I Was Defeated

Life Kicked the Shit Out of Me (Again)

I said I would write for 100 days and I didn’t.

This isn’t a tell-all about everything that happened to cause me to stop writing, but I have a big mouth, so it’ll obviously be a tell-some.

I tried to write for 100 days and I realized that I’m actually good at writing. Not school good, not look this guy has a blog good, I fucking excel at writing. I excel at speaking, I excelled at podcasting, I excel at storytelling, I excel at conveying and understanding emotion, I excel at solving creative problems. I didn’t think I was good at any of this, I didn’t think I’d succeeded in crafting a brand because nobody really looked at what I made, it was all small scale, really under the radar of most people in this big messed up world.

Until people saw it, saw what I was doing, maybe not actually looking at what I was doing, but seeing that I can do this. Feeling like I needed to get scaled up, like I needed to “grow up”.

Until I had strangers making outlandish promises about where my talents could bring me. Until I had all the time in the world, all the ideas and I felt like “now is the time to do this for yourself”. Until I was doing hour plus long phone calls telling me to give up everything else that I think I can do and just become a writer, a media guy, that I should just become a socialite where no one really knows what it is that I do.

When all that happened I felt like it was time to go under the radar. If you thought I did any of this to become famous or the next Gary Vaynerchuck or get a blue check next to my name (okay maybe I do want a blue check) you were mistaken. Fame is unappealing to me. I do this for the same reason you sharpen a blade.

Calculated preparation.

A deep feeling inside me that I can and will be better tomorrow than I was today. To keep track of progress. To share what I think.

After all of this, life likes to kick you while your down, bad gets worse. I will save you the details in that regard.

I wrote a really political piece (well, I don’t think it’s that political) and it really divided people. That set me back from speaking too much because I wasn’t used to people speaking back.

My health has been my main priority the last few months. I was actually afraid I was going to lose the ability to see like a normal person out of my right eye. I was depressed. I did not want to live my life if I couldn’t live like a normal human being. I didn’t want to lead a life as a differently abled person. I know how selfish that is now, but it let me understand that you don’t choose to be exceptional or normal, you just are whatever you are.

In closing, I don’t care about much anymore. About anything.

It’s great, going through all of that — outside pressures, unnecessary internal pressures, feeling like I had to be a music writer or a media guy, fearing for my health, dealing with grief. It made me anxious. It’s great to not give a fuck anymore.