☁️ Getting lost on purpose

doomscrolling is a trap / restocking content / vulnerability hangovers

Hi friend,

Well, it’s been a minute. I missed you!

To be honest, I missed writing something that wasn’t business-related—writing for the sole purpose of fun, joy, and connecting with others.

I feel like we often don’t give ourselves enough room to create just for the sake of creating.

And that’s kind of what happened here. I’ve been busy this summer and spent most of my laptop hours juggling client work.

In the midst of all of it, I felt creatively stunted. There were many times when I thought about this newsletter, where I wrote rough drafts that never felt quite right.

I’m sure you’ve had the experience when the thing you keep putting off turns into this BIG thing that now feels impossible to face. That was this. My white whale, if you will.

Instead, I consumed and lurked. I fawned over the work of other writers, hoping it might inspire me to create my own. I leaned into advice from Chris Guillebeau’s ‘Year of Mental Health’ and Laura Vanderkam’s ‘Vanderhacks.’ I obsessed over Olivia Muenter’s prose (and devoured her book Such a Bad Influence).

At first, I got offended that ‘lurking’ has such a negative connotation to it. Why create my own work when there are so many brilliant pieces out there to consume? That’s the irony, though, right? People have to create for there to be brilliant pieces, and just because I’m chronically self-critical doesn’t mean my work couldn’t be worthwhile.

Okay, sorry to get all self-indulgent on you there. Phew. I think I’m trying to encourage you—and myself—to create more things more often without fear of whether or not people will like them.

Create things without justifying whether or not you should be creating them.

You should be creating them. The world needs more creative work and creators.

Your work is worth making.

And before I go and try to justify this, I’m going to leave you there for this week.

with warmth + love,

N

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📚 read

• Doomscrolling is a catch-22: we doomscroll because we’re bored but we’re bored because we’re consuming too much content… that’s the trap found in this new study on ‘digital switching’

• The Harris campaign is v online: a round of applause for KamalaHQ’s content team who know exactly how to internet speak (also feel free to unsubscribe if you disagree with content like this!!!)

• Is influencing only for women? a new article from vogue questions ‘why do extremely online men give women the ick?’ which raises the question… why can’t men be influencers and craft content?

• If you like #restock and #ShopWithMe content… here’s what this oddly satisfying content can tell us about our anxiety (I feel personally called out)

• About that viral AI friend: I know I’m late to this already, but this Embedded article summarizes all my feelings. tech isn’t always the solution for human problems (maybe the solution here is actually less tech)!

• Having a vulnerability hangover: sometimes I feel like I overshare too much or trauma dump and then I get stuck overthinking things and it sucks!! but apparently this is a common phenomenon…

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🌱 do

Ask yourself: what would you create if you had no boundaries or expectations?

Reply to this or leave a comment letting me know, and maybe we can hold each other accountable!

For me, I want to write more silly, fun things!! Like unpacking the etymology of Taylor Swift lyrics, or unhinged reviews of my favorite books (did you know I read a lot?), or the exploration of finding hobbies as an adult.

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✌️ until next week

FYI - for now, I’ve paused paid subscriptions to this newsletter. Part of my recent soul-searching made me realize that I started avoiding coming back to writing because I had people expecting certain updates (obviously! this is the whole reason you signed up!).

I’ll reopen these when I actually have the capacity to produce the work you deserve. For now, everyone will get whatever random long-form essays and extra reads I decide to publish.

If you’re a reader and you’d like to support me, you can Buy Me a Coffee here.

If you’re a company and you’d like to support me, you can sponsor this newsletter by emailing me at hello@nicoletabak.com.

Thanks for reading, friend! 🤍