Sein und Zeit

I've come to the conclusion that I don't ever really want to be famous. Sure, it was fun for a while back in the go-go Aughts and yeah, I do occasionally pine for the groupies, the complimentary mango-tinis and the time where I woke up in bed with the guy from Fall Out Boy, but I'm older now. It's six years since I've started this blogging deal, plying my non-paying trade in a public space in hopes of... what, exactly?

I gave it up once already. I did for the right reasons, part of which was burnout, part of which was a fear of being able to maintain a standard of quality,* then I got a job, then I got nearly divorced, then I got actually divorced and here I am.

And still no answer. The most basic metaphysical question is: why is there something instead of nothing at all? Heidegger asked that question. I read his book looking into it and, even though I only understood about 20% of it, I think his answer had something to do with protecting us from the scourge of International Jewry.

But that's not why I blog. Well, not exclusively.

And I don't want to be famous. My first blog did accidentally land me some paying work as a writer in some local stuff. I had a by-line and a picture and everything. A horrible, horrible picture. It was blurry and cropped and I was probably the most I've ever weighed in my life when it was taken. And yes, there were groupies and complimentary apple-tinis and the time I woke up in bed with the subalternate recording secretary from the Greater Riverside Chamber of Commerce, but still, fulfilling? OK, a little. In the most literal of senses. But there was no plan there, no master strategy to market and triangulate and build a brand.

The reluctance is that famous-ness means a sure compromise of the self at some point. Either you're actively seeking it where you try to become famous and debase your basic sense of dignity in pursuit of a cause that is guaranteed not to repay you in kind. Alternately, you can have fame thrust upon you and you have to spend the rest of your life trying to explain what exactly happened between you and your fellow thrustees way down there in the dark, rocky fame-womb.

Or you could be as cool as George Clooney, handle it all right way, twist it all just as it should be twisted in a publicist's wettest-ever wet dream and still people only ever want to know why you're not married and what's up with the pot-bellied pigs.

Any way you look at it, all roads on the flow-chart leads back to fucking Kim Kardashian. Or a Real Housewife of [Wherever], the only qualifying criteria of which is to be otherwise unemployable and to not be on speaking terms with your Personal Sense of Shame.

So no, look, all three of you, dear readers, I don't do this for the glory. I don't do this for the glamor or the applause. Would I take a groupie if one offered herself up? Sure, probably. Provided she was under 40, in reasonably good shape and with little to no gag reflex. But that's not the motivation. The motivation is... you know what, I still don't know really. But you have to admit, I'm totally crushing the not-famous thing. Crushing.






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* mediocre and erratic are way harder to maintain than they look.