I’m torn. Did you know that Natalie Imbruglia’s version of Torn is a cover? I didn’t. I can’t unsee the entire music video. It’s seared into my memory from the sheer amount of times I’ve seen it. Just like Titanic. Choir killed that Celine song for me. Grade 7 is a prime age for repetitiveness. Add in the ADHD and wow.
I’m rambling.
Back to the task at hand. I’m torn between two paths. I thought giving up on the idea that I’d be a mother would solve this but it did not. Well, okay, it did, but what ended up happening is the childfree path split into two.
I have so many options open to me right now except none of them feel safe. Being an entrepreneur doesn’t feel safe at the beginning though. At least I don’t think it does or should. The fear of failure either squashes the start or fuels it. I’ve experienced both. I know I can do what is needed, but do I want to?
Social media is so confusing. Add in the everchanging rules of capitalism. Advertising is inherently manipulative. Marketing isn’t far behind. There is a way to be ethical in these industries but it comes at a cost of a smaller audience with a higher pricetag. I sound jaded. It’s because I am. That’s not a really great way to be while in said industries. It’s a great disrupter though.
I waffle between putting my entire life out there on the internet or saying nothing online. Both are strange. Both feel weird. I grew up without social media. I was 23 years old when Facebook opened to the masses. I knew what it was like to gossip in real time and not read about it in someone’s vaguepost the next day. I was still getting pictures printed at London Drugs. I didn’t have a LiveJournal or a MySpace page. I was an Early Adopter, not an Innovator. It has taken over all of my friendships. It’s taken over how I share my life with people.
My love/hate for the internet is detrimental to my career. My career is based on the internet. I have to be here to make money to survive. I also have to decide on how much I’m willing to sell myself for. My productivity needs to come with a cost. Do I continue to share parts of myself, my life, for views? Or do I focus on the products and services I can offer and sell?
I used to love sharing my life on social media. It wasn’t for views or likes or to sell something. It wasn’t riddled with ads and the need to monetize every little thing. Consumer fatigue, there’s always a term for these things.
I’m tired.
There is a path in between these two paths I’m stuck in front of. It’s obviously the one that needs to be carved out.
heyfriesen blog 
I made my own website when one programmed such things in HTML. That was a blast and I did it because I was into coding at the time- and still am, as one of a million interests. lol I did have a livejournal and a MySpace. And blogger. And now wordpress. I had a very long standing niche chronic illness blog for over a decade. I love to write. Fiction, non-fiction or these sort of life experience things I would do on a blog. On that blog, of course, I did all the social media content creation and promotion. At the end I was around 10k views a month, and more on Facebook, not counting other social media. But when my recent health adventures went south, I had to pretty much give that up. Now, I have a blog for my art. And a main blog for everything from art, to my writing to just casual posts. But none of that has the same level of attention and care needed.
What I share though is at a level I am comfortable with. I could write about the trials of chronic pain and how to cope with it- but not my deeper personal life which I believe and still do, that should be private. But the journey of coping with chronic pain is one that I knew I should be deeply honest about because so many people endure it. But in real life you’ll rarely hear me talk about that. I am stoic as all hell. So, it was an outlet, like many things.
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