I recently reread a lot of my writing and I did not like my own reflection. My voice didn’t sound like myself. This voice floated in a void, not describing anyone or anything in particular. I realize now I was too afraid to define myself in my writing. My fingers hesitated over the keyboard each time it came to putting anything too personal out there. Nameless, shapeless, borderless, and ultimately identity-less. Still, I thought, I was writing, right? I’ve kept up this habit for half a year each Wednesday now, as part of an informal writing group I’m in.

There was just one big problem. Impersonal writing is useless. I wasn’t really writing for anyone. When the desire to write crept into my mind, it usually came about in a few ways: (1) an interesting thought comes about — I want to whittle down in writing or (2) I just passed a certain part of life and learned a hard learned lesson. Either way, these are for myself and my writing fell flat because most of it was self explanatory. A few paragraphs and the lesson is written down for myself. Specifics unnecessary. It doesn’t help that I wouldn’t send my writing to anyone. Partly, this was because I decided I would live a purist mantra: if it’s good enough, they’ll come to me. In a self-delusional way, I wrote with the foregone belief my readership would increase from zero to thousands of unseeable readers.

I decided I will write for my younger brother. I give him a lot of unsolicited advice. Much of it feels like it goes over his head. He promises he internalizes it. To some degree, I believe him… I say a lot and it’s certainly armchair advice sometimes. A big reason why I give him so much advice is because I, as the eldest, never really got advice. When I had to figure out anything in my life, I turned to the internet. This ended up disastrously sometimes (I gave myself a chemical burn trying to get rid of teenage acne), but largely I would say I was raised by the internet. Yahoo Answers when I was a kid, YouTubers in finding confidence, reddit in how to apply for college.

I still don’t have an older brother, but my head is screwed on enough to give myself advice. Most of the advice I seek cannot be found on online forums or videos anymore. Lately, life is more complex, but the answers are simple and usually free. Drink more water. Exercise. Sleep better. I find myself making mistakes, feeling the drought of success, and spiraling to pull myself together the next morning with just a simple night of sleep and a hot shower. Why is that? I think sometimes my contentment is fragile. My internal voice is stressed out almost always. Why didn’t you work out today? What about this deadline? It’s hard to do all the things I equate to productive and still feel the homeostasis my voice pleads for.

I don’t think the way I speak to myself needs to be quieted though. It’s there to make me take action. Listening to the voice isn’t easy though. I need to step out of my focus a bit to realize what is wrong — I meditate without meditating. So for me, those habits of vacuuming, showering, walking, having a conversation, working out — all they do is wake me up from sleeping at the wheel. I already know what to do, I only needed to step away a bit and listen to myself.