Screaming into the void. How to build in obscurity

What no one tells you about early stage growth

Everyone wants attention. But the ones who last are the ones who learn to create without it.

When I published my first YouTube video, I was terrified of judgement. I hovered over the publish button like it might detonate something. I was so worried that someone I knew might find it, watch it, and ridicule me for it. But when I finally pressed publish, nothing happened. There was no backlash or ridicule just silence. No one found my video. That first upload got 2 views in the first 48 hours. It was such a relief. I felt like I could finally exhale.

For a brief moment, creating without consequence felt liberating. The numbers didn’t matter yet. What mattered was that I’d crossed some invisible threshold and I’d actually done it. But relief has a short half-life.

By the fifth upload, the silence began to feel judgemental, and by the tenth, it felt personal. As if the world had seen me, shrugged and moved on. I wasn’t afraid anymore. I was disoriented. The absence of feedback began to echo inward and I started to mistake being unseen for being irrelevant.

That psychological complex mix of hope, doubt, invisibility and despair is what no one talks about. It’s not just that no one is watching. It’s that the not watching starts to shape how you create, before your voice has even had a chance to mature.

That’s what this letter is about. If you’ve ever felt disheartened by the silence, like you’re doing everything right but still being ignored, this letter will reframe that experience.

We’ll look at why obscurity hurts so much, why it’s actually one of your greatest assets, and how to use this phase to develop clarity, resonance, and creative identity, so that when growth does come, you’re ready for it.

We are going to talk about gaining real clarity and what that costs in the next letter but for now we must understand the psychology behind your need to be seen.

1. The Pain of Obscurity

There’s a particular ache that comes from obscurity. We are quick to tell ourselves stories about why no one cares. When you pour something of yourself into the world and it is seemingly ignored it hurts. This is often confused with narcism but it’s actually simple biology and the worst thing you can do is try to tell yourself to stop worrying about it.

We are wired, evolutionarily, to need recognition. Our nervous systems are built to recognise social validation and to light up when someone notices us. It’s what kept us alive in the tribe. It’s what made us aware about which kind of behaviours and actions make us belong and which will get us ostracised from the group.

So when your work goes unseen, it doesn’t just feel like a small inconvenience. It feels existential and when you’re in that place emotionally you will do anything to get out of it. This is the silent reckoning of early-stage growth:

Not just that no one is watching but that the not watching begins to shape your voice before it’s had time to mature.

Some people go quiet here. Others overcorrect. They chase trends. Mimic the voices that seem to work. Try to reverse-engineer visibility as if it were a formula instead of a frequency. But all of this stems from the same invisible wound, the need to be heard before you know who’s listening.

If you can stay in it. If you can hold the silence without turning on yourself something strange starts to happen. You begin to hear yourself. Your real self. The one not performing or self-censoring for likes.

We’ll get into the practical steps in just a minutes but first, we need to reframe the silence. I really want you to see it not as punishment but more as permission.

2. Why Obscurity is an Asset

Most people treat obscurity like a purgatory. They see it as something to suffer through until the algorithm finally notices them. But that thinking is backwards.

When no one’s watching, nothing is expected of you. You’re not being shaped by audience demand. You’re not beholden to a brand. You’re free to experiment, to misfire, to figure out who you are without the pressure to be consistent, coherent, or marketable.

This is the part no one tells you: visibility too early will stunt your voice. It forces you to perform before you’ve had time to understand what you actually want to say. It’s not beginners’ hell. It’s creative immunity training, and the stronger you build here, the less likely you are to abandon yourself when growth finally arrives.

3. What Not to Do (Beginner Pitfalls)

There’s a moment, usually around month two or three, when the silence starts to force you to question yourself. You’ve been showing up, posting, writing, sharing. You’ve done what they said: “Be consistent.” But nothing’s changing. Your work floats across the digital void and vanishes without reply. No likes or comments and no signal that you’re on the right track.

So you start grasping and this is where most people fall into survival tactics disguised as strategy.

You drop your Substack link into comment sections hoping someone, anyone, might click. You follow and unfollow people to trigger attention. You DM strangers with “check out my work” messages. You post more, faster, louder, thinking volume might make up for clarity.

None of these are real strategies. They’re emotional responses. Desperate attempts to escape the discomfort of being unseen. And ironically, these tactics push away the very people you hope to attract. They smell the desperation. They feel the grasping. They don’t trust it. Because true resonance can’t be engineered it must be embodied.

The problem isn’t that no one’s reading. The problem is you’re trying to be found before you’ve figured out what you’re offering and why it matters.

When you don’t know who you are, growth only multiplies the confusion. You end up curating a persona that might get some attention but your not building a voice that creates connection.

So here’s the hard truth:

• Don’t try to network until you know what you stand for.

• Don’t pitch yourself until you have something to offer, that you actually believe in.

• Don’t chase visibility before your voice can hold it.

This is the part most people skip, and later have to unlearn in public.

4. What To Do Instead (Visibility, the Sovereign Way)

There’s a quieter path. It doesn’t promise overnight followers or viral dopamine. But it does offer something far more durable: an audience that trusts you, a voice that sharpens through use, and a body of work that speaks for itself.

The sovereign creator doesn’t chase reach. They cultivate resonance. They don’t write to manipulate the algorithm. They write to clarify their own mind.

Visibility is not a game of volume, it’s a game of meaning. And in the early stages, your only job is to keep saying things that matter. To you first. Then to the people who slowly begin to gather around your signal.

What this means:

1. Focus on clarity, not reach

Before you try to grow an audience, take two weeks to get radically clear. Write out your beliefs. Test your voice. Map your creative interests. Don’t worry about consistency or cohesion yet, worry about honesty. If you can’t articulate what you care about, no growth strategy will help you. If you need detailed exercises to get clear and build your wold view 2Hour Starting Point can help with this.

2. Use Notes to sharpen your signal

Everyone talks about notes as a way to gain subscribers. But that is the wrong way to think about them. I used to hate writing notes until I understood the actual benefit of writing short form. I write 2–3 short Notes per day, not just to grow, but to develop my thinking in public.

This is where you learn how to write clearly, connect ideas, test what resonates, and refine your perspective in real time. Your Notes are not just marketing, they’re feedback loops for your voice. They’re how you build clarity, credibility, and connection at the same time.

3. Publish one longer post per week (or whatever fits your schedule)

This is your anchor. The place where your clearest thinking lives. Don’t try to make it perfect. Don’t try to go viral. Use it as a way to practice your rhythm and make sense of what you’re learning. Over time, these posts become your body of work, the archive that proves you’re worth following.

4. Connect with others slowly and deliberately

Forget mass networking and cold DMs. Respond to someone’s writing because it moved you. Share something because it helped you. Comment because you have something real to add - believe me when I say, almost no one does this). One meaningful interaction is worth a hundred surface-level impressions and when your voice is strong, people feel it.

5. Offer value before you ask for attention

If you’re still trying to get noticed, stop thinking like a creator and start thinking like a teacher. Create one resource. Write one guide. Make one thing that solves a real problem.

And then give it away. This is about building trust, one idea at a time. The sovereign creator builds a body of work so strong it begins to magnetise on its own. They’re not shouting. They’re broadcasting from a deeper place and the people who are meant to hear it eventual do. Not always right away. But when they come, they stay.

Just remember one day, you’ll have an audience and you’ll miss this phase.

You’ll miss the wild, messy freedom of being unseen. You’ll miss writing without expectation, building without judgement, experimenting without fear. You’ll long for the days when it wasn’t a job, but a spark. When it was just you and the page and the quiet thrill of not knowing what comes next.

The void is not a punishment. It’s a brief, golden season that will vanish as quickly as it arrived, so don’t rush through it. Use it, and if you’re struggling to find your footing in the silence The 2-Hour Starting Point can help.

Thanks for reading and being here for the long term.

Enjoy the rest of your day,

Ben