Confessions of a shy but talented girl
I feel underestimated by the world, and worse, they might be right because I haven't done enough to prove otherwise.
Out of vulnerability and potential hypocrisy I’m paywalling this. Everyone is allowed ONE (1) existentially nauseating post every now and then.
Sometimes, I think of my life as a room with high white walls and one window that lets in mostly light, and just a little bit of air. I can see the world going on out there and see what everyone else is doing—building 7-8-figure ARR apps or publishing little poetry books with approximately ten words per page stacked in a little diamond shape on the top left corner of the page leaving most of it blank with, maybe, a line doodle beside it—and I think that I am behind. That time has been sprinting past me while I have been watching from my little white room diving into deep, deep wonderlands in my head or inventing noble reasons for my lack of action.
Everyone I know is doing something, building something. They are “shipping” (a word so crude, so proud) projects they have coded into being over a few sleepless weekends. Apps that match you to lovers with the same attachment styles, platforms that sell you nostalgia or meditation techniques in subscription packages. They are all so pleased with themselves. And I feel underestimated by the world, and worse, I feel they might be right to underestimate me becauseI have not done enough to prove otherwise.
Sometimes, I wake with the thought: I am late to the race. The world loves prodigies, and I am no longer the age when that word might be applied to me. The future I imagined has been receding as I move toward it, like a mirage that never grows nearer no matter how quickly I walk.
I want something very badly and I don’t really know what it is anymore.
Some days I think the underestimation is my own doing, that I have hidden too well, that I have been too precious with my work, that perfectionism is killing me softly. Other days I think the world would underestimate me no matter what, because the world has no interest in what is not already loud, catchy, and easy to consume. It rewards speed, shamelessness, and an aptitude for self-mythologizing that I do not have, or maybe refuse to cultivate.
I don’t want to play politics, I used to think that that was all beneath me but I fear that I actually must play because it is a game thrusted upon me, and I’ll be trampled if I don’t. There is an idea that to do something great you must be ruthless, that you must trade in your own marrow to have your work be recognized, that Faustian bargains must be made. I’ve always thought I could find a third way, to keep myself intact and still build something monumental, but every path seems to demand the same toll: visibility. And visibility in this age is its own art form, requiring an exhibitionism I find indecent: