You might have a friend who for the last twenty years has not joined Facebook or any other social media platform and has never paid for any website subscription. It is hard to believe and not to be jealous at the same time thinking that for the last twenty years they have been solely focusing on their own life and on their life only? How rare is that personality type and a lifestyle choice these days? And what is gained and what is lost through establishing such a strong boundary with the world that truth be told does not know us that well. Can you guess?

Many of us who are present in an online sphere are counting their losses while gaining a thorough understanding of how our content was used for training AI editing apps or propped other people’s online courses. ‘Someone else has earned because of what you are putting for free’ is the most common sentence I have been coming across online recently. It is not encouraging. It is cautionary, threatening or informative depending who reads it and with what convictions.

I have been always thinking that ‘global betterment’ is one of my core values and I saw online writing as a way of enacting that value in the public space but in all honesty I am not sure if others saw it as a valid output. People are almost more likely to dismiss a blog as a valid creative task, one that my MA in Translation Studies was embracing as totally legitimate, binding and authentic academic task. Gone are those days, I guess, when people were admired for writing and translating a blog post when automatic code can do it for them now.

As the world is changing, many online writers and creators consider alternative careers. We are looking for spaces and places that we might belong to but should we? Is this not a form of pressure to belong somewhere and not to belong elsewhere? Is it not pressure not to call yourself an online writer just because someone in your circle decides not to be one?

If you ever experience a death of a loved one, you would notice how quickly their possessions are cleared from sight if the family does not suffer from acute grief or is not committed to keeping generational memories. I looked at my notebooks filled with illustrations, folders on the computer filled with photos, poetry and creative writing pieces written on scraps of paper. My family would not know what to do with them. If I died, in fact, they would most likely scrap, delete, throw things away, at best they would leave things for my children to look at when they grow up. Any additional expectations on my part would be unrealistic of course as much as it is sad. The responsibility to do something with our creative outputs stays on us just as ordering our clothes is. If we give it to our friends to approve our creative lives, it may never happen simply because of human nature. People have a tendency to dismiss everything that they do not participate in. They will often diminish that book that you are reading in some way and call all your toys trash to make space for their favourite toys. If we always give in to other people’s perspectives then oh well… I guess we’ll be well-equipped to write a different sort of a book to the one that we originally intended, i.e. one entitled: ‘How to slowly and surely disappear behind others?’. These types of books are bitter in tone, as you might expect but I also think that perhaps they indicate a lack of support in self-preservation. What is it that you would answer if a kind and loving person would ask you: ‘What is it that you need to do in order to feel that you are not losing yourself?’ Good question to answer over a few pages.

Our lives and creative outputs are linked to global betterment if and when they are linked to global betterment. That said, it is sometimes assumed in therapeutic circles that healing one member of a family can heal the whole family system. Would then focusing just on one’s life be sufficient for the world and its betterment?

If you are a fan of therapies, (I think I am), you would certainly notice the impact they’ve had on your life and your family system starting from those simple interventions with a reflexologist for example that just knew how to put you in order. I remember I went to see this lady once, I was actually literally dragging my feet to her practice and then I left her place feeling so light… almost dancing. This had a very tangible effect on my health and wellbeing. At the time I really needed to listen to my instinct and to acknowledge my body’s needs. I am glad I went to see her. It made me mobile, just what the little ones required from me at the time. I learnt about this practitioner from my mum. Surprising how valid a source of information mums can be? Other times, I came across people online. Just as many of you might have too in the past.

To do things or not to do them. To be something or not to be someone. There is a lot of pressure surrounding those themes and topics to the point that many children and adults suffer from annihilation anxiety when their opinions or interests differ from their peer group. Maybe you would consider me mad but recently I have started giving my son a piece of advice. He wants to be liked. Just as everyone else does when they are teenagers and he gets into trouble at times because he misunderstands the situation. There is a song by James Bay entitled ‘Peer pressure’. It helps the listeners realise that indeed at times we are giving in to the peer pressure and maybe that is not the way to go..:

I am 42 years old now and I have been quite late to advise my son to: ‘Just be sensible. Ultimately, everyone likes sensible people.’ This does not make him boring but it makes him reliable and once the rush to silliness is over, people like to come back to the sensible ones.’ You are surprised that I am writing this, I bet. Too many people say different things to their children and different things to their friends and the public. In my opinion, it is one of the reason why the society dismantles. Why wouldn’t we give kind or wise words to other people or to our friends when we are so good at giving them to our children? Can you see how the social rupture emerges?

Text: Alicja Pyszka-Franceschini, 13.11. 2026