It’s remarkably strange that the “modern” or “contemporary,” if there are such things anymore—that society remains capable of moving slow enough to be even momentarily characterized by anything singular—cares less about the creative desires of the audience and instead optimizes for the vulgar efficiency of the producer.

Or, for an interpretation that probably makes no sense now, but will shortly: I have nothing to say.

Through ordinary life circumstances of work and busyness and bleh at the state of things, I have found it difficult to produce much of interest lately. It’s only out of sheer spite and irony that I currently pen to paper.

As a rule, I only press the daunting “publish” button when I feel I’ve grasped at some nebulous combination of what has held a local stranglehold on my mind, and what I hope you, dashingly attractive reader, also find thought-provoking.

Sometimes, this minimum bar holds me back. If on the fifteenth review of a mere 500-word essay I feel it sparks only passing interest and not cause for real reflection, it does not pass go and collect two big ones.

And yet, bafflingly unaware of my preferences, the incentives of growth, content creation, and generally-existing online dictate that I should get over myself and just publish more. Volume over substance. Half-baked over an empty oven.

Maybe I should.

But, the point I’m meandering toward isn’t whining, an explanation, or even an attempt to make an airtight case. The reasoning above is far from complete. Could it be that success, in most cases, necessitates both volume and substance? Certainly. The muse doth reward the working stiff after all.

What this is then is a call to arms; in a battle not to uncover the “correct” answer, but a fight to understand the tension of incentives. And where to point a middle finger at the clockwork banality of unchecked premises.

Holding something in tension, let alone overcoming it, is never easy. It requires effort to merely let multiple ideas coexist in the same space (this notion alone lends a lot of credibility to why we so often opt for tidy narratives and overly simplistic answers).

For me right now, there is tension; oodles of it, having percolated for some time now.

I’m splintered between the impulse to create something real: still flawed, but complete for now, and the allure of wading into the shallow, algorithmic waters for faster growth.

Now, since you’re not presently in this tension, perhaps you already see what I’m only beginning to.

The tension is both fuel and an illusion. It matters deeply, in a direct and actionable way in which I create things, but is also entirely fabricated. I’m only bound to it to the extent I allow it to constrain me.

So, while my original thinking was that I needed to resolve this tension, pick a lane, and stay in it, I now see this as wholly flawed.

This is not a problem in need of fixing. It’s a gaudy neon sign soliciting, instead, understanding.

When I started this post, I meant the “spite and irony” comment. I wasn’t just being cheeky. I didn’t have anything to say, and I was cranky about it; cranky about the dissonance between my preferences and the ugly, annoyingly situated cinder blocks of reality.

I’m cranky at just how much the boring incentives of everyday existence drive our default, factory settings. I’m cranky that attention and clicks and dollars flow more readily from polished clickbait and deceiving one’s audience than from offering something unvarnished but real.

And I’m cranky that the above characterizations are a false dilemma; a choice between two options where neither is the whole truth. Because that means I have more uncomfortable, being-in-tension work to do.

So, clearly...still cranky. Heh.

But, I have found some clarity. And clarity is almost always worth the price of admission.