Writing For Myself.

About Me

Anthony Osuna-Jones. San Diego raised, UCLA livin'. <3 ETN Oct. 10 2010.
I love writing, it's the only place where I am undoubtably free.

Blogs I follow:

1. The Younger Me

   Remember being young and imagining how cool the older you would be? How in control of his life he’d be. How smart and successful he’d be. How perfect he’d be. I’d imagine and smile through the pride that I would take of how I’d imagine myself. I couldn’t wait to grow up.

   Recently, I’ve been thinking, asking myself the same questions, “What would the younger me think of the present day me?” Would he be as proud as I was when I was younger? Have my expectations lived up to my reality? I’m proud of myself today, but would I be proud of myself, yesterday? Am I who I thought I’d be?

   This is not an essay on how successful I have been, how cool I have become, or about how awesome I feel. I am not an insecure teenage girl who seeks closure through others refuting my self-conscious putdowns. I am not looking for closure - although I doubt that there ever could be any. I just want to understand the Anthony that I feel like today, through the eyes of the innocent wide-eyed premature Anthony. How has my perspective changed?

   Today, I am happy. I feel comfortable. I have, sometimes too much, confidence.

   Most would be satisfied with simply checking these off of their lists, although I’m not quite sold. I am uneasy with the notion that I might not be sincere about these feelings, or the ways in which I have achieved such feelings. If I am not sincere with myself, I am not sincerely satisfying my younger self. If I’m not sincere with myself, the younger self would know.

   Would the younger self want me to be humble or subtly cocky? Would he want me to have a bigger passion toward other’s or emphasize the self? Passive or aggressive? Listener or attention whore?

   I fear most that the younger self would judge my feelings more than my actions, appearance, or accomplishments. I care too much about other’s thinking highly of me, that I fear that I might care too little about who I really want to be. I’m not saying that I completely care more about other’s opinions than my own, I’m just saying that I fear it.

   I feel cool, but I am not. I feel cool because of my peers, not because of myself. I feel in control of my life, but I’m not. I still have so much uncertainty in front of me. I feel smart, but not within myself, just amongst my peers. I feel successful, but I have so much more potential and will never truly be a success. I am not perfect, and I’m sure that my younger self understands that. But am I true to myself? Am I making myself proud? Now that, that is the true question. A question that will probably never be answered.

2. Tumblr and I Have History

   I first created my Tumblr after Fall Rally of 2009. The idea of blogging out my thoughts has always appealed to me, although that’s not what pulled me toward the site. Truthfully, I only made a Tumblr because it was what all of the cool and cute girls from Vegas were all crazing about. “Follow me on Tumblr!” I would hear, and soon enough, it became what I was crazing about. Upon creation, I had the impression that I was going to blog out my entire life. Every adventure, picture, conversation, day, and moment would be recorded on this “blog” that would allow me to reflect on how amazing - and sometimes dramatically depressing - my life was. A place to vent without consequence. A place to talk indirectly to direct people as if they weren’t going to read it - despite my undeniable understanding that they would. A place to write as if my words were purely for the sake of expression.

   I, briefly but surely, was fortunate to be enslaved by what Tumblr coined “tumblarity” - a formulaic indicator that would attempt to express how popular I was in the Tumblr world. The higher your Tumblarity, the more popular you were. Raising your tumblarity was simple: gain as many followers, and “likes” and reblogs on a post as possible. The more time you spent finding random people to follow (hoping that they would follow you back), or posting something unoriginal that was sure to be reblogged and liked, the “cooler” you were. Tumblrarity was no joke, and Tumblr made sure that you knew how insignifiant you were to the Tumblr world by ranking your blog to the entire Tumblr community. The less you blogged and spent time doing real things, making real memories, and having actual interaction with real people, the more your ranking fell. Tumblr had us all hooked.

   We were not hooked to blogging, we were (and many of us are still) addicted to Tumblr.  I was not seeing posts from friends, I was looking at people that I followed. I was not posting things sincerely, I posted because I had to. I was not writing, I was Tumblring.

   Although Tumblarity would disappear soon after, the effect was irreversible. I began to understand that I was still blogging for the wrong reasons. I wanted to write freely, but I was never so enslaved. I wanted “likes,” but more importantly, I wanted to be liked. I felt disappointed in myself. I was spending more time searching for artificialness while dismissing the quality of the truth in front of me. I thought too highly of myself, because I wanted others to think highly of me. I self-pitied in the dungeon, because I wanted others to feel bad for me. I desired being loved by others more than I desired loving myself. 

   I am still disgusted at the guy that I used to be. I haven’t actively tumblr’d in almost a year, because I am not satisfied with what Tumblr forces writers to do. The site is interesting to browse through, dont get me wrong. I enjoy my time breezing through the humor, quotes, and cliches - it is a form of entertainment. Though, that is exactly what Tumblr is - entertainment. There is nothing wrong with using Tumblr for that purpose. Although, Tumblr is not a place for the writer. It is not a place for me. I will not Tumblr, I will write. I deserve that much from myself.