Torn Between Expression and Performance

Sunday Scaries: What's the thing that asks nothing of you but presence. Let's go to it this week.

Photo by Joshua Newton on Unsplash

I awoke a few mornings ago in a purgatorial haze, and I cried. I was midway through my journaling and it hit me, there was no stopping it. The twist is, the tears were a welcome relief.

Earlier this week I wrote a short story about a visceral memory I have from my childhood of the day my dad showed me a bag of the powder that he just bought. It was a pivotal and devastating moment then, and now when I recall it.

And writing that story was an incredibly beautiful experience. On several occasions while writing it I found myself choking up. Yes from the memory, but also from the realness of creating that art. I was caught off guard by the pride in my putting words to such a life altering moment, and I even got butterflies. Butterflies! From words that I just wrote. It was one of the best feelings I have had in a while, and the next day, when the tears of relief showed up, I had a realization:

I am torn between expression and performance.

I’ve spent the last two years creating content on TikTok - the vast majority of which is talking head material about healing and growth and relationships. The videos have garnered millions of views and some amazing comments and DMs of people sharing their stories. But lately creating my content has felt...off. There’s no pretty way of putting it, it’s felt like a chore. Performative.

My heart hasn’t been in it lately and that has shown in the analytics (devastatingly so, and it hurts a bit to be honest). But it makes sense. I’m at a point in my life where I am cultivating and gravitating towards real.

Real emotion, real connection, real creation.

And I’m finding myself being a touch repulsed by the process of having to feign the performance so that I get the most views - of having to craft the best hooks, of keeping people’s attention, of having a point or takeaway. It feels like by the time I finally post the polished video, it’s already died on the operating table.

And I can hear the voices out there reading this and exclaiming to me like an old pal lingering in my driveway, “just post what makes you excited, what interests you, who cares about all that other stuff?”

I hear you. And between you and me, that statement feels a bit platitude-ish at this point. See what I’m saying! Even worthy advice that I’d give to anyone in my same position isn’t immune from my current disconnection.

Later that same day, after the teary-eyed journal session, I posted a story on my Insta in which I stated that I was going to take a break from posting actual content for a while - one, maybe two weeks.

There was a noticeable weight that lifted almost immediately. I was able to focus on my photoshoot without having to find content angles. I was able to go dancing and hang out with friends next to a bonfire on the beach and be fully present (I still posted on my Insta stories because those have never been an issue, I have always enjoyed posting those). And after the most minuscule reflection, it’s painfully obvious now that that is what was missing. Presence. I felt it wholeheartedly while writing the short story, and I felt it on the dance floor.

Performing may get the paychecks, but expression brings me life.

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Here’s what I want you to think about this week.

There is something you do (or used to do) that asked nothing of you but your presence. No audience, no metric, no feigning. Maybe it’s still in your life and you’ve just stopped showing up for it fully. Maybe you buried it somewhere under the weight of being perceived.

Find it. Or remember it. And then go do it badly, brilliantly, privately, and without your phone.

Expression doesn’t need an audience to be real. If zero eyes saw it, you’d still feel just as whole.

That’s how you know it’s yours.

Stay present,
EP

PS - Feel free to share what that thing is to you in the comments. Mine are writing and photography!

Sunday Scaries is a weekly personal essay series published every Sunday evening at 8:15PM Central. Each piece is an honest look at something I’m working through or experiencing in real life and ends with a challenge for you to take into the week. The whole idea is to take that ever-familiar Sunday evening dread, and turn the energy back into ourselves with intent.
No self-help, no fluff. Just real, and something to do with it.