What's the Point?

How an existential crisis is helping me deprogram how I view money and creativity

I was really proud of myself for sticking with writing these essays for 16 consecutive weeks.

I had managed to consistently kick resistance to the curb and quiet the critical thoughts, which is no small feat. Then I saw a video of a podcast interview with the CEO of Substack that made me question whether or not I want to continue using this platform.

More accurately, my brain unleashed an onslaught of questions and answers.

If I don’t stay on Substack, where do I go? Do I switch over to my Mailchimp account? That’s more for websites. I’d have to redo my website first and I’m not ready for that right now. Maybe I move to my Medium account? People have to pay $5 a month for unlimited content there. It’s a small amount, but it’s still a paywall. What am I doing with this? What’s the point?

Whoa.

“What’s the point?” is the question that ends all questioning. If I don’t have an answer, either I stop all together and completely walk away or I go into fight mode and push forward.

Initially the question triggered fight mode. I needed to write an essay that week to keep up with my streak; I could deal with the platform question parade later. Every time I sat down to write, however, the result was nothing but a bunch of rambling and tangents. I couldn’t manage to pull my ideas together and a bubble of frustration began to build. I kept taking breaks and coming back to it, thinking fresh eyes would help. It didn’t. I gave up on writing that week and decided the streak didn’t really matter. I had proven to myself that I was capable of facing my fear and following through; the number of weeks I did that for was mostly irrelevant.

The bubble of frustration didn’t lessen, though. It grew beyond writing and oozed into my freelance design work. I’ve been unhappy lately about my lack of creativity and aimless half-learning of new skills. (I’ve been learning only as much as I need to know to complete a project and not enough to truly develop the skill.) I’ve been putting too much emphasis on time and money and not enough on playing and enjoying the process.

During an unintentional meditation (i.e. laying on the couch but not napping), I let my mind wander wherever it wanted to go. My brain told me that it was really tired of thinking about money—how much of it I have, how much of it I need, the value of my skills—it’s too much. I agreed with the thought, wishing I didn’t have to consider finances at all. Then a stream of ideas came along, followed by a wave of negativity.

“No one’s going to care about that.”

“That’s cool, but it’s not going to bring in more money.”

“Your skills aren’t strong enough to make something like that.”

Then…

“You are not your thoughts, you are the one who observes them.”

Wait, what?

“Most of the voices in your head are an internal committee installed by others. Your voice resides outside of that.”

I started to consider how many of my recent thoughts about what I create and how it relates to money are truly mine, and how many of them are a result of the systems and ideologies we live within or the employers I’ve worked for.

Bingo. The bubble of frustration burst.

I fell back into the pattern of making everything about money because I was doing a lot of work for a client who had that mindset. They saw no value in what I was able to create outside of how much it cost. I chose to overlook it because I needed the income boost; I had no idea that I would end up unconsciously adopting how they think. When I found myself repeatedly watching my time and calculating how I much was being paid, a huge amount of resentment built and I caught myself. That’s not how I wanted to be working. If I kept focusing only on the money I was going to hurt my development and impact my future.

Hindsight shows me that the only reason I was able to catch myself was because I’ve spent the last 3 years positively disintegrating, or in other words, having a minor existential crisis. By having a better understanding of who I am and what my needs and values are, I’m more aware of when I’m reverting back to old patterns or taking on the mindset of others. I’m likely never going to prevent that from happening entirely (especially when money is involved), but I’m now able to see the changes I need make to get out of it more easily.

I hate how simplistic that sounds because it was far from simple. It took a cognitive assessment, enough reading material to fill a small bookshelf, and finding a therapy model that works both for my budget and my neurological makeup. I understand now why it’s called “doing the work,” which is a phrase I’ve come to loathe. I believe we’d all be better served if we stopped making everything into catchphrases and started saying all of the words, but I digress.

To bring this all back to the questions that caused me to spiral, I decided that I’m going to be moving away from Substack. I don’t agree with the CEO’s stance on moderation of hate speech as being a restriction of free speech and I’m concerned about where their funding is coming from if that’s the stance they’re taking. (They also refuse to release their 2022 financials, which is a pretty big red flag.)

For the next few weeks I’m not going to be adhering to a regular writing schedule in order to give myself some space to address where I want to move my writing to as well as face what I’ve been avoiding: figuring out how to sew together all of my creative endeavors into something that truly represents me.

I know I want to keep writing, but I also know that in order to reshape how I view being paid for my work, I have to focus first on doing the things that will create a more stable financial structure for myself. I hate thinking in those terms, but until a large number of us are ready to upend the systems and start marching in the streets, it’s what I have to do.