Why do I post ?

I always questioned myself: why do I post online? Why am I writing this for you to read? Why do I have that need to write my ideas somewhere for someone to read? Is it a need at the end of the day, or maybe a hobby, or something that makes me escape from reality? I don’t have a clear answer for that, but I will try to make it a little bit clearer in my mind.

I love the concept of writing itself. Writing this blog post immortalizes (as long as this website is being deployed and available on GitHub) my ideas. Ideas that were the result of my own experience, emotions, knowledge, deeply encoded into my brain cells, that I’m trying my best to write down into words and express them clearly for you to read. This will be available for someone to read, maybe get inspired as well, maybe feel a feeling, maybe think about something. I really want that effect, because I feel it myself all the time when reading. So we turn back to the love of reading in the beginning, and those two are correlated. I don’t think someone could love writing without loving to read.

But I don’t feel that it is only this. I think that there is a certain deep satisfaction of creating something as a human. From when we were little kids, everyone enjoys creating a sand castle, a Lego creation, making something, drawing, getting abstract ideas together and turning them into reality. Every artist, every creator feels this satisfaction, even developers and coders when they compile everything and everything works after tedious iterations.

But, and there is a big but in our era, this satisfaction is only felt when you do it by your hand! If you use AI for this, you won’t feel anything. You become an empty bot inside. I was writing so much before using ChatGPT, but I decided to never use it anymore, at least only to correct and get my thoughts together using it, but never ever produce ideas using it. I think therefore I am. If I delegate my thinking to another entity, my whole existence won’t have any meaning whatsoever.

I love creating. I really enjoy that. I do video editing, I code, I write, I try to create songs but they are really bad. And what I always feel now, that I was not feeling when I was young and innocent, is that before posting it to the public, I compare my creation to the average creation of other creators. I feel that before throwing something out there, it needs to be perfect and fit a lot of standards. Because at the end of the day, after each project, there will be critique! And even though this is not a rational idea, criticizing a project is criticizing ourselves. And the more I share, the less motivation I feel to create because too many mental charges are caused: trying to do a project is to risk it failing and then try to calm the ego after criticism. And this is all happening as anticipation in our heads. We don’t understand this, but I think it is what’s happening according to some studies about Berglas & Jones (1978), “Self-handicapping,” and defensive pessimism.

The LinkedIn Paradox

We used to connect online to clear our minds. The online space was a place apart, we went there to have fun, to learn, or just to exchange with strangers. The internet was a momentary escape from physical reality. Except now it’s become a habit, and reality has become an escape from the internet.

But it’s not just our way of consuming all this digital content that has changed, it’s the entire creation process. Thousands of posts are published on LinkedIn every day. With just a few clicks, anyone can share their content with the entire world. In fact, we’ve never created as much as we do today. So we might think we’re in a hyper-creative period of history, the kind of moment where humanity has managed to overcome its conflicts and transcend its condition to allow each individual to exploit their talents and share them.

Yet I have the impression that content creators have disappeared. In fact, there are mostly content imitators. Remember scrolling through LinkedIn and seeing the same motivational posts, the same success stories formatted identically, the same “I failed but then I succeeded” narratives? Each type of post has its associated format, and it goes further. LinkedIn users copy concepts, storytelling styles, headlines, to the point that scrolling through LinkedIn, we often have the impression that all content is identical.

What I want you to understand is that imitation, even copying, is an integral part of the creation process. Artists who immediately find a unique style and touch are extremely rare. Most of the time, we must be inspired by and imitate to gradually emancipate ourselves from our models and find our own way of creating. This is true for writing, music, painting, all forms of art, in fact.

But for content creation, there’s another parameter to consider: the algorithm. Yes, that damn algorithm that will rate your creation based on more or less obscure parameters, then decide whether it will highlight it or let it die in its corner. And this algorithm is quite ruthless.

I don’t know if you remember the time when we went to the “Following” tab to choose what we were going to look at on LinkedIn, but that’s over. Subscriptions don’t mean anything anymore. Now we refresh the home page, we trust the recommendations, and therefore the algorithm.

So naturally, creators adapt. When one of them finds a concept that works, all the others imitate it to surf the trend. If they want to survive, they have to play the game: optimize formats, use the right words, the right emotions, the right codes. And that’s why we have this strange feeling that everything looks the same on LinkedIn. The posts we read don’t mark us as much as before. Everything is calculated and formatted to maximize our engagement time, but not necessarily to bring us something.

We might think we have a choice, but in reality, we look at what the algorithm wants to show us. Yes, it pushes us toward ease. It crushes creativity under predefined models. But ultimately, it’s also an opportunity. Because if everything looks the same, those who dare to do differently have a golden opportunity.

Today, LinkedIn is flooded with formatted content. Everyone follows the rules and applies the same strategies. So those who really create something unique stand out even more, and viewers are just waiting for that. We might think the algorithm kills creativity, but in reality, it highlights even more those who take risks. And if we know how to tame it a little without totally giving in to it, we can stand out from the crowd.

Because after all, it’s better to create content that will mark the minds of a dozen people than content that will entertain thousands.

The Perfect Moment That Never Comes

I always waited for the perfect moment to start creating a project, to start writing or do something. But I opened my eyes and understood that the very perfect conditions are starting the actual project itself. Shut up our ego and prepare it to learn and improve instead of making it convince us that we are good, that everything is under control, that everything is alright, and continue to scroll and get lazy and stay on the couch, not entering the fog, not entering that dark area where the only truth is that we are in a big lack, that we are worthless, that we don’t know anything, that we know very little things, that there are so many people in front of us and ahead of us and leading us.

But this is a coin that has another side. The other side is that this gap is a perfect opportunity for improving. Knowing the lacks is the first step.

And that’s where we find real creation again. It’s not seeking approval. It’s not maximizing the click-through rate or pleasing an algorithm. It’s responding to something that burns within us, and that’s what makes the difference. The creators who leave a trace, those we remember, are those who create for themselves.

As Rilke told us more than a century ago: a work of art is good when it is born of necessity. And the truth is that those who dare to create sincerely always end up finding their audience.

So, are you ready to create?