I wrote the first version of “Loki’s Laughing” during the height of COVID shutdowns. It lay there, incomplete and in rough recorded journal form (page turns and all) for three years before I pulled it out to really look at it again – which is kind of a funny story all on its own. I had been chatting with a friend about how paralyzed I felt, creatively. So paralyzed, in fact, that my song about creative paralysis was stuck in limbo. She wanted to hear it, so I uploaded it to SoundCloud for ease of sharing… and then 300-odd people wound up listening to my unfinished, unpolished journal entry within 48 hours, which was both thrilling and horrifying.

Thinking about the song again got me thinking about the feelings behind it.

From the time I was about 13 years old (when I started learning to play my dad’s old 12-string guitar) until I was 36 or so, I was an active artist. I played shows and open mics (in a few countries), I entered (and sometimes won) contests of visual art and poetry, and all my free time that wasn’t spent hiking or biking involved the creation and performance of art in some form.

But right around the time I turned 36 – so, just a little under 10 years ago from the time of this writing – I stopped creating. Altogether. I just shut down.

It was as if this horrific Paralyzing Spirit of Perfectionism took over and hollowed me out. Suddenly, after decades of creating freely, I just couldn’t. I was consumed by the fear that I would somehow create something that would trigger a cascade of online vitriol. And my fear of trolls absolutely invaded my skull. Imaginary bullies followed me into my living room. Before I even sat down with the piano or began to daydream about a story, legions of imaginary bullies were screaming at me. It was ridiculous.

What happened when I turned 36 was that I got my first smartphone.

And what had completely paralyzed me was my very first observations of the comments section on social media like YouTube and, well, the whole of Twitter.

I was tying myself in knots because I was terrified that some bored jerk on Twitter (or Tik Tok or whatever) was going to – what? Be mean to me? I spent my childhood being teased on the playground. I’ve been told I was a weirdo all my life. What’s new? What was so scary about it happening on the Internet that I was suddenly a committed devotee of rotting in unremitting, barren paralysis?

I think it’s because the Internet was suddenly in my pocket. Or bag. Or on the table next to me. I think it’s because the potential for bullying felt like it was omnipresent. Inescapable.

Social media can be a tool, if we approach it as one facet of a rich and truly multifaceted life. If the vast majority of our time is spent outdoors in the sunshine (or rain or wind or snow), or with people, plants, and animals in the actual meatspace of embodied life, if we devote ourselves to working with our hands and reading books (with pages that we can turn) and writing with a pencil and paper – if we re-inhabit our bodies – and occasionally check in on Instagram… I think, maybe, that the Internet might be a cool way to connect.

But if it takes over our skulls, if it masters us… naw. Fuck it.

Throw it away.

We can do better.

We used to share printed zines and have pirate radio shows. We used to write paper letters and meet up in libraries and coffee shops and parks. We used to ride our fucking bikes around the godsdamned neighborhood.

And ya know, that was actually pretty fucking cool.

Well anyway, here’s a video I made to go along with a song I made (with my brother). A stridently imperfect song about being creatively paralyzed and how ridiculous that really is.

Because we’re all gonna die. And the bullies are just as scared of the vast, open question that is the end of life as anyone. So fuck it. Might as well create something now.