aqotp: public first drafts are really crucial to sincere performance.
aqotp: public first drafts are really crucial to sincere performance.
on experiencing virtual stage-fright: does my internal self like my public-facing self? // if you great great great grandmother had [substack], what would you want to see on it?
I have multiple selves ; many are performers ; some of my selves exist in public.
[a note from the editor: a quarry of thoughtless ponderments is a long-standing tradition in the personal journals of ismatu gwendolyn, wherein the author spills out all the loose marbles rolling about in their skull and calls it a day.]
I, for one, am sleepy.
Wait, wait. I have to situate you. I love letters because they require scene setting; you all live in my pen— you can’t see anything. So, hello! Good evening. The sun sets on a day filled with unexpected belonging. Crickets layer the air in ways that remind me of a steady saxophonist waiting for her solo at a jazz club. Golden rays dapple the trees. I am in a loving and soft green hoodie to match the fields (who also hold me). I am drinking lemongrass tea (it is very hot).
Earlier this summer I experienced these moments disturbing of clarity amidst unsettled chaos. Had a big eye in the storm moment— for about five days, everything was quiet and I could feel my exoskeleton— the iteration self who lives and breathes inside social media algorithms, who sticks in the minds of these intimate masses.
I intentionally do not think about the fact that I belong to many unknowable strangers in sincere familiarity (a closeness the exchange of living ideas often promotes). I said this once before in a piece I wrote. It's called Please Say Hello to Me, and it was written the first time I ever felt my exoskeleton, which was an alarming sensation at first— here I was silly, thinking I was made of flesh and bone. What is this cooled and gelled giant I have become? Who is that?
I’m becoming too esoteric and this is the subject of the next essay anyways. But the point is: I can feel how odd it is being visible through social media, and that hair-raised unpleasantness (1) is not going away (2) is only going to intensify as time goes on. None of my plans, projects, or desires lend themselves well to me hiding away all of a sudden. I spend most days intellectually aware of the stratified nature of being seen by many, but that does not mean that I feel it in my body.
So in July (this past July), when I had a moment to be still (amongst a lot of chaos) and I felt it in my body, I dictated The Question of Agency and Creation for you all.
I am essentially always aware of the stage; I am not always aware of the audience. There is a difference in knowing the audience is there and feeling the eyes of the viewers on my skin.
when I become aware of the audience, I become a performer. Well-curated, beautifully spoken, Beautifully collected, comfortably precise. I have only ever imagined this audience as people who currently exist, who have real time thoughts about me/my life/my work/my words.
Bless
and her Data Healing Workbook. When I tell you (outside of some fire shrimp jumbo) this is the best ten dollars I’ve spent in the last month. It’s tying with low country gumbo? I am a taurus. There is no pleasure like food (and knowing myself intimately).Inside, Neema poses the question: if your great great great grandmother had instagram, what would you want to see on it?
[ismatu breathes a sigh of relief.] This. This is an audience I can respirate for.
Typically, my omg everyone can see me prickles make me want to go back into a little mouse hidey-hole and numb myself until I can no longer feel the eyes. Preferably with cookies. Recently.. I’ve become exhausted of that cycle (the hiding » the numbing » the coming out again. The eyes are not going anywhere. I have to shift my consciousness.
Also like… performing for a living is ass. I want to live for a living.
Feeling the eyes of current day people and having that change my output… I think I feel a sense of disappointment in that. The bar for entertainment is so much lower than the bar for radical action. In allowing my output to be hijacked by performance, I lower my own bar.
And then, wildly, I tend to perform worse. Because the bar is lower. My form gets sloppy. I become… unimpressed with myself. And for me, that is the death knell of intimacy within my internal communities, when I know that I am slacking.
I know this sounds… silly…? Masochistic? But in times of life where I find myself unable to clear my bar with consistency… I raise it. Inconsistency means I’m bored. It means that the goal I set isn’t high enough. I’m not really one for grinding unless I really want it. Halfway goals are too close to settling to bust my ass.
hello, daughter’s daughter’s daughter i have yet to met.
whether We are “related” or not, whether you are “daughter” or not: daughter here is the title (here meaning they who carry and continue the thread). hi, my name is ismatu and i am an important person. i have realized that every person that is important to their world and to their narrative has a moment where they realize that they do, indeed, have the agency to change what they see. maybe they cannot change the world (whatever that is), but they can change their world. in the tapestry i weave myself into, i loan my threads to my many successors. We are of the utmost importance to me. i want you to see me sounding it out. i want you to see my first drafts. i want you to see my in-betweens, my small habits, my germination stages. i want to keep and collect my blueprints for you, so that you can still familiarize yourself with the sound of my pen on paper. You Aal live in my pen. Hello. The sun has set and the crickets have taken their solo. Your existence in a world that we kept well for you is a goal good enough to run for.
I, as a community (myself, my vast subconscious and my glowing superconscious)— We become a public good by striving towards long-form integrity with the eyes I have on me. This draws whole swaths of people towards new and brilliant things. Daughter’s daughter’s daughter’s daughters: I hope you are proud of me, evenly, without negotiation.
love,
ismatu
Now, as far as our external community [you! reading this!], how do we be a public good?
I have reached the point in public education where I’m like… should I quit? Maybe it’s time to hang things up. When I measure my success in circulation and click through rates… it’s pretty abysmal, honestly. I asked on TikTok if I should just kinda throw in the towel. I got a lot of really kind responses.
I am caught in that sticky in between where the norms of being circulated corrode my measurements. 11,300 views is (1) absurdly low for my usual TikTok circulation and (2) absurdly high considering I cannot fathom 11,300 people in front of me right now.
Folks chimed in with what I have inspired them to do and that was, again, grounding. Got my head out of my ass. I actually do not need to care about reach at this point; I need to care about depth. So we will stay the course as planned. Understand that I am quitting social media and existing on Stage when I matriculate into medical school :) We only have a couple years here to make it do what it do! So I am making this time count!
The short answer: We become a public good by (1) learning without ceasing, even when it’s itchy and uncomfortable— when it is hard and achy we do not quit! and (2) By taking what we learn into our physical communities.
“ismatu why is this article paid” okay damn! we’re getting to that.
In The Question of Agency and Creation, I also asked (1) why people choose to pay for a service that is free ultimately and (2) how can I best say thank you. I want you to know that I read every response at least twice. This was a humbling and grounding experience.
One person on the Patreon suggested that I simply make things that I work on available to paying folks early and then release to everyone after. I think, with some modifaction, this perfectly serves the desire I have (to have a smaller audience dedicated to my well-being to glean feedback from as I work on things).
So the benefit in a payed subscription is that you get to see me work through the rough drafts in real time, each step of the way. Each step of the way will be made free on the publishing of the final project, which will be sent to everyone at once. And this allows me to ask questions and be shaped by members of the constituency as I go. Yay!
Below this paywall:
A notion syllabus holding all the works I am citing for my upcoming video essay on representation politics.
a live reading of the first seven pages of Blood in My Eye by George Jackson
resharing a link to a previous live I did on “first draft reflections on representation politics.” resource acquisition is always my second draft.
a few more paragraphs of reflection, and a question for those able to comment [what do I represent to you?]
I really like this because it forces me to keep track of my blueprints as I go and makes them available for future use. And getting to see the gears of my mind turn in time (and recommend some resources, if you have any) feels like a wonderful thank you to those who pay to make sure I can pay for me and my family’s continued housing and food. If you want to be in, may I add a little extra incentive: I would really like to be able to onboard some recently graduated Black folks in order to help me expand this thing we have going on here. So if you are down to pay, you know, whatever amount a month: $1 a month, $3 a month, $6 a month. The cross posting between the Patreon and the substack is very high (always). One or the other, depending on how much you want to pay. Lovely, thank you.
patreon.com/ismatu
But if this is where you're leaving us, I hope that the work of your day passes through your hands with ease. Thank you <3