You Call Yourself a Rose?

I've noticed people hesitate to call themselves painters, improvisors, actors, musicians, and writers. They think enjoying the activity isn't enough, as if there were an  invisible wall between the doer and the deed. Their conscience tells them, "Only those who've achieved success are worthy of the honor." And I am sympathetic to the inclination. They respect the craft enough to aspire to it, to stand in awe of it. They have reverence for the great works; they have been moved by them, and attempt to achieve a similar, seemingly impossible, feat. They are brave for even considering it. But, their heart discourages them, "How dare you bestow the title upon yourself? Weeds aren't roses."

I studied philosophy for a solid chunk of my adult life. And I'm a fan. These men wrote in the age before the Internet, text messaging, and TV shows on DVD. They had a long time to think about shit. And it showed. Their ideas are refined, developed, beautiful, and insightful. As my studies came to a close, it became time to put my stamp on the canon, to contribute something novel to a saturated and immensely intimidating body of work. 

I couldn't. 

My pen was stifled by the shadows of my heroes. And, ultimately, I quit philosophy. I lacked the courage to call myself a philosopher. It is a sore subject for me.

Now, having moved to Chicago to try my hand at performing and writing, I find myself in a similar situation. Classes are complete. Certificates handed out. Spit into the world that could care less if I spent my days writing plays or watching Internet porn. The spectre of Woody Allen, Dostoyevsky, and Aaron Sorkin haunt my keyboard. 

We must outgrow our heroes. They do not make us small. They are lighthouses proving our task isn't impossible, that greatness is attainable. They shine a light on the ocean abyss. They point home, make us large, and support our trembling hands. And our heroes have not written the last word, perfected the major scale, or solved the ontological proof of God. The world is wide open and there is plenty of room at the top of the mountain. Greatness desires company; it isn't an exclusive boys club. It is a lonely kid on the playground hoping someone has the courage to say hello. 

Your sensitivity and deference to your craft prove that you are worthy of the title. The love of improvising makes you an improvisor. Whether you are good yet is irrelevant. Love is what earns the title. You are an improvisor, writer, actor, painter, musician, teacher, father, lover, athlete, and philosopher. If you don't have the courage to call yourself one, self doubt will strip you of your sturdiness. It will poison your drive and rust your love. It will steal something beautiful from the world.   

We weeds are all roses. The name is everything.

Woe to the Inefficient

I'm not a prejudiced man. I don't care who you fuck, pray to, or vote for. In a world where Fugazi put out six records and never charged more than $6 for a show, I find it hard to complain. We live in a world with 88 episodes of West Wing penned by Aaron Sorkin. Next month they are opening one of the largest pinball lounges in the country at the end of my block.

So it's tough to hate the world.

And while we live in an amazing time of LTE and new Arrested Development episodes, I write this open letter to inefficient people everywhere: Stop. I implore you. Please, be a part of this world with me so that we may exist in elegant harmony. You are part of a civilization and part of the admission price is basic awareness and responsible coexistence.

If you want to start your day by washing your body from the bottom up, fine. I don't have to see it.  If you like to start your coffee after you've finished your shower rather than having it automatically brew while you're blow drying your hair, I can't stop you. But if you don't know by now that you have to take your watch off when you go through the metal detector at the airport, you lose your civilization license.

Though it would be an overstatement to call it an obsession, I test the limits of good taste with my disposition toward efficiency. Maybe it's because I believe when you die, you fucking die. You don't get any more time. You don't get to reunite with your loved ones. You don't get to play with all the dogs you've ever had, which, if you think about it, would be amazing. Would your childhood dog like the one you got with your first girlfriend? Can you imagine rolling in the grass with every dog you ever had at the same time while your parents and friends watched and laughed beside you? No, you just die. Quietly and unceremoniously. Like the eons that came before you, the future will press on without your knowledge, input, or say. It will simply pass by like a train you were too slow to catch because some fuckface didn't spend the extra two seconds it takes to figure out the correct way to insert a CTA card into a turnstile before getting in line.

We only get so much time. We all walk into the middle of a game of bowling, never knowing when the pin setter will go dark, and we have to turn our shoes in to the woman with the tobacco stained teeth who calls everyone sweetheart. So I make a point to do things in an order that makes sense, in a way that maximizes future possibilities. And while I often go awry spending hours hacking my phone so I can launch an internet brower in two taps instead of four, my heart is pacified by the idea that I made something a little faster, a little more effecient, and I carved out a little more space for what's left of my tiny existence. Please, don't take it away. 

Otherwise Compensated

Photo by Rachel Rose Brown

I am surrounded by artist-types: actors, improvisors, writers, directors, editors, painters, and musicians. Not one of whom is making their living in their respective field. The majority work at Groupon doing menial tasks. While it is tempting to say these tasks are beneath them, I object to the phrase. Nothing you do is beneath you. It is precisely the lowest level you have accepted. I, for instance, have worked the same retail job for over a decade. A. Fucking. Decade. It hurts to see it written down. And while I imagine it to be beneath my skill level and talents, it isn't. It is exactly what I have demanded of the world. Until the day comes when I insist on more, nothing changes. But that day isn't today.  

My peers eschew financial stability and the comforts of careerism for the nebulous promise of creative fulfillment. I discovered comedy roughly the same time as a friend of mine started med school. Next year she'll be a doctor. Next year my web series might hit 10,000 views. After roughly the same time commitment, she'll be set for life and I'll have blown my savings to write a play that might be seen by a hundred people in Chicago. There is a better chance of being drafted into the NFL than geting pulled to SNL. No one gets paid to do improv in Chicago. Hell, you can't even get people to watch a web series that you give away for free. So, I ask myself, what's in it for us? 

We are paid in self-righteousness. Our reward is quiet satisfaction. And though it can't be entered to a box on a 1040, it keeps the train moving forward. Fame isn't even on the horizon. It's not a distant mirage being chased in a barren desert. It isn't even on the table. The scale is embarrassingly small. Your paycheck is a cute girl coming up after an improv show and saying you're funny. Your 401k is having an answer when someone asks what you've been up to. Your PTO is a handful of retweets. 

It was never about money, or fame. A creative life pays its dividends in the promise of an unordinary life, not an extraordinary life. The bar isn't that high. It is a fear of answering "Eh, work and the kids" when asked, "What's new?" Don't pity artists for their lack of financial compensation. They more than make up for it looking down their nose at you with smug self-satisfaction. 

I should know. In this sense, I'm rich. So enjoy your boring life of prosperity, successful and fulfilling romantic relationships, and the unconditional love of your children. I'll be here writing.

So You

Tumblr

A friend of mine once commented on the way I do dishes. She claimed that it was, "So you." At the time I was offended. Just what the fuck was that supposed to mean? "So you?" I won't bother with the details, but I have a system for doing dishes. Today I choose to interpret her comment differently.

Who you are bleeds into everything you do. From the way you button your shirt, organize socks, or do the dishes. Everything bears your signature and your stamp of approval. There is an art in existing and I started noticing it in those close to me. I am downright jealous of the way one of my co-workers sprays lens cleaning fluid onto eyeglasses. He holds the glasses at arm's length, lightly sprays a mist of cleaning and fluidly pulls the glasses into the mist. It's fucking beautiful. Alex and Andy apply lip balm in different, but equally fascinating ways. Andy does the entire motion with one hand, a byproduct of his days playing in band where his other hand supported an instrument. Alex rolls the wheel through his fingers until the balm emerges. It's mesmerizing. Jawsh's handwriting is practically a painting. Every letter is deliberate and specific. Jace types like a cheetah yet his fingers barely graze the keys. Using only the minimum force necessary to press the key and move on, his typing is free of all inelegant clicking and clacking. Pete's PC desktops are magnificent in their simplicity and function. DJ's till sheets were a work of art. Dr. Hoffman's philosophy books look like maps to buried treasure. My Dad's closet is organized like a library. My old manager, Bob, opens a box like a surgeon. Trevor insists a joke is made or broken in two frames of footage. Nathan throws away half his tweets because he can't articulate them perfectly. Jim will destroy half his room after we've won a Slayer match because he isn't pleased with his performance. Tim will agonize over a move he made in an improv show three years ago. Even though the move got a huge laugh, he'll lament it was cheap and out of character. Will systematically exhausts every possible move in Words With Friends.

I love each of these people for different reasons. Though these behaviors and moments do not encompass the complex and interesting individuals, they do belong to them in deeply personal ways.

Character spills out from every pore of our body and stains everything it touches. The next time someone tells you that something is, "So you," take it as a compliment. It means you have character that is tangible to others.

My values are efficiency, elegance, and simplicity. What are yours? The only wrong answer you can give is a shrug.

§68

Life is the illness. Rock 'n' roll is the cure.

§67

Some ideas you refine until they're perfect. Others you beat into mediocrity. In your hands, it's hard to tell the difference.

Essay on As Good as It Gets

Settle.

...and Forget

More pithy sayings on Tumblr

I received a letter in the mail. It, unusually, didn't include a check or unsigned birthday card; instead, a four-page hand-written note. It has been exceptionally cold in Chicago and I read it as I entered my apartment still wearing my heavy jacket. As I fumbled the letter with my gloves, it was clear the handwriting didn't match the author's. The author employed an assistant to form the right words. I read a very personal and revealing letter. The content of the letter is irrelevant. There is always a formula: admit mistakes, offer excuses, make definitive resolutions, repeat.

It asked for forgiveness. A letter I never wanted, needed, asked for, or expected was in my hands. And now it stares at me from the shelf.

Forgiveness is a myth. At best, it implies an impossible bargain; at worst, an unqualified lie. The classical denotation involves the cessation of anger or resentment.

This doesn't cut it.

The simple passage of time abates anger. It is an untenably stressful and unsustainable emotional response. Here, time forgives all. When we are wronged, the damage is irrevocable. The rain cannot be returned to the clouds. It can only be managed.

Instead, forgiveness ought to be a a coming to terms, a movement toward acceptance. You have been wronged. This is a fact. Genuine forgiveness is not pretending the trespass never occurred; rather, it signifies a willingness to live with the person who's committed the slight.

The cliché "forgive and forget" misses the point. It is an act of Bad Faith (Sartre, Being and Nothingness) to assert forgiveness is tied in any meaningful way to forgetting. Real forgiveness stares the betrayal in the face and accepts it. Here, and only here, the value of the relationship outweighs the misdeed. To be forgiven, the relationship must be worthy of the nagging memory of wrongdoing. The perpetrator must be deserving of love, respect, and acceptance. If they are not, there can be no forgiveness. By and large, these are the majority of the cases. Forgiveness in the truest and most relevant sense is rare. Because although time does hide all wounds, it doesn't always heal them.

§66

Fuck forgiveness.

Unwelcome Guests

I don't hate sleep, though I hope the time I waste awake in bed before sleep gets sexually assaulted in a parking lot. Last night, biting down hard on my mouthguard, I understood the distinction.

For a few years now, I've had trouble sleeping. Until I was twenty, I could fall asleep on command. I never understood my father who slept like he was being charged by the hour. Then somewhere in grad school, sleep and I became rare acquaintances.

It came suddenly. And has yet to retreat. Insomnia has annexed this bed. 

Around 3AM most nights I feel an obligation to my poor body to sleep. Though most nights it's a halfhearted attempt, I try anyway. My pillows treat me like estranged wives. I've neglected them all day and suddenly expect their love and comfort. If they could sleep on the other side of the bed with their backs to me, they would. I know it.

It is not the time wasted in the bed that is intolerable. And though it is a minor annoyance to use my time inefficiently, the most intolerable part is the quiet. The quiet invites every thought I nudged aside during the day to join me in bed. The quiet is patient. It waits until you've put your phone on the bedside table with Do Not Disturb turned on. It waits until the sleep timer on your stereo kicks off. It waits until your eyes are closed and you realize you should have been asleep three hours ago. When your body is heavy and your eyes hurt, it comes. 

If you're ever in need of some material for your therapist, I recommend jotting down the things that run through your head when you're trying to fall asleep. You are at their mercy. You can't outrun yourself. Believe me. I've tried. 

This Nick, That Nick

I ought to be getting ready for work. This isn't an abstract, philosophical imperative. It's a fact. It takes me twelve minutes to shower, four minutes to get dressed, and six to seven to bike to work depending on how many red lights I run.

Yet contrary to all reason, my present self is sitting in a chair, listening to Pinback's new record, and drinking coffee. Present Nick has absolutely no regard for Future Nick. It's as if the two are completely disconnected, severed by an incommunicable gap in time. Despite the full assurance that Future Nick will be stressed, hurrying, running, and breaking minor traffic laws, I could give a shit.

From this vantage, I only see the slight joys of inertia while the future is blurry and indeterminate. Some other Nick has to go to work. Not this one. Not the one that is writing right now. Not him. This Nick is so much more handsome in his comfy pants and big wool socks being used as slippers than commuting Nick. That Nick is cold and screaming at the car in front of him in his head for not bombing through that yellow light.

My eyes are a pair of broken bifocals. They only show what's right in front of me. And every New Year, I resolve to stop hitting the snooze bar. And every year I let myself down. The truth is, I know exactly how long it takes to get to work. My watch is synchronized with the work time clock. I know how long it takes to run at full speed from the parking lot to the time clock. And This Nick refuses to be duped into thinking I have to leave for work a single second before I absolutely must. I can't pretend like I don't know better. Those extra five minutes of West Wing, and letting the water cascade over my tired body until the shower runs cold, and the last sip of fresh coffee are all worth the punishment. All the stress was worth the one extra snooze. They may seem like tiny joys, but they mattered a great deal at the time. This Nick hopes that That Nick will understand.

* This post was inspired by my reading of The Thief of Time: Philosophical Essays on Procrastination

A Comment

I have to go to work soon. I wanted to write something before leaving to make me feel like I did something productive with my day. It occurred to me how silly this sounds. In my world, writing a letter to the world constitutes productivity. I couldn't be happier.

§64

To utter an opinion is to first admit you are ignoring a great many worthwhile facts.

Untenable

Preference is a coward's word for beauty. It is an ugly shield against criticism, as if we had a choice. Beauty is an asshole. It digs under our skin and treats our itching like an inconvenience. It is an entitled bully, an unwelcome houseguest. We don't choose what we find beautiful. Most of the time it's inconvenient, irrational, and inexplicable. But when beauty walks in, punches you in the stomach, and calls you her bitch, don't dare call it a preference.

§63

Outgrow your heroes. Make them proud.

§62

The gym is where insecurity comes to die and be reborn.

§61

Bearing children makes you boring.

§60

Jealous-types are made, not born.

§65

Boredom is a communicable disease.

§59

Time hides all wounds.

§58

Excuses are the gravestone of progress.

§57

Good character is built upon blaming yourself.

§56

Sarcasm is a flimsy sword.

§55

Vanity is a disease you catch from the mirror.

§54

Karma is Santa Claus logic turned into religion.