitled

If I really think hard about it, maybe it’s the Title that always gets to me. I’ve always disliked labels as a child, mostly because I couldn’t fit totally on any of the boxes. It is human nature to want to fit in, and find your tribe, your safe space, but at the same time, aren’t people that move us forward the ones who refused to be inside the box? Or rather, maybe they entered the box, but left the lid wide open, knowing that there’s wisdom in the unknown, in the parts that aren’t us yet, but could be.

Internet brainrot

I’ve had many iterations of social media, livejournal, forums, blogger, blogspot, neopets, msn, tumblr, facebook, twitter, instagram, being chronically online since I was 13 years-old, consuming so much content in any given form that I accidentally developed myself a bilingual skill and my brain sometimes thinks better in english than portuguese. That is not to say that I know how to think, write or speak properly in either language. The remaining brain power is spread on too many different ideas at once to even know where to begin.

But among many failed attempts of seriously following a hobby, only one managed to kind of stand the test of time: Writing. The problem, I think, is that I always wrote for myself. Any time I’ve wondered “hmm, wouldn’t this be interesting to share?”, my self-sabotage impostor always said, “you gotta be out of your mind, focus on what you’re good at”.

Me, trying to understand what’s going on (Photo by Matthew Henry on Unsplash)

But what does that even mean? I’m into programming, fiction, non-fiction, art, design, dancing, video-editing, talking, music, and still I keep backing away from pressing the publish button, because I never consider myself good enough on any of these topics.

Some people say you need to focus on one thing, and master that craft. Again, the labels. You can’t possibly work with math and enjoy art. You can’t possibly be into politics and dress girly.

A jack of All Trades

Weren’t the masters of past generations jacks of all trades? It was always meant to be a compliment, and “Master of None” was added to make it unpleasant (if the internet is right, and that’s a topic for another time, probably by some XVIII century British gentleman).

So what should one expect from a Jack? They’re probably unreliable, inconsistent, but passionate about a little bit of everything, about life. They’ll be more eager to try, to listen, and to discuss. The trick is in not letting yourself go into the rabbit hole that you cannot be good at several things. That you cannot do it all. That you even have to focus on being good.

No one is forcing you to have a hobby. You’re not getting paid to do it. So why the hell would you need to be good at it?

You’re not that interesting to have haters

Many people live in fear of others’ opinions. As if, as soon as you step one wrong foot outside the bus stop, the masses would immediately gather up and chatter hurriedly to each other, “look at that mess. Her sneakers have a hole. She walks like she doesn’t know where she’s supposed to go. And ugh, do you see the book she was reading? Exactly, she wasn’t even holding a real book, she had an e-book reader! How pretentious!”

Has that ever happened to you? Let’s ignore the fact bullies are real, but the chances of anyone unknown getting out of their bubble to actually notice you, are as slim as you noticing what they’re doing. You’re not that unique in the awkwardness of existing as human being.

Whenever we are living in fear of another’s opinions, many times we are projecting our own subconscious bias towards ourselves. If you’re cringing, it’s not about them. It’s about you.

This isn’t anything new, you say. You’re absolutely right. And still, even with this knowledge, we keep holding ourselves back. People that are more clever than me will be way more eloquent in explaining it, but so far I’ve only come up with one solution. A simply, yet terrifying solution (for someone that has deep roots in anxiety):

Do things even if they scare you.