Essay

We Traded Connection for Currency

We traded connection for attention — and told ourselves it was the same thing.

People log on to reddit and social media to feel connected to others. They look for bits of themselves. We are all voyeurs trying to find our tribe, our people, ourselves. We join subs about products and causes and ideas that we're interested in or intrigued by. We read what other people are saying, and read how other people respond to them. We follow the drama of it all. It isn't completely unlike getting lost in soaps or novels.

It's all consumptive.

We're looking for ourselves cheaply.

We numb the pain of putting ourselves out there, and we try to interact to feel a part of something.

We all just want to be part of something.

But that's just one direction. The productive side isn't much better.

We create podcasts and put them out there. We record our video logs and write our web logs (that's where the word "blog" came from, kids). We generate and create and mix and copy and remix and regurgitate and hope to get a following. Hope to find the people that will resonate. We seek engagement and we tell ourselves that's what connection looks like. We tell ourselves if we have enough followers, we're doing something right. And maybe we are.

We seek expression and we put it out there, safely or embarrassingly, and let it be. And there's a lot of good in this. There's a lot of value in an artist putting their art out into the wild.

But at the same time, it feels like something is missing.

We are putting ourselves out there, but we don't get any real feedback. It goes out into the void. Maybe the algorithms will pick it up. And then maybe you start doing it to grow your followers. Your followers. Jesus, we're all trying to be Jesus.

But what is missing? Is it the collaboration? Maybe. We do a lot of this alone. Is it the feedback? Perhaps. Is the art getting developed? Do you know why you're creating the art you're creating? Do you know what message you want to share? Do you even have a message? Are you looking for a message so you can have something to make art about?

You feel something inside you that wants to reach out, that wants to connect, that wants to feel a part of something and wants to contribute to a purpose — but you don't know what that is. It's vague. It's ethereal. It's non-descript. And yet, it weighs you down. You feel like a failure until you can get into this flow that assures you you're on the right track. That your life has meaning and that you're contributing in a way that is unique to you — that you're working toward your potential; that this movement couldn't go forward without you offering your unique talent.

And yet — so many of the machines that move the world forward these days are designed to work with cogs. Cogs that look the same and behave essentially the same, and they are very important, because they help the machine do so many various important things.

And maybe you can find fulfillment as a cog. If you can, you should. You should definitely be the best cog you can be and enjoy being a cog. Because it's important, and we need cogs. The machine needs cogs, and we seem to need the machine.

Maybe you don't need a message

But maybe, instead of looking for an audience, it's enough to discover what you think about things. To really dig. And to connect with people in real life — even if real life happens over an internet connection or through a text. It's not the medium that matters; it's the quality of the interaction that makes the connection.

And you don't get a quality interaction by seeking a quality interaction — because that's egoic aspiration. You get it through sincerely being curious. You look deeply. You treat someone as a person. You treat yourself as a person. And you trust. You commit. You follow through. You dig deeper. You go deeper. You get uncomfortable. You get to where things don't seem so safe — where you could lose face. Where you could be wrong. Where you might overextend yourself. Where you might overcommit.

But you keep trying.

And you balance all the other things along the way as well.

This is being an artist. You are either an artist or a cog, and we need both. And we can handle everybody wanting to be an artist. But you won't really know until you try a few things.

And maybe you're a cog in your day job — the day job that pays for you to eat and have enough comfort so your free time can be focused on being an artist.

And if you're a parent — then why not let that be your art. You don't have to make money from it. You don't have to exploit your kids. But you can document. You can make art together. The medium doesn't matter. The quality of the interaction matters.