Stories That No Longer Serve

When I graduated high school, I had one or two stories hanging off me, like particularly clingy mollusks. One of those stories was this:

Photo by Jason Rogers

I have no self-discipline.

In high school, I tried to homeschool myself (don't try this at home, kids) and with insane ambition but complete lack of structure, didn't quite manage it. I slacked off for about three years.

Failure #1

When I got to college (or more accurately, Bible college), I took two correspondence courses, one in American literature and one in American history.

There were no deadlines, only a free form "You have 9 months to finish this course." With inane ambition and a complete lack of structure, I did the first assignments for both courses and then nothing after that.

Failure #2

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I decide to write a thorough literary analysis of the book of Lamentations for my Old Testament class. Line by line. Line by line.

I ended up sitting in my professor's office completely stressed out and overwhelmed, describing how this paper on Lamentations had consumed me, taken over my life, turned into a monster. Oh, and by the way, I hadn't finished it yet.

And then my professor said something about monsters or about this paper being a monster that I strain to remember. It feels important. I don't remember. It was probably some combination of smartass and profound.

In that space of lost memory, I have only the image--that in my life I have two modes of being:

One--Painstakingly, perfectly, picking my way through the rubble of Jerusalem.

Two--Running, screaming from a nameless, faceless terror.

One--Struggling, straining for complete control.

Two--Drinking, smoking, drugging (or in my case, getting loopy as a can of worms on lack of sleep), all to turn off the perfectionist and tune into divine possession.

Whether I was being pursued by the monster or slave-driven by the perfectionist, my story had no space for ordinary, everyday divinity:

The holy normal of 2:34PM. The spirit-filled comma. Visions of eternity punctuated by trips to the bathroom. The transcendence of non-linear video editing. The glory of God. The glory of a perfectly timed cut.

It feels odd to look back now on what might have been the most productive period of my life and realize that this story of "no self-discipline" defined me. It turns up again and again, despite the overwhelming evidence of things made.

Fifty-eight pages, later, I even finished what was meant to be a 10-15 page paper.

I slayed the monster, before it could slay me.

A Story Worth Fighting For

I never imagined it would be this much of a struggle to be the hero of my own story, the lead in my high school play, the center of my own narrative.

No one and nothing prepared me for this. Not college. Not courses in feminist, post-modern, post-colonial, or Marxist theory. Not reading Doestoyevsky, the Bronte sisters, Donne, Shakespeare, or George Eliot. Not all the papers I wrote about hybridity, syntax or laughter. Not being good at school or good at my job. Not praise from teachers, employers or peers. 

Nothing. 

Part of being the hero means you get to have layers. So, for example, one of the most jarring things about inhabiting my identity is the baffling (to me) denial that I have a past. That things have happened to me. Not only that things have happened to me, but that I've been affected by these things that have happened to me.

At every fresh encounter with a new person, I'm assumed to be (supposed to be) a blank slate. 

As if you were the first stranger to tell me to, "Smile." 

The first white guy to call me "exotic." 

The first person to ask, "So, where are you from?"

The first man to speak to me in a condescending tone of voice about something technical. 

I'm told that I'm "cynical." That I have a bad attitude. That I "hate white people."

I feel like part of being human is learning from the past, taking in experiences that repeat themselves over and over again, making sense of these experiences and even molding them into a narrative. 

Like any three-dimensional character, don't I deserve a back story too? 

Like Marx said, history repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce. But sometimes it seems like even laughter is not allowed to me. Because to laugh is to have a distinct point of view that sees the cracks, the contradictions, the absurdities of the status quo. 

I think I can say that I've paid a price for not aquiecsing to the dominant narrative. And as I fight for my story, I can't help but feel like I'm fighting for my life. That if I don't have this, I have nothing. That if I don't fight for my story, no one else will. 

Hey Ladies -- Ask For More Than What You Want [Especially When It Comes to Money]

Hey ladies [that sounds condescending but there are no sufficient alternative word choices], ask for more than what you want. Especially when it comes to money.

I know money is this weird, awkward thing that makes you uncomfortable (or is that just me?), but learning to ask for a fair rate will help you avoid other weird, awkward conversations in the future, like the one where you're sobbing on the phone to your mom that your coworker (who does the exact same job you do) is making escargot to your beans on toast.

Scenario #1 - Sophomore year of college, I'm applying to a summer program in LA called Act One. I apply for a summer grant through my college to pay for the program. Max awarded to each student is $5,000. I do the math and ask for $3,850. Why? Because I'm stupid, that's why. Guess how much they gave me.

Scenario #2 - I'm offered a job as a production coordinator on a music video. The producer offers me a weekly rate of $400 over the phone. My response: "Cool, that sounds great." Well, actually, that was his starting offer. But instead of negotiating, I accepted the first number I heard. Guess how much I got paid.

Moral of the story: ask for more money. In fact, go ahead and ask for more than what you tell yourself you would be happy with.

In fact, you can use the handy 30% rule that I just made up. Take a second and think about what you want. Then ask for 30% more than the number that just popped into your head. 

Let's put this into practice.

Say you want a raise. You currently make $10 per hour. You feel you would be happy making $13 per hour. Ask for $17.

Say you are raising money on Kickstarter to make a short film. You estimate the budget as $5,000. Ask for $6,500.

Say you apply for a temporary gig as a dog walker and are offered a flat weekly rate of $300. Ask for $390, then let them bargain you down.

Now there's a good point--you can always accept less than what you initially ask for. However, it's difficult to roll back time and ask for more.

Reasons we don't ask for more than what we want:

1 - Avoiding disappointment

Manage your expectations. Don't let your expectations manage you. Yes, they might say no. But what are you going to do if that happens? Implode? Doubtful.

2 - Scarce resources

There's not enough to go around as it is, and you don't want to steal food off of Bob's table. But don't worry about Bob. Bob's table is Bob's table. Your table is your table and which would you rather have, slow-cooked pot roast or meat from a can?

3 - I don't deserve more

I know there's been much talk lately about millennials and something called "entitlement," but in my limited experience, women tend to sell themselves short, both in terms of ambition (give me this much money) and their own abilities (you should hire me because...).

4 - Fear of being "not nice"

Money-grubbing, demanding, difficult to work with--insert your own unsavory adjective here. There's nothing wrong with asking nicely. In fact, I recommend it. But ask. Do it.

You could even take this a step further and apply it to your personal relationships.

A guy asks you to hang out with him and his buddies, but you really want to go on a date.

"Hey [random dude's name]. I appreciate that you asked me to hang out, but I really want to hang out with someone 30% hotter than you."

Or

"Hey, I think you're great and I really want you to ask me out on a date."

Or 

"Would you like to go out sometime?"

Now go -- share this blog post on your facebook wall. 

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you."

Millenials, Entitlement, and Happiness

So, this article came out and people are linking to it and responding to it and I thought I would throw some of my thoughts out there into the mix as an early (late?) millennial who has thoughts, dammit, and wants those thoughts to be heard [I do have a blog, after all. I am Generation Y. Hear me make tentative suggestions via an impersonal platform]. 

Thirst for Adventure

I am a millennial. Sometimes, I confuse adventure with happiness. Whether it's studying abroad, backpacking through Asia, snowboarding the alps, going to Burning Man, eating an endangered species of fire ant, being homeless for a month, or hitchhiking through the Sahara desert, I want to do it all--right now. (Maybe I can raise the funds for my backpacking trip through Kickstarter? Hmm.)

There's this restlessness inside me that refuses to be quenched unless I'm saving orphans in Papua New Guinea while simultaneously inventing a new system of water filtration and launching the latest and greatest app for the iphone. 

I just feel like I'm in stasis, you know. 

I've got it! I'm going to move to LA and pursue a career in filmmaking.

Unnecessary Suffering

Okay. I have a college degree and a background best described as "middle class." I have a few resources (see also "Mommy & Daddy" below).

But, since I'm following my dreams and chasing adventure, I'm living well below the poverty line, subsisting on food stamps (but still eating organic!), sharing an apartment with at least 5 other dudes, and missing one or two student loan payments. 

I work in food service, which I hate, but hey, at least the hours are flexible so I can intern at the record label two days a week. Half the people there don't even refer to me by name (I'm "that weird intern"), but at least I'm pursuing what I love. 

I don't have a car and that sucks, but I think riding the bus is giving me some really good ideas for this screenplay I'm writing about a young person who moves to the big city and meets this homeless man who gives him tons of great advice about how life is about more than just material possessions.

Underemployed and Loving It

Heck, I have so much free time between jobs, I'm writing at least two pilots right now, which I hope to pitch at the monthly networking event I go to (free drinks!). 

I'm thinking about taking an acting class so I can become a better director. I know it's pricey, but if I up my hours at the Cheesecake Factory I should be able to afford it. 

You know who I saw at a party the other day? Ryan Gosling's younger brother, Joe. I wonder if he would be interested in my script about flesh eating slugs who turn out to be harmless, peace-loving aliens with a mission to turn the whole universe vegan.

Mommy & Daddy

I'm not proud about it, but every so often my parents put money in my bank account when I'm not looking. 

I just know that they believe in me and they believe in my dreams as much as I believe in me and my dreams. 

Thanks, Mom & Dad. 

Don't Quit Your Day Job

I work in a book warehouse packing books. Boxes upon boxes of used books arrive at the warehouse every day and are sorted into two piles: keep and throw away. 

One co-worker refers to them as "boxes of broken dreams":

Becoming a Successful, Working, 'Yes, This is What I Do to Pay My Bills' Actor.

Move Out of Your Parent's Basement: A Spiritual Guide

You Too Can Get That Impossibly Beautiful Woman Who is Way Out of Your League to Have Sex With You

Sell Your Screenplay in Five Easy Steps

Every self-help book starts sounding like it's directly judging my life choices: 

If You Have a College Degree And Are As Smart as Your Kindergarten Teacher Said You Were, Why are You Working for Minimum Wage In A Warehouse With No AC During the Summer?

And

What Are You Doing With Your Life? What Would Your College Alumni Magazine Think of You Now?

And 

You Are a Failure

Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Do not have health insurance. Do not have a good answer when people ask, "What do you do?"

Keep or throw away. Keep or throw away.

Follow Your Dreams

I am a millennial 20 years later. No one writes articles about me anymore. Now, there is a new generation to pick on (I hope they give them a stupid name too. Like "perennials.")

My life has exceeded my expectations, but not in the ways I thought it would. 

I'm still pursuing my dreams--but those dreams have changed or morphed into something new. I know how lucky I am to have these dreams and to have the freedom to pursue them. 

I am happy.

Career Myths, or Do What You Like

I recently ran across an essay by Paul Graham entitled How to Do What You Love. It's a good essay; I would recommend it.

Anyway, it got me thinking (imagine that) about certain fallacies--namely, how incorrect beliefs about work keep people from choosing the right career.

It seems like stupidly simple advice, but if anything I would tell a hypothetical someone--me, in my near past perhaps--to "Find something you like." There's an even stupider reason for this advice. Namely I find it extremely difficult, nay, damn near impossible to do things I don't want to do. Even if I need to do them. Even if I should do them. Even if for the love of all things bright, shiny, and wonderful I should want to do them.

Let me introduce you to my good friend, self-deception.

Maybe you can avoid my fate--by challenging these three myths:

The Myth of Pain

In college, I lived implicitly by the tenets of academic masochism: taking 24 units a semester, signing up for that 8:00 AM Trig class, pulling all-nighters every time I had a paper due, you name it. I took a class on non-Shakespearean Renaissance literature my senior year because I wanted to, not because I had to (yeah, I was one of THOSE people).

Somewhere along the way, I got the idea that pain = me becoming a better person. I think in my head I had this (false) image of perfect me. Perfect Me was not only smart, but disciplined. She studied diligently for each class. She never procrastinated. She got straight As.

In reality, I was a terrible procrastinator, never studied as much as I should have, and never got perfect grades.

Perfect Me? Yeah, she never existed. And she never will.

But strangely, it's hard to let that image die. More specifically, it's hard to let go of the belief that if I just do these (good) things, if I just go through this pain, I'll become who I want to be.

The myth of pain taught me that if I wasn't having fun, I just needed to knuckle down and try harder.

Yes, suffering can be good for you, but suffering can also be unnecessary. Do what you like. How do you know if you like it? You don't put off doing it. You look forward to it. No one's holding a gun (or paycheck) to your head.

The Myth of Talent

There's the line of thinking that goes, figure out what you're good at, and go do that.

This is terrible advice.

First of all, there's no future in updating your facebook status every hour and second of all, you could be good at doing something you hate.

Being good at something can create a false sense of responsibility: "I'm a good basket-weaver, so if I don't pursue basket-weaving I'm depriving the world of my talent."

Poppycock. Chances are you are good at more than one thing.

But, you major in engineering because you're good at math and science. Or you get a job at Starbucks because you pull a mean expresso. Or your mom always told you you were good with words so you go to law school.

And now, you hate your job.

There's another way this plays out: you're good at X. People notice you're good at X. You get a promotion/raise/contract to do X. You get all the perks that go with doing X well: approval/recognition/appreciation. People start asking you to do X in your free time. You say yes, because oh my gosh, someone needs me! Over time, you start to become resentful of X. You feel used. Dissatisfied. Drained.

Talent does not equal calling.

Do what you like. How do you know if you like it? You're willing to make an ass out of yourself doing it. You're willing to go through that awkward stage where you have no idea what you're doing. You're willing to suck.

The Myth of Altruism

So you wanna change the world? You want to be a social worker, a missionary, a caretaker.

These are all wonderful jobs. However, they may not be the right jobs for you.

Dr. A.J. Drenth has a take on this as it relates to the INTP personality type (that would be me):

"This desire for affirmation and validation may cause INTPs to overlook good career options because, on the surface, such careers seem too far removed from the source of their desired validation: people. So rather than choosing a career in science, for instance, INTPs may opt for what amounts to a “quick fix” for their inferior and select a people-oriented career, such as healthcare or human services. While at first blush, such people-oriented careers may “feel right” to INTPs (or more specifically, to their inferior function), it is rarely long before they realize that this is not the case. INTPs are better off with a career that allows them to use their top two functions (Ti and Ne) to help others (Fe) in a less direct fashion."

To put it briefly, INTPs don't do well in high-contact careers.

The myth of altruism says, I want to help people, therefore I need to help them in the most direct way possible--otherwise, it doesn't count. 

Have you ever felt secretly guilty that you don't want to be a missionary? Or live in the inner-city? Or scrub floors at a health clinic? 

It's okay. You would be terrible at it anyway. 

Do what you like. How do you know you like it? You're not operating out of a sense of guilt or obligation. Your sense of empathy is not exhausted. You still like people.

Tune in next time for a quiz!

I like you but I hate your script

In high school, I had a boyfriend who dreamed of becoming a successful guitar player and singer. I can't speak to his guitar playing, but his singing--well, let's just say my mom once charitably compared him to Bob Dylan. We eventually broke up--not over his singing.

I like you. But your singing makes me cringe.

In college, a friend had me read her script. And I hated it. Perhaps "hate" is too strong of a word--not the word, for instance, that I used when describing how I felt about it to her face. But, well--it wasn't my cup of tea. It wasn't my cup of anything. I thought it was crass, poorly written and derivative. The spelling and grammar mistakes made me cringe. I really, really didn't like it.

I didn't tell her that, of course. I said encouraging things, like "Your descriptions are so vivid" and "I like the character progression in the second act." This seems like good politics generally: pick out the things you like and say something good about them. And I did that. Bullet dodged, or so I thought.

However these tentative words of encouragement had an unforeseen consequence. The writer, my friend, thought she really had something. She started talking about submitting it to agents and production companies. She emailed me, asking for proofreading help so she could prepare it for submission. And my slight, forgivable lie (really an omission of the truth) trapped me in a cycle of dishonesty. How could I tell my friend at this point that I loathed her script? And the more uneasy question, how did I show support for her dream while doubting deep down that she was a good writer?

I like you. But please don't make me read your script.

A friend and I joked about writing a translation guide for friend feedback:
"I liked the beginning and ending."
Translation: "I hated the middle."

It's the fine art of reading between the lines.

Flannery O'Connor famously said, "Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them." And yes, there are probably quite few people who fancy themselves writers who perhaps should not write.

Bad writing tends to get the worst of me--makes me rant and rave, at least internally--especially if other people don't seem to agree that it's bad.

I remember in college we had to write an essay about a poem. I thought the poem was poorly written, sentimental, and stilted, and when my classmate came into class and mentioned that she'd liked it, it set off a question bomb in me. (A question bomb is a question I feel like I have to ask or I'll explode.)

"Is it good?", I wanted to ask my professor. Is this poem good?" I have to know.

But why this drive to know whether something is "good" or not? Not "Do I like it?" but "Is it good?"

I do believe in an objective good and I do believe in good and bad art. But so what if someone disagrees with me about one poem?

The problem with "I like you but I hate your script" is that, as a friend pointed out, that's like saying "I like you, but I hate your soul." And what if that's true? Hypothetically, let's say that I meet a cute guy. And hypothetically, I read some of his poetry. And my reaction is "Dear God."

It's not so much that I could never date someone who writes bad poetry. I write horrible poetry. It's that I couldn't pretend that I thought it was great poetry.

If I'm honest, I think the question "Is it good?" can be traced back to the deeper question of "Am I good?" Or, "What if I'm not?" It's all mixed up with pride and an anxiety of value. I need to know that there's value not only to what I write, but to who I am.

But I am not the ultimate judge of good and bad--for me or anyone else. "Am I good?" If I can answer this question first, maybe I can let the rest rest.

And if I can do that, maybe I can just do the work.






*Distinctions:

In this post, I should make a distinction between critiquing the work of friends and critiquing the work of a significant other or potential significant other. These are different.

Also, there is a difference between judging a product (poem, short story, etc.) and judging the producer of that product.

"How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company?"

This audiobook version of "Their Eyes Were Watching God"  is superlatively good. Just amazing.

I had wanted to read "Their Eyes" after listening to an essay by Zadie Smith in her collection "Changing My Mind." In this essay, Smith writes about the universal literary tradition vs. the particularity of blackness--of female blackness. In sum, "It is not the Black Female Literary Tradition that makes Hurston great. It is Hurston herself."

I'm reminded of several things:

One, in my American literature class at community college we read "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison. A classmate (white, sheltered) began wondering out loud whether or not black people were too invested in feeling sorry for themselves. The professor got upset.*

Two, a columnist in my college paper wrote in response to a lecture on God and black suffering, "We're talking about black suffering again?" or something to that effect.*

My American literature professor used to make a point about subjectivity--that saying, "You can't understand this book because you're not ____ (black, white, female, etc.)" is a fallacy.

It's like saying you have to be white, male, middle class and born in the 1930's to get "Rabbit, Run" or have lived with seven men of dubious appellation to properly decode "Snow White."

Hurston writes in her essay "How it Feels to be Colored Me":

"Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It's beyond me."

And so, maybe its not just black suffering we talk about, but human suffering.

Speaking of pleasure, this is one of my favorite scenes from the book:

"The sounds lulled Janie to soft slumber and she woke up with Tea Cake combing her hair and scratching the dandruff from her scalp. It made her more comfortable and drowsy.

'Tea Cake, where you git uh comb from tuh be combin' mah hair wid?'

'Ah brought it wid me. Come prepared tuh lay mah hands on it tonight.'"





*I mean, slavery was SO two centuries ago.