Bear your soul
Bear your soul through your lens. Become vulnerable by showing your true self, the person you are scared to reveal. Try to stop carrying about what avatars think and say. Stop looking at an infinite feed of individual images that tell no story. Because when you start focusing on getting attention on these platforms you lose yourself, and you lose your creativity. Bear your soul and do it regardless if anyone is watching or not. Because if you need to think to create, I suggest you stop thinking.
I bet your not where you want to be in your creative craft. You're not where you want to be, because you're too busy comparing yourself to your peers. Your paying attention to them and giving them a voice instead. Alternatively, look inside yourself, and your creative soul, show it to the world. Don't get me wrong, attention is nice but it is the opposite of flow. It's the opposite of creativity. Focusing on getting attention is focus wasted, instead focus on what you are doing, not on what people think.
If your thinking about a camera or some type of equipment or course, I suggest you buy it. Buy that lens, get that camera, do that online or college course. Get everything that you think you need or have to do, go through those hardships and get in debt. Because the only way you're going to understand and learn that you didn't need it in the first place is to experience it. Going through pain, making your own mistakes instead of reading about it and taking in wise words is the only way you're going to learn. Don't hesitate with what you think you need or should do. Just do it, until you realise all you need was right there all along, just you.
Once you learn that material possessions or a degree, doesn't make you an instantly better photographer. I suggest instead simply showing yourself and who you really are. Minimalist, Maximalist, educated, self-taught, transparent, people person, hermit. If it works for you then it's not wrong. If makes you happy without suffering then it's the right path. Be honest with yourself, be true to yourself, be true to your soul. Stop looking around and seeing who's watching. Dance like no one is there, photograph like no one will see. Create just for you. Do what calls to you, and fuck the avatars that you will never meet. Their just 1's and 0's on-screen, they can only hurt your ego if you let them.
We all fear pain, disapproval, rejection. When we bear our soul, we put ourselves out to the world and in return open ourselves up to rejection, ridicule or acceptance and praise. It's a brave thing, that many people never do, and you are doing it every day by living your life as your true self. Express yourself, show your small corner of the world, who you are, how you see, regardless of feedback. Because the love of creativity is in the creation, not the praise from the aftermath. Put how you see the world out there and capture what little time we have in this life. Life is to short to always live in fear, fear of falling. Because the greatest fear is living a life where we never soar.
"What good are wings, without the courage to fly." - Atticus.