I’m a writer who doesn’t write. Which is a funny thing to write, but enough is enough.

Despite the fact that my CV has had held the title ‘Content Writer’ for the past seven years, I do not spend nearly as much time doing the one passion I’ve held my entire life as you’d think.

Even though all of my working hours are dedicated to so-called ‘writing’, the actual act of using my brain to conjure up words, stories and, hell, even full sentences, is dwindling by the day.

As an online content writer, AI is now a large part of my job. Whatever you think about that, you’re probably right, but that’s just how things are. What’s more important right now is what I feel about it, and I discovered the other day that I miss being an active participant in my job, and by extension my life.

I am very grateful for my job and my current life, but it’s taken me far too long to realise how passive it all is. Whether I’m generating meta titles for a company website or repeating the same conversations with my friends, everything is just moving forward in a slow, painstakingly familiar pace.

Even though I was hired as a writer, and being a writer is the one thing I have been confident in for the majority of my life, I found myself full of anxiety earlier this week because some tasks required more of me; they were a more active role, that required actually turning on my brain and putting my fingers to use on the keyboard, as opposed to pressing the optomise button and a few backstrokes, which is my current everyday.

And if that isn’t tragic enough, the fact that a professional writer doesn’t actually write much these days, I rarely spend my free time using my brain either. As a kid, I would spend hours poring over books, journals and short stories. Sure, other hobbies took up my time along with the everyday requirements of a working-class teacher’s pet, but the one constant in my life from the age of nine has been words. That is an active role in creating, using and understanding words.

When I look at my life, I am torn between feeling immense gratitude for what I’ve achieved (the degree, the house, the partner, the writing gig and the calm life I’ve created for myself) and some kind of panic. What am I doing? Where is time going? What the fuck is wrong with me?

Passivity has its place, and I understand why so many of us rely on simply cruising through our days right now – I mean, hello, have you seen what’s going on right outside of our windows? It’s been the way of humans for as long as a comfortable life was invented. But there has to be a point when you pull the emergency stop button and actually look at what’s happening. Not necessarily at the wider world, because I don’t think I’d ever get started again if I took all of that in, but what’s happening on a microlevel; what’s going on in your world and how you actually feel about it.

This means looking not at what I should feel or what I need to get done, but what’s really going on within me.

And, man, it’s fucking shit to realise you’re a little disappointed in yourself or that something is missing. To discover that despite all of that work and with all of your effort, it isn’t enough.

To find that actually, there’s no bloody meaning. Not like what you thought they’d be anyway.

And this is not to say that my life is drab and empty, because it certainly isn’t, and I couldn’t be more grateful for that. While I have similar struggles to many other people my age, I am lucky enough to have some amazing relationships, genuine connections with human beings, and an idea of what my purpose is. But even with all of that, I’m still somewhat of a loser because I’m not playing an active role in this.

It’s so much easier to put things off; to keep scrolling; to plan out but never follow through. It’s fun to daydream and imagine what would happen if that thing came true, if I said that thing or met that person. It’s what I’ve done my whole life – but I’m 30 now, so when is it actually going to happen?

I do have somewhat of a head start here, because I like my life and I have things to be doing, but I don’t think that necessarily changes the wider issue – this so-called loser epidemic that millennials and Gen Zs in particular are dealing with.

Like the rest of us, I still need to get moving, to stop wasting my life, to become an active fucking human again.

I kid you not, as I have been writing this, my partner, who has no idea what I’m doing, has just said, ‘life is life, you might as well live it.’ That is one of his favourite sayings, a way to calm us down when things feel unruly, or we don’t know what we’re doing, but he’s just casually added that little extra line ‘you might as well live it’ as he handed me a parcel, and it couldn’t be more apt. He doesn’t even know what kind of impact that has on me or how relevant to this post that saying is, but what a fun way to demonstrate the timing of the universe, amirite?

Because what is living it exactly? I think that looks different for all of us. For some of us, it doesn’t have to mean more than going to work and paying the bills, but for the rest of us – for the majority of us, I’d say – there’s more to it. And that doesn’t mean something majorly dramatic or that you need a complete life change to achieve it; I think it just means a bit more brain activity.

I was inspired to write this post while watching this incredible video essay by Casey Simpson regarding the Loser Confessional. The fact that so many of us feel like we’re aimless, just waiting for something to happen and feeling life pass us by, is devastating but somewhat reassuring. It shows that it’s not just me wasting my precious time, but also, what the fuck are we all doing? What are we waiting for?

I don’t really have a cohesive way to end this post, nothing inspirational or motivational to move it along like I usually do. I can’t even make myself any promises or come up with ways to change because I’m still figuring it out. I just know there has to be more to it than this, and writing is just one of the ways I, personally, can reach that. My writing doesn’t have to be brilliant; it doesn’t have to reach anyone; it just has to happen.

I have so many drafts on this website and so many lists saved on my phone of things I want to explore and write about, but something is always holding me back. And that is making my life pass me by without any meaning or participation, which is tragic to say the least.

Writing isn’t the answer for everyone. It’s not even the full answer for me, but it is a way for me to play an active role in my job and wider life, which is a good start. For you, it could be a similar hobby or interest; or it could just mean more awareness.

I don’t know, man. But I do know that things can’t carry on like this.

Speak soon,

Rachael.

Photo by zhang kaiyv on Unsplash