Writing before I lose inspiration.

Eating your business fig is the new drinking the corporate kool-aid.

Good morning. 

The thought of writing always entices me more than the practice. The idea that I can sit down in front of my computer after a long work week of writing -- out of necessity rather than desire, mind you, and open a blank page without feeling dread is an incredible, yet unattainable propsect.

Even now I sit here, writing feverishly with the hope that I won’t lose my sudden burst of inspiration. I’m not going to read it back. I have this fear that at any second, the wrong thought might enter my mind and deter me from adding another character. I’ll try to do a quick copy edit and realise this is far too rambly and useless to share. Laptop closed. Back to TikTok.

Of course I feel like this. If you keep up with me, you might notice I haven’t shared a written post in close to a year. My substack is at the whim of life changes, often. I won’t find time to write unless I feel the need to share ‘with my community’ (lol) a change of career or heart. That’s not the case right now, although I did co-found a business 6 months ago that has been taking up 90% of my brain space. Why now? I’m not sure. It’ll come to me by the end of this.

What I do know, is that my lack of sharing content comes down really to the fear of being perceived. A fear that the content I choose to write about isn’t interesting or enjoyable enough. It’s enough to turn me off, and I feel grateful that right now I’ve politely asked that particular voice to stfu, with the knowing that this content isn’t as entertaining as other pieces I’ve shared.

Caveat done. Onto other things.

Life for me, right now, is different to how I have ever experienced it.

As I mentioned, I co-founded a business 6 months ago – Million Billion Media which has set me off at the ripe old age of [redacted], on a path of never being employed again. Not in a wanky way, I mean this as no reflection of the success of our business (although it has been successful with all credit to the brain behind it, Lucy) but rather, with the new knowledge that I am able to be in complete control of how I spend my hours when I’m not employed by someone else.

It’s a daunting place to be. I have spoken with many entrepreneurs that agree, once you work on a successful business that makes you enough money to survive (or more!) the prospect of leaving it for capped earning, a lack of control over your days and frankly, the inability to move freely (overseas, to a 4-hour hair appointment on a random tuesday, home for a nap) sounds like hell. Fuck asking permission.

It sort of feels like I’m on school holidays again with zero authority directing my life. Only not at all, because the pressure I put on myself to see this business succeed far outweighs the laziness and joy of time off. 

Take today, (a Saturday) for example. I woke in the middle of the night to see our team landed a great article with a UK publication that featured several of our clients, and immediately began planning how we could maximise this win. At 8am I opened my laptop to make a quick post then monitored it all morning to see how our audience responded. 

I love being overcome with motivation when I have a vested interest in the success of a project. It is an incredible, intoxicating feeling. The aspect that bothers me, is the fact that I don’t have that same capacity for every whim in my life. 

My friend read me a quote from Sylvia Plath’s the Bell Jar (which I haven’t read yet, sue me) yesterday morning when we grabbed a Macca’s coffee after the gym at 9.30am in a westfield food court (the fact that I have the ability to do this isn’t lost on me):

“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”

Right now I’m eating a big fat business fig, and it tastes fucking gooooood. But by doing so, I watch my ‘young and carefree’ fig lose its ripeness. I feel too full to taste my ‘creator’ fig. My appetite for writing and learning is fleeting, and it hurts my soul just a little. 

There are so many things I’d love to try if I had the energy/time/resources and right now, my focus is pulled in one strong direction – that I love just the same. 

What a delightful place to be.