the internet as a creative practice

 
 

this is part of my series on world-building.

I want to suggest a different way of being on the internet — in which, instead of using it (or being used by it) as a tool of the consumption-attention economy; a means to an end result; an ethos of more (more views, more likes, more followers, more audience, more growth, more customers) — being on the internet becomes an end; a creative act in itself.

Rather than constantly consuming, or allowing ourselves to be consumed, we focus our attention, fullheartedly, to creating. Rather than performing our lives and businesses in pursuit of an end goal, we live the internet as a way of being — as an expression of our creative process and practice, made public.

For me, this kind of freedom in process can ONLY truly happen outside of social media platforms — because to be plugged into the system is to sell your autonomy in exchange for “ease of connection” with an existing network. I won’t go into the problems and fallacies of it, here — except to say that you cannot truly embody a creative practice in an environment that exploits attention for profit, where you’re pushed to measure your “success” according to metrics of validation. This system encourages that the creative act, not be embodied and lived, but performed and pantomimed.

The internet as a creative practice — like all creative practices — is therefore something you must do on your own. You could go to a writing retreat, attend a pottery class, go to a dance event, sign up for theatre class — in search of community and support, but at the end of the day, the creative act must happen as a process of metamorphosis in and through your body-psyche.

The creative act is about inhabiting: embodying your inspiration, and transmitting it into creative body-form. Therefore, the internet, too, must become your creative body — into which you pour your inspirations, dreams, ideas, and whispers. It needs to be a space where you don’t measure your success by the metrics of more likes, more traffic — but by how deeply and truly you inhabit your own creative essence, in public.

How, you ask? The simple answer is: build a website. Create your work, and in a parallel process, share it on your website. Then, over time, allow your website to grow into a digital world.

The internet as a creative practice is to do your art — in public, in a space you own — and to treat this act of sharing as deeply intertwined with your creative process (not as an afterthought, or a dreaded to-do). It is to treat the act of sharing — as deeply creative; an act of giving and offering of possibilities to yourself, and thus, to the world.

It is to allow yourself extreme visibility, intimacy, and seclusion — all at the same time, and to keep doing it — no matter if thousands of people see it, or zero.

The internet as a creative practice must exist for the sake of itself. This is the only way you’ll find the motivation to do it everyday. It starts with the belief — that this practice of creating and sharing, of giving unconditionally to the nebulous universal—consciousness of the world, and to the intimacy of your own digital home, can become deeply nourishing, life-giving, and soul-sustaining.

 
 
philosophyKening Zhuinternet philosophy, world-building