The results are in: the internet has reduced our discourse to clickbait, opinions are easily swayed by social media, and all this muddy collectivism has ironically left us feeling lonelier than ever and left our kids more suicidal.
Happy Halloween: I’m in a punchy mood.
‘Tis the season for groupthink (elections), and I’m pretty cranky about it all—the same talking points, the same reactions, the same outcries, the same logical fallacies, the same shares and re-shares—so I recently treated myself: I took myself out, bought myself an ice cream, and deleted the inst*gram app from my phone. Turns out it’s doing wonders, not only for my mental health, but also for my reading and writing life. I’m trying in earnest to finish my novel, so everything I’m currently reading—field guides, father/son stories, family novels, novels about motherhood, nonfiction about gender—is stoking that fire.
But whenever I come up for air lately, I look around and see that everyone is saying the same things about the same things. Like Joshua Cohen’s narrator in his recent New Yorker short story, I can’t “deal with the clichés. I became a writer so I could choose my own words and speak for myself—why else would anyone get into this racket?”
“Oh, you’re such a four,” people say. (For the non-Enneagram initiated, the “four” is the “individualist.”) But I resent that reduction. (“Of course you do! You’re a four!”) But really: I’m just a number from a fucking test? I’m just a trope? I’m just a type you can tidily file away? I resist that, not just for me but for all my beautiful, irritating, hilarious, enigmatic, brilliant, sensitive, artistic friends—especially for them. We recently helped a friend setup for a party, and afterward, she told me, “I’m a six, so I always welcome the support.” I wanted to hug her and say, “You’re so much more than a six.” And also: The numbers mean next to nothing to me; we are all all the numbers. We are all boundlessly complex—I truly believe that. (I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: specificity is an act of love.) I resist the typecasting, not only because I find it lazy, but because it keeps us from seeing and being seen. “So-and-so’s a three, so that makes total sense.” This is how we talk now. How much less are we seeing—actually seeing—each other nowadays? And, yes, OK, sure, if that helps you orient yourself to me: whenever I’ve done the free version of the Enneagram test online late at night after the party where everyone seems to know everything about Enneagrams, I’ve come up as a “four.” If that helps you, great. But also: I like to eat slices of cheese wrapped around spicy pickles while standing in front of the wide-open fridge. Clutter on the floor —specifically the floor — makes me feel depressed. My dad used to air guitar to Boston’s Don’t Look Back in his pickup truck on the way to the next framing job, and that is one of the happiest memories of my childhood. We are much, much more than our type, and also: we are much, much more than what our friends and our “friends” are sharing on social media.
Lean into what you love.
Lean into what comforts or what disturbs.
Lean into what lights a fire under your peach-fuzzed ass.
A former teacher used to tell us to organize our lives around our writing and not the other way around. This is profound, because I think what she was talking about was preserving vision and energy. Once you start organizing your art around your life, you stop doing art. That, or you start sounding like everyone else. You start reading the same books and listening to the same music and going to the same galleries and watching the same movies and gathering inspiration from the same groupthink-y wellspring. But I think what she was really getting at was this very profound idea that the artist just needs to be fed. And how does the artist get fed? She looks for the things that make her want to cartwheel into a pile of leaves. She looks for the things and the books and the music and the conversation and the people and the relationships that just plainly and simply make her feel good. She looks for the things that make her head spin.
What gives you fuel today (George Saunders) will be different tomorrow (Annie Ernaux). What gives you comfort today (fluffy unicorn stories) might disturb you tomorrow. What disturbs you today (that novel about grief) might bring comfort tomorrow. So goes life. And so: the inspired artist looks for the things that challenge clichés or ready-made images (dilapidated barns, autumn leaves) or challenge her old, stagnant notions of truth. She looks for poetry. And what is poetry? As Emily Dickinson says, “If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can warm me I know that is poetry.” She also says, “If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.”
And so: on this very specific Halloween: off with our heads!
What’s currently taking my head off? I’m taking a respite from all the noise and finding great solace in The Poetry of Presence. (That, and songs featuring pedal steel guitar.) Because I’m feeling persnickety, I’m not even going to tell you about the book. (You’re smart; you can google.) Rather, I’d encourage you to shut out all the noise and dig down deep into the thing you love. Dig down deep into the thing that energizes. Don’t go looking for The Poetry of Presence. Find your own poetry. Find your own presents. Present yourself with presence. Harness that internal locus of control. Discover the joy of missing out.
All the great rock stars know: mostly, you need to go your own way. Mick Jagger shouts, “Hey, you, get off of my cloud.” Tom Petty won’t back down. Gloria Gaynor’s great get-the-fuck-out jam proclaims, “I Will Survive.” Aretha just wants to get paid what she’s earned on "Respect”— get paid and be left alone. And, of course, the early-aughts emo band Further Seems Forever implores an ex to “Go your own way,” while Fleetwood Mac makes the same pronouncement in perhaps the greatest JOMO jam of all time.
So, why not join them? Go your own way.
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I’d love to hear: what’s your pedal steel? What’s your Poetry of Presence? Many thanks to my dear friend Michael for gifting me the book.
Please spread the love to your local libraries, independent booksellers if you can, or shop online at Bookshop. Thanks, as always, for reading.
"You start reading the same books." Boo -- We feel you over at DIRTBAG, Josh. Great post.
(Also, Joe by Larry Brown is a great surrogate father/son read.)