i should add, you know, that of course i too am selling something. i’m selling my services. i’m selling my time. i’m selling myself. i think i have to.
and i’m just torn, you know? because on the one hand you have to present this professional persona to the world, to, basically, anyone who might hire you. (that’s a very specific subset of the world, i know.) and on the other hand you have to stay true to yourself, your ideals, and, hopefully, stand for something.
the normal(?), natural(?) (safe?) thing to do seems to be to just keep it all hidden. keep your past hidden, your mistakes hidden, and press on each day as if you were a new person in the world. those things that happened to you when you were a kid, the trouble you got into down at the bar, that’s just like, your *personal* life. nobody needs to know about it. right?
certainly you don’t want the world to know about it. you don’t want the people who *might* hire you to know about your mistakes. right?
because the fear is, the fear is that *everyone* will find out *everything* about you, and there you’ll be, flat broke, shivering, on the street. because you’re not perfect, and you made mistakes you wish you hadn’t, and now nobody wants you. (replace all those “you”s with “I”s and “me”.)
but what if they — and by “they” i mean *everyone* — did know everything? and this is the trouble with the surveillance state. it takes the personal and privateĀ and makes it public. and so hardly anything makes sense anymore. it’s a mindfuck.
you might think, well, i mean, it’s just a *blog*. if this guy (me) wants to shoot himself in the foot by mixing his personal and public life, sure, give him enough rope to hang himself with. but i’m just trying to get to the other side of this thing. this situation. this river.
because i don’t want to live two lives. i don’t want to have a “phone voice”. i want to be a whole person. and i want to bring that whole, singular person to bear on the tasks i undertake, the jobs i do. and i want the people i meet to know that they’re dealing with a straight-up, honest (and yes, *flawed*) person. and if there was any doubt of that, they’d just say, “well, did you see what he wrote on his blog?” (and hopefully not, “yeah, they’re probably going to kill him.”)
…
i think i’ve been living this life as if i could go back, fix what was wrong, whatever happened, whatever i did, and then everything would be okay. but i can’t. i can’t fix my past. this isn’t Quantum Leap.
so i’m tired. tired of thinking like that — thinking like that has made me tired. and the words you’re reading now are just my own. my own tired words. and when you’re talking to yourself, and to everyone, and you’re sorry, and you’re trying to be honest, this is what it sounds like.
so! tomorow! tomorrow i’ll wake up, i’ll press on, and i’ll be a new person in the world again. because at this point — let’s face it — there’s no going back.