Many (many) weeks ago, I wrote a post titled “Migraine’s Secret Sauce” and concluded by complaining about how many people on social media were calling themselves “content creators”. As I saw it, the world was already full of content, AI could make content, no one had time to read so much content, and what we really needed was something other than more content to help us heal and be happy… At the very end of the post, I declared that I did NOT want to be a content creator, and I would aim instead to be a kindness creator, or a community creator, or some other word that started with the “ck” sound.
Since then, my soap-box has developed a wobble…
Recently, I realized words can have two meanings. “Invalid”, for example, can mean a “sick person” or imply that something is “null and void” – one interpretation feels like an affirmation of my life with chronic migraine, the other sounds like an insult.
Not long after, it occurred to me – the word “content” ALSO has two meanings.
There is the content I originally wrote about: all the material that fills something up, the text, images, and ideas… just as a box can be filled up with contents, so too a blog is filled with content.
BUT the other meaning of the word content, is to be at peace, to be restful, comfortable – satisfied.
AH NOW – that changes everything!
If I was to be a “content creator” of the second sort, well then, I would be someone who was aiding readers find ways to be more at ease within their environment… and within themselves… my blogposts would become a conduit to potential rest and relaxation…
I believe my migraine slipped from occasional to chronic (almost constant) as a result of my nervous system shifting from rest-and-digest (where it ought to be most of the time) and sliding instead into fight-and-flight mode (which is designed to be used only for short bursts in an emergency).
Want to guess which version of my vagus nerve “comfortable-content” would reside in?
Rest-and-digest-repair-restore… also known as the realm of relaxation!
When I was younger, I used to imagine that it was a sign of personal integrity to take a stand, to be bold and brave and defend your position no matter what… these days I see this sort of behavior as being closer to stubbornness than superiority. The more we read, the more we learn, the more we realize we don’t know everything… can’t know everything… and the more it seems inevitable that we will change our minds… and in some circumstances, it is a sign of open-minded growth that we SHOULD change our minds.
That’s not to say I want to be a weathervane, and spin willy-nilly this-way-that with all the prevailing trends, fads and fashions… but I am big enough to stand corrected.
I was wrong to not want to be a content creator – because instead of a (material-)content creator I DREAM of being a (comfort-)content creator… generating comfort for me and for you!
Take care taking care, comfortably, Linda x
The Mindful Migraine 
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