I'm Not a Content Creator. I'm a Writer.

Sometimes even slop is useful.

My prolonged absence from this newsletter taught me two things. First, I have a wonderful community of friends and readers here. Second, I’m not a content creator. I’m a writer.

I think I’ve known this for a while, but I didn’t want it to be true. Part of me wanted to master the algorithm, embody the influencer rhythm, and hopefully ride the wave of virality and prestige that followed. Part of me wanted to add a podcast or video clips, to better capture attention. Part of me has lived in a state of constant frustration over the gap between the output I believed success required and the output I knew my season of life would not allow.

But, as Tom Hanks says in one of my favorite film monologues, “And that's when this feeling came over me like a warm blanket.”

I’ve realized that the reason I could never grind enough grist for the content mill is that I’m not a miller. I really don’t want to be the daily guru, the omnipresent influencer, or the multimedia mogul. I just want to be a writer. And writing is not content-ing. It’s a completely different mindset, that reveals itself in completely different habits.

I’m not here to bash content creators. I appreciate them. I listen to their pods, I watch their videos, I anticipate their updates. I don’t want or need to talk them down. But my heart has always just wanted to write. And instead of fighting that—instead of fearing I was tying myself to the Titanic—I’m embracing it. Content creators can do valuable things. But writing is valuable too, and I suspect that really valuable writing has to be done by people who are not content creators.

This is where feelings get hurt. It’s almost impossible to say X and Y are both good, but good in ways that are different and not reconcilable. As soon as you start talking like this, the replies start coming, “You’re being elitist; tons of people I know do X and Y.” Well, no. Not tons. 90%+ of the people you know who are daily/semi-daily content creators are obliged to be in the attention business, not the ideas business. The ideas can be there but they cannot come first. The attention model has to come first. Writing is not an attention model ritual; it grabs you, sits in you place, and doesn’t let you wander. Writing is a four-course Michelin restaurant; content creation is the casino downstairs. You may enjoy both, but you didn’t enjoy both the same way, for the same reasons.

But that’s not the point. The point is that for me, the writing has always been the point. Far more people watch YouTube than read articles. I’m not gonna hit the street and protest that. It’s the way it is. That’s why we need great YouTubers (looking at you, Gavin Ortlund). But I can’t be one of them. Not because I have a moral objection to it. I’m just not good at it. I’ve never been good at it. I think in paragraphs. Without the right word I’m mute. This isn’t a virtue. It just is.

For me, writing is an outflow. I read, I converse, I think, and the writing perfects and completes that process. What that means though is that the influx is necessary. And it’s not always there. Now, I have to be careful. It’s true that writers write. The sustained discipline of writing, even when things feel dry, is important. But “writers write” means the discipline is possible even when it’s hard. It does not mean that the essence of being a writer is stringing characters together while you listen to a video or watch TV. Writers who chase empty calories in their work are not writing; they’re content creating while trafficking in words.

I’m simultaneously making peace with my narrow ambition of writing, and coming to terms with the reality that the habits that fertilize probably don’t enrich my “brand.” Thinking that births the kind of writing I want is jealous. It doesn’t enjoy rivals. It passive aggressively undermines things like brand management, audience engagement, and platform expansion. I can think about those things, or I can write. And I choose to write. Obviously, I want people to read. I care whether or not what I say makes a difference. I just can’t measure that difference the way I thought I could.

Someone once summarized my writing career to me this way: “You’d do it for free, and you’ll always do it.” Compliment? Not really. Insult? No. Insightful? Oh yes.