It’s been eleven days since I’ve done this blog-newsletter thing? How can that be? There were no less than five things I was very sincerely interested in publishing here, and I’ve been jotting down ideas for stories of all sorts that could use a home, plus I’ve got a couple of nearly completed essays that I recently re-discovered in my Notes folder.
Well, you see, what had happened was is that there were a few times that I thought to myself, “Sit down and do the blog-newsletter thing right now".” But when that occurred, the blog-newsletter became an obligation and whomst, WHOMST among us fucks with obligations like that?
Instead of being something freeing and pleasurable and representative of my ability to create, this platform momentarily became yet another one of my commitments. I don’t know how I ended up with so many of those, though capitalism and the need to survive it definitely would be a factor, I don’t think I’m supposed to be the person who has as many of them as I do.
And so this thing that no one instructed me to start, that is currently unmonetized*, felt like work and, well, I am tired of work. I feel like the percentage of my life that is labor should feel profoundly smaller than the percentage that is not labor (call me crazy, but I just don’t think labor is what I was created to do.)
This made me think about how a sense of obligation can ruin otherwise compelling experiences, and the role anxiety plays in that. It’s one thing to be too tired to write, it’s another to feel that such fatigue renders one hopelessly inadequate. There’s also something to be pushed to create by the fear of disappointing someone who’d come to expect regular content, in hopes of avoiding confirmation of that aforementioned inadequacy.
Anxiety can make the idea of letting people down feel absolutely maddening, convincing you that both the probability of doing so is much greater than it actually is, and that the stakes for committing such an infraction are higher than could ever be possible.
The rigor of expectations can make the creative process so much more difficult for anyone and my anxiety really ups the ante, forcing me to confront unnecessary questions and imaginary oppositional forces, and at times, debilitating me with overwhelm.
I wish I had figured out a life in which all my bills were paid and there were no deadlines, just time to create and dream and build. It’s harder to find the joy in sentence construction when there is a time by which they must be built, and when there is a voice in your head reminding you about that time, noting how close to it you are, how unlikely it is that you’ll make it, how you always do this yourself and asking if you even have the chops for the task at hand in the first place.
How might our relationship to obligations, in the sense of professional commitments and things needed of us from our families, impact our ability to make social commitments for pleasure? Like, if work and kinship leave you feeling that you are constantly required to deliver and constantly needed by other people, might it become more difficult to forge connections romantically? With new friends?
I think about the way I’ve heard folks lament “titles,” and how defining a relationship can confine it—truthfully, much of it has sounded like the desire to have the benefits of affection without being willing to make any sort of sacrifice or commitment to the person providing that care. But on some level, I’d also imagine that someone whose anxiety takes a slightly different shape than mine might have some fearfulness around what being expected to show up for someone means: Can you actually deliver? Is there enough of you to give?
Life’s most persistent question, for me, is how do I make enough Jamilah for Jamilah, but also for the various people, places and spaces with which I have chosen to concern my life. And when it feels like there isn’t enough, how can I remain assured that it isn’t my measure as a person or professional, but simply a very human occurrence?
The difference between art and content is often a matter of the circumstances under which it was produced. I don’t think I’ve ever found content creation aspirational, though I spent so many years of my professional life working to do exactly that. I won’t let this blog-newsletter become content. More to come, sooner than you think.
* I mean, if you want to tip a sister…PayPal, CashApp ($jamilahlemieux) and Venmo (@Jamilah-Lemieux) are all appreciated and accepted.