The game I couldn’t play

Today I installed 007 First Light, a game I was crazy about and had been waiting a very long time to play. As soon as it finished installing, I opened it. And then I lost all the heart to play. All the courage, even.

A bad feeling settled into my chest. I should be more productive. I am wasting my time. What if I spend my entire life doing this?

That made me realize how hard I have been pushing myself lately. Last year I was not satisfied with my output, or with how I had progressed professionally. And a thought just took me over.

What if I just did whatever I wanted?

What if I spent my entire life doing whatever I want? My entire life, without feeling guilty, stressed, overwhelmed or anxious about it.

We have been taught, and mostly it’s true, that to win, you have to fight your feelings. You should strive to override them, go against the grain, live for the future. It will serve you right. But what if that is not true?

When going against the grain feels like time wasted

Because sometimes going against the grain feels like time wasted, heart wasted. Like today. It feels like what I have been doing all this time is not right in some way. When I try to be productive and disciplined, it just does not feel right, damn it.

Yes, I can win projects. I can earn more money and secure a promising future for myself. But it is costing me my now, and sometimes that feels like such an unfair deal. Sometimes it all feels like a blur. Why did I start all this, the content part, in the first place?

When the thing you love turns into work

It’s a long story, but precisely, I started creating content for myself. I wanted to make videos and post them on YouTube. Then I thought it would be a good idea to pursue my passion for creating content professionally. It would be such a dream, right? I’m not sure about it now.

I love creating content. I really do. That is why I’m writing this piece. But it has all become work, performative, like bondage. Something I love and hate almost simultaneously. Now I have the curse of following my dreams too.

And I have huge dreams. I want to live at least once in the USA (New York City, to be precise), Japan, England and Germany. I love India, but I want to live in all of these places. I want a really big mansion with a big rooftop and a garden where I can barbecue. I’m not sure what I would do with such a big mansion, but I want it. I want lots and lots of money. I’m not sure how much, because of this damn inflation, but a lot.

Most of all, I want peace. I want to live every year, every month, every day, every hour, every minute, every second, every goddamn millisecond, happy and at ease, with the maximum feeling of safety and security and...

Two identities, and a third one trying to make sense of them

It’s like I want to live both a mediocre and an exceptional life at the same time. I have two identities going in completely opposite directions, eating each other up, and a third one trying to bring them together, to make sense of both, and failing miserably.

So, I am a high achiever. I find meaning and happiness when I create something impactful, something really, really good. Most of the time, though, I am unhappy doing the same old repetitive tasks. They are important, but I have perfected them and don’t want to repeat them anymore. Yet they are what actually produce results for the brands and companies I work with. I don’t like them, but I do them because I know they matter, maybe even more than the exceptional, creative, crazy stuff. So I have to do them.

What I figured out while writing this

After writing this piece, I have come to a conclusion, quite naturally: maybe I have to live with it. I have figured out that I am made to live the life of a creator, a producer. That’s what I am. I love creating, and as long as I am creating, I will be happy. I have to integrate that somehow with the boring parts, find meaning in creating things, and move forward.

I’m not sure whether that’s the answer, because I only reached it while writing. But otherwise, it is a very bad feeling to live with.

The short answer: content marketing is not harder to do. It is harder to stand out. Anyone can now publish a clean article in a few minutes, so publishing is no longer the advantage. Having something worth reading is.

I came across this question in a discussion and read a lot of the replies. Most were good. But I think the real conversation sits underneath them: the old rules stopped working, and many of us are still playing the old game.

Why does everyone publishing make content harder to stand out?

Creating content has become ridiculously easy. You can ask ChatGPT for an article, ten LinkedIn posts, a content calendar and a script, and get all of it before your tea cools down. A few years ago that was hours of work, sometimes days.

That is great. I am not here to complain about technology making life easier. But when something becomes easy for everyone, it stops being a competitive advantage.

Earlier, a decent article took real effort. You researched, understood the subject, put your thoughts together, wrote it and edited it. Not everyone was willing to do that, and that effort kept the crowd small. Now almost anyone can produce a polished article in minutes, so the internet is flooding. When everyone can publish, publishing is no longer impressive.

The ability to create content is not the advantage anymore. The ability to create something worth consuming is.

Is generic content still worth publishing?

Mostly, no. I mean the generic informational kind: "What is content marketing?", "10 ways to improve your marketing", "Everything you need to know about SEO". Nothing is wrong with those topics. The problem is simple. If someone can ask an AI the same question and get a decent answer in seconds, why would they spend five minutes on your article that says the same thing?

This is not only an AI problem. Search is changing too. You often get an answer right on the results page, and Google now has AI Overviews and AI Mode that answer questions directly. A person may never visit your website.

So you can do everything right by the old rules and still not get the traffic you expected. People have more ways to get information now, and they do not always need your page to get it.

What should you publish instead?

Publish something that does not already exist everywhere. AI can write about almost any subject. But there is a big difference between writing about something and having lived it.

Say you run a marketing agency. "10 Reasons Your Marketing Campaigns Are Failing" can be written by AI, and by thousands of people. The hundredth version is boring. Now imagine a post like this one: "We spent ₹2 lakh on a campaign, got 400 leads, and almost none converted. Here is why." (That is an example of the kind of post I mean, not a result of mine.) It is a different thing, because real decisions, mistakes, numbers and lessons sit behind it.

A company could do the same with data. "We looked at 200 customer accounts and noticed that customers who did X were far more likely to do Y." It is interesting because it did not exist until someone did the work.

So give your content something of its own: your research, your data, your experience, your observations, your mistakes, your way of looking at things. It does not have to be groundbreaking. You do not need a research team or a big budget. A small observation from your real work can be worth more than a 3,000 word article that explains what everyone already knows.

The question to ask is: what am I bringing to this conversation that was not already there?

Why does having a point of view matter more now?

A lot of content today is so balanced, so safe and so carefully worded that it says nothing. It gives you five perspectives, tells you it all depends, lists every consideration, and ends with "choose what works best for you."

Okay. But what do you think? What have you actually seen? What do you disagree with? What would you do differently?

Presenting information and having a perspective are not the same. Information is everywhere. Judgement is rare. Looking at a situation, understanding the context, spotting what matters and reaching a conclusion is a skill, and generating one more piece of content does not replace it.

You do not need to be controversial to get attention. But you should have a point of view. Otherwise, why should someone read you instead of the next ten posts that say the same thing?

Is storytelling enough?

Storytelling matters, and I agree it helps content stand out. But it is not enough on its own. Storytelling can also become a formula. You can give an AI a problem, a conflict, a change and a conclusion, and it will write a decent story.

If nothing meaningful sits underneath, you have a nicely told story that teaches nothing, makes nobody think, and offers nothing useful. A story can make information more interesting, easier to understand and easier to remember. But there has to be something worth remembering first.

So do not use a story to decorate empty information. Use it to carry something that deserves attention.

Do people trust people more than brands?

Often, yes. Would you rather read a generic article from a company blog, or hear from someone who has worked in that industry for ten years, made mistakes, handled hard situations and has real opinions about what works?

Most people pick the second. That is one reason personal branding became so important. People want to know who is talking and what experience sits behind the opinion.

This does not mean every company must turn its CEO into an influencer. But it should find ways to bring its people into the conversation. Your founder has experiences. So do your team and your customers. Why hide all of that behind generic brand language? Often the most valuable content a company can publish is already sitting inside the company.

Does distribution matter as much as content?

Yes, and many people forget it. We spend so long on what to create that we forget how people will find it. For years the plan was to publish articles, optimize them for search and wait. SEO still matters, but depending only on search traffic is getting riskier.

You cannot publish something and just hope. Give people a way to come back to you: a newsletter, a community, your LinkedIn, a YouTube channel, a podcast. Somewhere people follow you because they want to hear from you.

Compare the two. A stranger lands on your blog because of a random search. Or someone follows your work, knows your view and wants whatever you publish next. The second relationship is worth much more, because you stop starting from zero every time you publish.

So do not just build a content library. Build an audience.

Where does AI fit in?

I am not against AI. I use it for research, brainstorming, organizing my thoughts, editing, outlines and repurposing content. It saves a lot of time and I think we should use it.

But AI can help you produce content. It cannot tell you what deserves to be produced. It can help you structure an argument, but do you have an argument? It can help you write a story, but do you have an experience worth telling? It can help you research, but do you have an insight beyond what is already published? It can give you ten creative directions, but can you tell which one is worth pursuing?

That is where human judgement comes in, and the more we use AI, the more it matters. Producing is getting cheaper. Knowing what to produce, why, and whether it is good enough to deserve someone’s attention is still hard.

So, is content marketing getting harder?

It is getting harder to stand out, harder to get attention, harder to get traffic the old way, and definitely harder to justify generic content. But creating valuable content has not become harder in the same way. I think there is a real opportunity here.

When the internet fills with average content, good content is easier to spot. When everyone can write a polished article, real experience becomes more valuable. When everyone can generate an opinion, a well informed point of view matters more. When everyone can publish daily, knowing when not to publish becomes an advantage. And when everyone is chasing attention, trust matters even more.

So maybe we should stop asking how to make more content, and start asking better questions.

Content marketing is not heading toward more content. It is heading toward content that has a reason to exist. If you are publishing only to fill a content calendar, it may be time to rethink the whole plan.