I Wrote this Solely for the Sake of Feeling Something

I’ve started writing about 12 different pieces in the last several days; some just a few paragraphs, others just a couple lines, and I’m yet to wrap up anything. In fact, I haven’t started and finished any kind of writing in over a year. There have been no attempts to get essays published in over 2 years, and no focused thoughts on what publications I might aim for next. This lack of ambition is frightening for someone who spent all 5 of his college years studying creative writing and journalism, while freelancing pop culture lists and humor essays for various online publications. At some point a month or so back, amidst meditation or the opposite of meditation — violent overthinking, every desire I ever had resurfaced. Ideas began flowing again, like an unkinked hose, but ideas without action lead to internal torture, and how does one take action when all form of routine has been lost and they’ve forgotten how?

This is a sort of retraining myself on how to begin, stick with, and conclude a venture in writing. For the life of me, I can’t figure out another means of emerging from this swamp of uselessness and self-pity. Describing my life’s mission paralysis as being stuck in a swamp is an odd choice for me, because I love swamps. They combine 2 of my favorite things — Still water and the color moss green. “The Legend of Boggy Creek” is one of my favorite horror films, and I even find Wes Craven’s “Swamp Thing” to be an enjoyable watch. Furthermore, in college I was sexually assaulted by a girl who I referred to as “Swamp Thing.” While it sounds traumatic, people laughed as they witnessed her drunkenly pressing me against the wall in a dorm hallway, so it must be funny. When word of the nickname got back to her, I was painted in a negative light for my spot-on name-calling, but that wasn’t the first or last incident of me being pegged as a dick for my use of words, regardless of what my side of the story was.

I may have been a frustrated, neurotic dick who relieved his anxiety through jokes, and I might still be, but my bitterness will surely worsen if I continue letting stories circulate within and don’t put them into writing. Doing nothing to work towards my dream is my greatest nightmare, next to, of course, the Quaker Oatmeal guy breaking into my house and forcibly performing oral sex on me. You might be noticing a theme here, which is highly unintentional considering I’ve lost the ability to develop a theme. I assure you, The Quaker Oatmeal guy sex escapade is a very real, recurring nightmare I’ve had, and on eerier evenings it’s been Steve Harvey in his place. The night they’re both involved will transition into the day I start seeing a psychiatrist again.

Who needs frequent visits to a psychiatrist when you have sobriety, prayer, meditation, consistent workouts, a habit for healthy eating, a lovely partner in life, and a resurgence of the very dreams you had throughout childhood? I might if my thinking doesn’t change. Monitoring my inner conversation is a meticulous, daily effort I put forth, yet I still tend towards the negative and feel almost no fulfillment in current life. I can’t be surprised this is the unwavering case, when my personal legend has been put on hold in the interest of regaining sanity. However, I can’t feel fully okay with me if my greatest gifts aren’t being practiced in any way whatsoever. Sure, I’ll still write jokes here and there for unresponsive social media audiences, but feeling the need to be funny since age 13 is driving me off the deep end, if it hasn’t already.

I frequently ask myself why I don’t hit comedy open mics anymore despite the laundry list of material I have, and at this point I can definitively answer, “I must not want to.” I recently put an end to my half-hearted rap career after realizing it was pursued solely for the sake of pursuit, and I’d like to issue a warm “You’re welcome” to those who questioned why a well-rounded white guy with a college degree and wealthy upbringing was rapping. I reached nobody through rap because I had no purpose or genuine intention aside from illustrating that I could in fact write solid raps. Articles, essays, lists, and stories are the only vehicles by which I’ve reached people, and it’s a shame I was unable to write anything of substance for so long. I was lazily drawn to the ease of finding an instrumental and quickly composing a rap verse. It wasn’t for nothing, though it certainly felt like it.

I’ve also asked why I don’t return to what brought me my earliest bit of success, sketch comedy and “being a YouTuber.” From ages 15 through 17, nothing brought me more joy than being a goof on camera, editing a video, uploading to YouTube, and watching the views and comments roll in. Issue arose when I grew addicted to the validation of online strangers, which I wasn’t previously aware I needed, and that problem heightened as subscribers did provide me with high validation. Looking back, praise was dangerous for an egomaniacal 17-year old with a budding alcohol addiction. Everyday I received messages and emails saying, “I can’t wait to see you on television,” and “you’re going to be a star.” Unfortunately I believed in this encouragement. So much so that I stopped putting in any work as the desire to drink became a need, and by 19 I had the mind of an elderly alcoholic stuck in “what could have been.” Nowadays, filming and putting out any sort of video content seems a sad, sleazy shot at recapturing young magic. I grew so accustomed to seeing the image of me as a hopeful, pre-pubescent teen, and to look at myself as a 27-year old mustached man attempting humor is disheartening. Either I’m clinically depressed, or I should take this disgust as a sign to simply write.

Purposeless and self-indulgent as this all may seem, writing babble today is my sole shot at breaking out of an extended funk. I’m not proud of this, nor have I been proud of anything I’ve written, with the exception of some horror move lists I invested a great deal of time into. I possess a virgin-like knowledge of cult horror films, and felt compelled to flex that trivial insight for the readers’ benefit. Of course, I used to carelessly share any bit of knowledge I thought I had through writing, particularly when I didn’t have much. I constantly wrote about my life experience, especially when I hadn’t gone through a lot. Today I know a whole lot more, and while it doesn’t seem like much, it’s enough to write half as ambitiously as I once did. My goal this morning was to begin and finish some kind of writing, and I’ve done that. I’ve finally fuckin’ written something again.