8 Clicks from Nowhere Productions ䷀

Tag: travel

Chapter List

  • Permission Trap

    I fell deep into the permission trap while on vacation recently. 

    We went on a summer trip. It was exciting. It was picturesque. It was the city of lights and every turn seemed like a new reason to point my camera and click the shutter. I took a lot of photos.

    So of course… I posted a few of the best pics on Instagram so that my collection of friends and fam who follow on my private account could enjoy those same photos.  And, genuinely, the first day that I posted the response was overwhelmingly positive. 

    But… well. I posted more pics on the second day, and a couple more on the third… 

    The following days were less positive. People had tuned out.

    Fair enough, I suppose. Vacation photos while everyone is back home getting ready another work day. The patience for that is limited. I get it.

    But we are funny to each other this way, aren’t we?

    I’m not saying this to dive into a pit of self-pity about my social engagement. There are an array subtle social cues that are conveyed by modern interactions on social media platforms, and being shrugged off by one’s own friends and family, and I would suggest that a big one is the subconscious permission structure around sharing.

    People are online. People are on these apps. People are scrolling, looking at advertisements and AI slop and influencer drivel, so in my own mind I am considering that I can offer something better by sharing: Me, a real person that the people on my private account all personally know, travelling the world and sharing his photos.

    But then the permission trap emerges from the inaction of the masses: a fraction of the likes and indifferent shrugs and my anxious, approval-seeking artist’s mind reads that right to the thought of least resistance: people don’t want to see it. I’m oversharing. I’m boasting. I’m swamping the feeds of friends with a reality that breaks their comfortable slop-ridden, algorithmic vibe and I don’t have their permission to break into that for more than a single post.

    I’m overthinking it, of course. Because that’s the trap.

  • Yes And

    As I write these words I am contemplating an opportunity.

    I don’t write about it much here but the fact is that I don’t work full time. We saved. We picked hobbies and interests that are relatively inexpensive. We cook at home. We budget. And as a result we can live on a single income, our savings and a pretty modest pay that comes from my sporadic and occasional work. It’s a dash of privilege with a dose of planning. And I’m not apologizing.

    But it does mean that sometimes that occasional work comes in the form of something strange and interesting that throws a wrench into the simple routine. Like: I got a call asking if I would like to go travel for a week to do some contract work.

    Of course I would, I replied. 

    And so as I write this it seems pretty likely I’ll be packing my bags and going on a long trip to do some real work, shake some hands, and bumble around a place I’ve never been before. It would certainly be a change from my usual drudge of local cafes and my home office. 

    One of the rules I gave myself when I scaled back from full time work was to always keep myself in a state of yes. That is, if an opportunity (such as this one) presented itself, to start from the word yes and allow it to take me where it would.  

    Because here’s the the thing: not only would it be easy as a guy spending his days in pursuit of a creative second career to say no a lot, to hunker down and shut out the world while he pounded away on his keyboard as I pushed forward on a project, but it could almost certainly become the default.

    And yet, there is something inspiring, motivating, and genuinely creatively reinvigorating about a change of scenery and meeting new people.