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Followup to: Your Job

Trade honesty for bombast and as a writer you will always lose.

For whatever raw material I have, I have problems pathing it from Point A to Point B. I can be unorthodox, sometimes even in very clear situations or with mundane tasks–heading down wrong or winding alleys to see what I can find and why they are so. This is fine in a vacuum. On someone else’s time, it is unacceptable, wrongheaded and childish. I’ve learned responsibility, but in doing so, I’ve let down people I respect.

That’s why I’ve had so much trouble talking about my recent experiences. Many have been disheartening. I’ve been depressed sometimes. There are moments when my thinking splits between grandeur and worthlessness–I will become legend or inutility–and I miss the subtleties that are the real truths of human nature. There are moments when I miss Kansas City, the private comfort of my apartment, easily-impressed coworkers, easily-fucked girls, easily-lived life. But it’s also easy to forget what hunger feels like.

I haven’t been myself, and I mean that in the strictest sense. I’ve been Tucker Max, or the sheltered little boy, or the alienated teen. It’s easy to shift social masks around, but I’m trying to eject the core, to let it all go, to lose all of those people who aren’t me, and it’s been ruthless and painful. This must be what destruction feels like: Shit. Incompetent, overmatched, one foot clumsily in front of the other. But the pangs are gone. At least I’m not here.

Can you guess who those people were?

Sealing with duct tape my friend’s care package (he’s a Marine stationed in Afghanistan), it struck me just how Spartan people are about some things, but demand total luxury in other, sometimes closely-related things.

• I am typing with a high-end MacBook Pro, and writing with a 10 cent BIC Cristal pen.
• My stickshift truck lacks power locks and windows, but has a stereo with both USB and iPod inputs.
• I wear Mizuno Wave Nirvana 4 running shoes with socks bought from Target, and Patagonia jackets over Wal-Mart shirts.

Seth is right: We specialize in everything.

Copyblogger had a cool idea for a writing contest, using the limits imposed by Twitter. The idea is to tell a story in exactly 140 characters; no more, no less. I’m a little obsessed with brevity so I hopped aboard. Here’s my entry:

A politician by talent, the writer devoted himself to the illusion of effort. His initiative was praised; finality, ignored. That makes 140.

I don’t use Twitter much, as evidenced by the fact that that was my first post. But if you’d like to follow my account, here it is.