Self-Censoring is Driving Me Mad! It's Devastating and Obnoxious
Are you unconsciously censoring your writing? Welcome to the club.
If you’re trying to please everyone, then you’re not going to make anything that is honestly yours, I don’t think, in the long run. — Viggo Mortensen
In the past few months, I’ve rekindled my love for writing and jumped head-first back into the game. I feel inspired, and I am positively bursting with ideas. But something is amiss.
I can’t seem to shake this endless process of censoring myself.
I have a backlog of over a hundred articles ready for editing and eager to spread out into the world, but I have chained them in the backroom.
“You’re not ready, and neither is the world,” I hear the inner voice whispering.
I thought that by writing anonymously, I would be free of it, but no.
The inner critic is still loud, warning me of all the potential dangers of writing about forbidden or divisive topics and expressing my honest opinion.
It keeps preventing me from writing in my own voice because it believes that curse words and irregular sentences will somehow disqualify me from gaining readers and that I will insult the all-powerful algorithms and get “shadowbanned.”
I honestly don’t want to insult anyone or cause angry online discourses because they are a waste of time and energy. Not to mention that I thrive in peace, not conflict, and tend to avoid drama.
So I tread carefully, ensuring I sidestep all the pitfalls and traps. I keep my opinionated self on a leash, lest I might start some trouble. I form my sentences as the generally accepted guidelines dictate, further distorting my voice.
I want to write as I think and talk, but that’s impossible — too many rules, obstacles, and traps everywhere. I’m walking through a minefield, or so it feels. I wanted to express my opinions freely, unobstructed, and I hoped to add something unique and helpful to the echoes of the internet.
And yet I find myself neutered and silent. By myself, no less!
“Please all, and you will please none.” ― Aesop
The more I read about writing online, the louder this inner asshole becomes.
I know “he” means well, but good Lord, it’s hard to hear my thoughts over the incessant ramblings of all the Medium and Substack gurus telling me how and what to write and promote myself aggressively. I appreciate the help, but sometimes wonder if they do more damage than good.
All I wanted was to write, and now I realize that writing is the easy part of this “business.”
I have to promote myself, beg for attention, and put myself at the mercy of publishers if I want to be seen and read. For every hour of writing, I should spend an hour promoting.
“Death, come now, come fast, I’m ready! I shan't die a prostitute for attention and recognition!”
Such an innocent dream — to write and express my thoughts in the hopes of broadening people’s horizons, helping the willing, contributing to healthy debates, and having plain old stupid fun writing about things that interest me.
Instead, I’m again thrown into the jaws of business, where art and joy go to die in exchange for money.
“You don’t have to do any of that. Write and be done with it.” I hear some protesting. Sure, but nothing is worse than spending hours thinking, writing, and editing only for no one to read your work. Comparably, even shouting at a blank wall is more fun. At least there’s an echo and, if you’re lucky, a shape-shifting shadow.
Societal dangers of self-censuring
Self-censuring is dangerous, not for us individually, but for society as a whole. If we all bow our heads to powers that be and take their shit in our mouths with a wink and a smile, we’re heading down a dark, stinky path.
We effectively become one voice, but that is never the voice of reason but of collective insanity.
You can see the effects of this problem everywhere. No one thinks with their own heads anymore. No one dares dispute the official narratives for fear of condemnation, barring some lone voices immediately dragged into obscurity when they dare to oppose the accepted narrative.
I would offer examples of historical snowballs of conforming to the wrong ideals for fear of punishment, but I’m told we’re not allowed anymore. Facts are being erased from our history. Stories are being rewritten. Not in the name of truth but for protecting the narrative, the mainstream voice, and the ideals of the loudest voices of our society.
Right or wrong doesn’t matter — it doesn’t even exist anymore.
There are only the compliant and the non-compliant.
Here we go again. My inner voice, the unelected tyrant of self-censorship, tells me it’s time to move away from the keyboard and carefully package these ideas as harmless and innocent comedy. Wait, I forgot. Comedy was canceled as well. The one vent we had to tell the truth, packaged with a few laughs, was taken away.
We might offend someone with facts, and we can’t have that. Everyone has the right to live in their little bubble of illusion. I agree. They do. Enjoy it while it lasts. Truth has a nasty habit of outliving lies and delusions.
Wait, am I a closeted conspiracy theorist? An anti-whatever of the moment?
You almost got me, you sneaky bastards! But no, not on this account, I’m not!
Here I walk the line, bow my head, and whisper only hints of what I believe to be the truth, carefully packaged as silent farts in the wind, felt only as an aftertaste when I’m long gone.
There’ll be no controversy here. Oh no! Well, maybe just a hint here and there. Not enough to cause a stir. We wouldn’t want to endanger future prospects, now would we? No, sir!
And then there is the matter of aesthetics.
The writers I love reading most are saucy little buggers, potty-mouth missies, and acid-breathing, fire-spewing dragons.
These voices resonate with me. I appreciate their rawness and find them to be kindred spirits. I giggle at their immature puns and nod with approval when they rant without end. These are my people. When their naughty words tickle my funny bone, I’m home!
The more I read these polished, esthetically, and politically correct articles, the more I can’t tell them apart from the drivel Chat GPT (AI) spews out.
They’re all so generative, repetitive, and formulaic. Everything about them screams, “Look at me. Clickity, click!” After you’ve digested their diluted content, dressed up in big words, they quickly vanish into the annals of history, never to be remembered again.
I get it; for some, this is just business. Make a few short articles, harvest your audience, and collect the rewards. Learn the secret code of the all-mighty algorithm, hack the human attention code, and bam — Bob’s your uncle! You have yourself a winner. I have no problem with any of it. It’s just not who I am.
What is the solution, then?
How does one allow their unique voice to develop and still hold the line on this side of acceptable and monetizable?
To create another separate account and strip naked your soul for the world to see?
Maybe, but that’s a lot of extra work, not to mention there is no way to promote both sufficiently. Besides, I already have a few other accounts on other platforms. My writing on that “most private of private” accounts would probably howl at the moon, all by its lonesome self.
If, by some miracle, it gained any traction, the inner critic would again intervene and demand that reason prevail to maintain the goodwill of the people.
Risk being your true self and pissing off your readers, publishers, and the algorithms?
Somehow that doesn’t sound like an intelligent strategy. Although, at the moment, I don’t really have anything to lose, as I’m a veritable Mr. Nobody, of whom no one knows. If there were ever a time for risk, it would be now. Still, the inner critic wants to build something here. I do too.
Perhaps its time to drop my balls, grow some hair, and become ungovernable, not only in real life but online as well (I’m aware it’s usually the other way around), adopting the philosophy of Sir Anthony Hopkins:
“My philosophy is: It’s none of my business what people say of me and think of me. I am what I am, and I do what I do. I expect nothing and accept everything. And it makes life so much easier.” ― Anthony Hopkins
I don’t like either option, to be honest. So now what?
… nothing but the sound of crickets in the dark.
How do YOU deal with this problem in your work?
Do you use an alter ego account and allow yourself to be the Batman to your Bruce Wayne?
Do you conform and submit to the Gods of fortune and fame?
Do you apply any other strategy I’m not aware of?
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