Be everywhere. But be your best here.
Be everywhere. Automations exist to make distribution possible wherever your audience is, with as little or as much personal involvement and customization as you like.
But be your best here. Own piece of the internet, under your own name and on your own terms.
I think I’m at my best when I’m being myself. When I’m letting myself be myself. That’s been an ongoing struggle my entire life. So much of myself was rejected by the outside world that I was taught to be circumspect, to mask and hide myself, to the point that I didn’t even remember who was under the mask. You try to become the mask, but it’s a lie, it’s not you, it’s not your best, and eventually that lie wears on you and you breakdown.
After I got my autism diagnosis, I started the process of unmasking, of teasing out who I really was and who I just thought I was. It was an awkward, painful transition, not just for me but those around me as I essentially regressed to a toddler and then started the work of building myself, the work I should have done when I was a child but I didn’t because I was told it was wrong or it was painful at the time. It took a lot of work to catch up to midlife, but the payoff has been happiness.
I’m happier with myself and my situation than I probably have ever been in my life. Yes, right now I’m sad, but when I was crying on the mower I was aware it was a beautiful summer day, and that my yard while mismanaged and overgrown is an acre of green sprinkled with explosions of color (the day lilies have bloomed); that my house might be a little small and needs some work, but it’s cozy and feels like home; that I have my family, my wonderful partner and my amazing children (and yes, I’m including the cat).
I think that’s part of the reason that this sadness now feels so confusing. I’ve struggled with depression for most of my adult life. It crippled and hamstrung me, leaving people shaking their heads at how someone so capable would burn his world down repeatedly. Decades of therapy, several different bouts of medication, but at the root, nothing. But it wasn’t just depression, it was autistic burnout, wearing out from the effort of maintaining the mask, pretending to be someone I wasn’t.
But this sadness now is something different. It’s external, and there’s not much I can do about it.