#nowtherealworkbegins

I did it! I finally finished writing the book I have been writing for the last couple of months! Now I can finally look up and re-enter life again.

Hi everybody!

How’s it going?  I genuinely want to know, and I genuinely care, but seeing as I’m here and you’re wherever you are I don’t think I’m gonna get an answer just yet.  If you’d like to let me know, email [email protected] (that’s right, new email, just for this and for my “business Instagram.”  And I never use my “business Instagram.”  So I will most definitely get your email).

OK, you’re probably wondering why I’m here, and why you’re reading this.  Well, you see, that’s a complicated answer.  Which is why I’m devoting an entire first blog post to it.

As you may have gleaned from the title, I have been stuck for some time in a state of inertia (/iˈnərSHə/ noun 1. a tendency to do nothing or to remain unchanged.).  If you know me, you may or may not have realized that I’ve been in this state for, oh, let’s say, the better part of 5 years.  I give myself a pass on the first couple years after college, when I was acting all the time and thought for sure that in no time at all I would metamorphose into Stephen Colbert (or, at the very least, Stephen Baldwin).  After that, however… well, what did happen after that?

I’ll tell you what happened: I got stuck.  Not literally, like 127 Hours type shit (though sometimes it felt that way), but in the deranged funhouse that is my mind.  SO FUN*.  SO, SO FUN**.

Recently, I decided that, well, I just wasn’t having that much fun anymore.  I had had, perhaps, too much fun***.  That’s where this blog comes in.

You see, friend or colleague, I’m not sure exactly how this inertia began.  All I know is the principle behind inertia, which was taught to me I’m sure by my parents because my high school physics teacher gave me C’s and never washed his hands when he went to the bathroom.  It is, and I’m paraphrasing here, “objects at rest tend to stay at rest.”  On the flip side, objects in motion tend to stay in motion (given, in both cases, that they are not acted on by external forces).  You all probably knew both of those, because you all had physics teachers who were obsessively clean and shouted things at you until you got the point.  The latter, though, is a bit of a red herring.  As I’m sure you also know (sorry, middle schoolers- oh who am I kidding you’re on Snapchat anyway), we have, on this planet, achieved perpetual stillness.  I think it’s called, like, death.  Perpetual motion, on the other hand… impossible.  Im-fucking-possible.  Isn’t that crazy?  That’s crazy.  That, and absolute zero.  Both impossible.  If humanity ever figures out how to create/replicate these states, then goddammit we deserve the NFL and color TV and Pokémon Go and whatever other stupid, stupid, glorious shit we’ve been gifted over the years.

So how does that fit in to this very drilled-down and hopefully not entirely self-serving blog post?  (Ew- I really hate those two words.)  Obviously, I’m trying to figure out where my quest (however Quixotic) to achieve perpetual motion stopped and my mind-numbing, crippling inertia began.  The answer lies somewhere, I think, in the analysis of what makes the pursuit of perpetual motion so difficult, and yet so difficult to give up.

As I understand it, in physics, the impossibility of perpetual motion is due primarily to the existence of energy-dissipating forces such as friction and wind resistance.  Even in a vacuum, you’d need to violate one or more presumed laws of physics to create something that just keeps on moving forever and ever.

Now, what we’re talking about here seems far from perpetual motion in its impossibility, but is it?  I think the analogy actually lines up pretty well- if you think of happiness and productivity (i.e. using your brain in a way that doesn’t make you want to jump off a cliff) as motion.  We’re all trying, theoretically, to make our lives perpetually happy and productive (or at least the former).  We realize that we may not ever achieve it, just like perpetual motion, but we try anyway.  Every goddamn day.  Whether we realize it or not.

Unfortunately, in this latest iteration of the “modern age,” there’s a whole lot of unhappiness.  There are a whole lot of so-called “energy-dissipating” forces, from economic uncertainty to terrorism to Berniebros.  No wonder suicide rates have increased by 60% in the past 45 years.  It’s much, much harder to be perpetually happy and productive (or at least it seems that way) than to sit on your ass and do fuck all, spend all day and night worrying, or stay in a job that you hate.  You may not care how this idea manifested in me, but I do, and I’m really only writing this for me, so fuck off or keep reading.  Sorry, sorry… what I meant was, “Please fuck off or keep reading.”

I was, at one point (when the fish were jumpin and the cotton was high), a writer.  I spent a year writing sports pieces and another year writing humor columns for the illustrious Duke University Chronicle (The Tower of Campus Thought and Action©).  Even before that, in high school, I experimented with embarrassing myself through Internet words on an early Blogger site called The Can Opener.  If you remember that site, I’m sorry.  Please, please, please- let’s never speak of it again.  In fact, it’s part of what made it so hard for me to (at all unironically) start a blog in the first place.  (Sidenote: shame.  Shame is another energy-dissipating force.  A strong one.  Like, stronger than whatever Joe Biden was on at the DNC.).  Since middle school, the word “blog” has carried terrible connotations of “deep,” “political,” middle schoolers going at it with other “deep,” “political” middle schoolers from the comfort of their family’s one desktop computer.  And yes, I know those don’t exist anymore, but the feeling remains.  The point is… I was once a writer, and I know it gives me perhaps more joy than anything else in the world, but at some point I gave it up.  Somewhere along the way, those energy-dissipating forces just became too much for me to handle and I quit.  I quit writing columns, I quit sharing my thoughts outside of friendly conversation, and I quit caring about a great many things.  I decided yeah, it was easier to sit on my ass and do fuck all (or, more accurately, to do a lot of shit I didn’t care about).  Felt fine… for a while.  For a while I didn’t even know I was doing it.  But eventually, whether I knew it or not, I was gonna have to change.

So what finally spurred me to start a (mostly unironic) blog now?  Three things.  For one, I’m 28, and who knows?  I may die soon.  Two, I was inspired by a recent podcast episode.  It was – dare I say? – the tipping point.  For those who aren’t “woke,” it just so happens that marvelously afroed pop psychologist and author Malcolm Gladwell recently created a podcast called Revisionist History.  Leaving aside its recent anecdotal, unfounded, and frankly stupid attack on the “injustice” of the food at Bowdoin College, it’s a compelling listen that (surprise, surprise) proposes new ways to look at historical events.  It’s similar to Gladwell’s books- he takes other people’s studies or theories and synthesizes them, looking for trends or overlap that can influence our thinking (and, perhaps, our actions).  I’ve read all but Gladwell’s most recent book (David and Goliath) and have always enjoyed his writing (Outliers, Gladwell’s book ostensibly about the conditions that breed “success,” includes a chapter on differences in temperament of people from the American South that pretty neatly explains a lot of what I witnessed in college).  It was his most recent podcast episode that really hit me, however, in a way that neither his prior work nor anybody else’s has.

I was talking with a friend yesterday (shoutout to you, Jon- told you this was coming) about how human experience is essentially a struggle to internalize obvious concepts by whatever means one can.  I firmly believe that we’re all basically saying the same thing (and have been since the Greeks) and it’s just a matter of how and when individuals realize (or re-realize) it.  It’s what keeps us innovating and learning- the search for these concepts that can only be gained through experience.  It’s where the idea of enlightenment comes from- that state is so hard to achieve because it’s so difficult to internalize everything in a single lifetime (and make it stick).  I think this is really beautifully encapsulated (in a holistic way) at the end of Annie Baker’s play Circle Mirror Transformation, when a younger character asks an older character if he ever wonders how many times his life is gonna end and start all over again.  Anyway, I’ve probably been hit with “new” ways of looking at the very simple concept below a million times (give or take) in my life.  Until now, they didn’t stick- at least not in a way that inspired action.  Ultimately, it makes sense: internalization doesn’t often happen unless there’s a perfect storm.  That’s what makes it so hard.  So… riding the subway this morning from Brooklyn to Manhattan, such a perfect storm happened.  And the catalyst was the low-pressure system that is Revisionist History’s latest episode, Hallelujah.

You should really listen to the episode (credit where credit is due), but just in case you don’t want to, here’s the important part: early on, Gladwell talks about the economist David Galenson’s theory of art.  It is, essentially, that there are two types of artists: the first group is known as “conceptual innovators”- those with incredible vision and a stunning ability to work quickly to achieve that vision.  Examples: Pablo Picasso and Bob Dylan.  The second is known as “experimental innovators”- those who don’t have a clear vision, take chance after chance, and are never truly satisfied with their work.  Examples: Paul Cezanne and Alfred Hitchcock.  As Gladwell says of the latter, “It can take them a lifetime to figure out what they want to say.”

I’d much rather be the former, wouldn’t you?  So unexpected, so exciting, so easy.  I used to think that all artists were like that- they snapped their fingers and a book/movie/song/painting appeared.  Especially in the age of Uber and Netflix, it’s easy to be seduced by this ease.  “It should all be this easy,” we think, “anything that takes more than ten minutes isn’t worth doing.”  It’s clichéd at this point because it’s true.  I remember when I first heard that Sylvester Stallone wrote Rocky in three days.  Wow.  “I can do that!” I thought.  I mean… why not?  One of my favorite quotes is from the Roman playwright Terence: “I am human, and nothing of that which is human is alien to me.”  If Stallone, and Picasso, and Dylan, and Melville could do it, so could I… right?

Yeah.  Sure.  Right.  Uh-huh.

Despite the fact that I wrote this unexpected fucking tome (for which I would apologize, but you’re still reading, so you only have yourself to blame) in a few hours, I am most certainly not a Picasso.  I’m not even a Stallone.  I am, unfortunately, a Cezanne.  Always have been, (probably) always will be.  I’m a certified, doomed perfectionist.  I’m not proud of it, and it doesn’t often lend itself to good work, but it’s the way I am.  Oh, sure, I’ve read all sorts of (mostly clickbait) theories about how to “fix” it or admonishments on how I’m only hurting myself, but it’s an incredibly hard habit to break.  I judge myself against what (or whom) I think is the best, and I always have- that’s the only way I know to get better.  When my work isn’t up to par, I retreat back into my shell and, more often than not, wind up doing nothing at all.  At least historically I have.  I have, in those moments, settled into a cozy, if ultimately debilitating, inertia.

There’s that word again.  Hopefully it’s become clear why it’s so important to me that I address it and, after this point, that I never fall back into it again.  I mean, in 40 years I’d like to spend a couple weeks lounging on the French Riviera with nothing to worry about, in something vaguely resembling “perpetual stillness,” but until that time comes… I’m committed, for once in my life, to being an “experimental innovator”- taking the ideas that constantly swirl around my overstressed and underutilized mind and getting them onto the page and out into the world, so that hopefully I can figure out just what I want to say and just how to make a difference before I run out of time on this Earth.  Speaking of which…

I told you I had three impetuses (impetii?) for writing this, so here’s number three:

Donald Trump.

Yup, you guessed it, Cheeto Jesus has not only inspired countless Americans to distrust their neighbor (especially if she is Muslim), but forced one American to finally step up and use the only voice he’s got. I may have only one vote this November (thanks to some very antiquated laws), but I will not rest until this treasonous, dishonest motherfucker is barred from politics forever.  I don’t want to blow my load here, as there’s another column on the subject forthcoming, but suffice it to say I’m ashamed that someone with so little common sense and such a stunning lack of empathy has made even a dent on our national political landscape.  And I’m genuinely, absolutely fucking genuinely, terrified of what might happen to the world if he is elected president.  So… if the world ends shortly after January, at least I will have written a few columns that hopefully gave people some joy before we all went.

Phew… I think I’m done.  That was long, but it sure feels good to be passionate about something again.  For those of you who have had extended periods of inertia, time spent wandering in the mental woods, you know just how good it feels to feel.  It’s just nice to be powerful again, you know?  Even to myself.  I don’t think that’s something people think about unless it’s taken away from them, by themselves or others… but I’m getting ahead of myself.  This is just chapter one- there’s plenty more where this came from.  And if you don’t care, great!  Don’t read!  That’s the beauty of the Internet- unless it’s an ad or a Kardashian, you have to actively seek it out.  And if reading this made you mad for some reason, please send me an email!  I love being wrong!  I love having conversations about things (a lost art in the cable news era).  I’m dead serious in saying that I would like nothing more than for someone to engage with this or future writings and teach me something(s) about the world and/or myself.  Being new to blogging, I’m not sure what the protocols are, but I would imagine they’re just the same as with any other human interaction… right?  (Guys, be patient with me- it’s taken a lot to get over this whole “blog” thing.  That’s why I’ve put the word in bold throughout- I hope in so doing to force myself to live with it and perhaps take away some of its power.).  

I feel like too often in this cruel world (and I’ve certainly been guilty of this), we write things off.  We think, “Who is this person to try to be creative or relevant or entertaining?” not taking into account the fact that every time someone tries to be any of those things it’s a gift to all of us.  We need more creativity and relevance and entertainment in the world- much more.  I mean, have you been to the movies lately?  Seen any election coverage?  Heard about Rio?  If you’ve made it this far, you clearly feel like you want more of those things, too… even in an imperfect form.  And if I may get (even higher) on my soapbox… even if you disagree with someone, if they’re trying their hardest to make what they believe is positive change in the world, engage with them.  Support them.  If you think what they’re doing is harmful, say so.  Who knows?  Maybe that person is just feeling stuck and the best they can do is judge others or make destructive decisions.  Maybe, just maybe, if you help them get unstuck, they’ll start to change their perspective.  

I know I have.

Love, Brett

PS- Sorry about the clown.

*scary

**disheartening