I’ve noticed that creating something and sharing it are two completely different activities.
The writing itself feels straightforward now.
It’s the moment before I press publish that seems to carry the weight.
For a long time, I assumed that hesitation meant I lacked confidence in what I’d made.
I’m not sure that’s true anymore.
I think I was managing something else.
Not the work.
Its meaning.
Somewhere between finishing a piece and sharing it, I would start thinking less about what I’d written and more about what posting it might say about me.
It might look self-important.
Like I was trying too hard.
Like I wanted attention.
The work hadn’t changed.
Only the possible interpretations of it.
When I first started using Instagram and TikTok, it was mostly somewhere to keep my workouts.
Later it became somewhere to document building a gym.
Now it’s where I share essays from Unwritten Rules.
The content has changed.
The management hasn’t.
Every version has carried the same quiet awareness that posting something publicly invites interpretation.
People don’t only respond to what you’ve made.
They also respond to the act of making it.
If I’m honest, I do want people to connect with the work.
I’d like someone to read an essay and recognise a feeling they’d never quite managed to put into words.
I’d like an observation to arrive somewhere other than my own notebook.
I don’t think that’s the same as wanting attention.
Attention is being noticed.
Recognition is the feeling that something arrived.
That someone understood what you were trying to communicate, even if they didn’t agree with it.
The longer I’ve worked on Unwritten Rules, the more those two things have separated.
A post can receive attention without creating recognition.
It can also create recognition quietly, in ways numbers never really capture.
Perhaps that’s why I find myself caring less about engagement than I once did, while still noticing when something doesn’t seem to reach anyone.
Not because I need everyone to see it.
Because I hoped it might meet someone.
Maybe that’s the part I’d misunderstood for a long time.
I wasn’t managing whether to share the work.
I was managing what sharing the work might allow other people to believe about me.
There’s a difference.
One is about expression.
The other is about anticipated interpretation.
I don’t think what unsettles me is the possibility that someone might think I’m looking for attention.
It’s the possibility that they misunderstand why I made the work in the first place.
Perhaps that’s another way of describing the difference between attention and recognition.