My Black is NOT Cracking.

Real Talk. I feel like somebody pulled my plug. I wrote this post last week, so you’re getting a two-fer today. I usually write a few at a time, but I’ve stockpiled a half-dozen ready to go. I did a great deal of writing in May/June. And a good thing because I am currently experiencing a personal energy crisis!

Not permanently. Just… enough to leave me sitting here staring at my laptop, asking “Why? What is the point?”

For the first time in a long time, I’ve momentarily lost my motivation. My goals suddenly feel ridiculous. My dreams feel like expensive ass hobbies. (WordPress ain’t cheap ya’ll!) And, considering I have a closet full of unfinished projects, maybe my brain has decided to stage an intervention.

Lately I’ve been researching all the things I’ve wanted to do—publishing, newsletters, podcasts, writing, and everywhere I turn I run into another cautionary tale.

“Don’t bother.”

“The market is saturated.”

“You’ll never make money.”

“You need to have 100,000 followers.”

“You need a funnel.” (Whatever that hell that is!)

“You need a course.”

“You need a community.”

“You need a masterclass teaching people how to do the s*%t you haven’t been able to make money doing your damn self.”

Wait…what?

Whatever happened to just being a writer?

Apparently, that’s no longer enough. I thought I was the damn product! But Nooooo! Seems like your writing has become the free sample you hand out while hoping someone buys your $497 course on how to write and NOT make a living.

I’ve written to publishers.

Crickets.

I’ve started a blog. (SIX YEARS OLD IN APRIL!) I still have the same 190 followers I had when I started. I’m convinced 180 of them don’t even read what I write anymore. They just haven’t gotten around to unsubscribing.

And before anyone says, “Keep posting!”…

I have. For months. Now years. So naturally my brain is asking, “What’s the damn point?”

And, it’s not just publishing.

The music business went through this mess years ago. (The internet and streaming! Now currently killing the film and TV industries! The BS flood gates are officially open! I can’t get through ten minutes of most of the films on Netflix. Did anyone bother to learn screenwriting? Storytelling? Plot structure? Of course not!) But back to music…..

There used to be gatekeepers. Were they always right? Hell no. Great artists were overlooked. Terrible decisions were made. Sometimes success depended on one person’s questionable taste.

But there was another side to gatekeepers.

Someone was at least attempting to separate craft from chaos.

Now?

Everybody’s a producer. Never studied music. Can’t read a note. Never learned an instrument or spent years understanding melody, harmony, arrangement or composition. They downloaded software, chopped up somebody else’s work, added a beat and declared themselves a visionary.

The internet did the same thing to everything else.  We are living in an era where everyone is shouting into the same microphone. And it is loud AF!

Everyone’s an expert. Everyone’s a coach. Everyone’s a guru. Everyone has “the secret.” Half the people contradict each other just because controversy gets clicks.

Research is optional. Confidence is mandatory.

Now if you’re someone genuinely trying to learn, create or improve, you have to dig through mountains of garbage to find one person who actually knows what they’re are talking about. It’s like mining for diamonds. The diamonds are still there. They’re just buried under an avalanche of bullshit.

And I’m getting to an age where I value my time too much to keep digging.

Maybe that’s what this feeling is. Not laziness or depression. Just plain old exhaustion. Exhaustion from trying to be heard in a world where everyone has a microphone and almost nobody has anything worth saying.

But here’s the problem.

I also know that every once in a while…

I find someone. A writer. A musician. A photographer. A filmmaker. An artist. Someone with genuine talent and something honest to say. When I find them, I’m grateful they didn’t quit.

Which leaves me with an uncomfortable question.

If they had listened to all the noise and given up…

…I never would have found them.

So maybe this isn’t the end of the rant. Maybe it’s just today.

Tomorrow I may get up, dust myself off, write something else anyway, and toss it into the overcrowded internet with the rest of humanity.

Because buried somewhere beneath all this noise, somebody might still be looking for a diamond.

And maybe they’ll dig deep enough and find mine. We shall see.

Have you ever reached the point where you wonder if the dream is still worth chasing?