I contain multi 'tudes
where have I been? where have YOU been
Yesterday someone emailed and said they hoped I was okay, since it had been a month since my last newsletter.
A month? For real? I genuinely thought it had been two weeks at the most. But hey, bonus points to the person who noticed and checked in, thanks for that.
Anyway, my apologies. One of the things I wanted to do with this newsletter was be consistent, which I think is as important for my own mental wellbeing as it is for building this thing, whatever it may be. But then, I try to remind myself, didn’t I call this Meets Most? This is meant to be an anti “should” zone. So allow me a moment toto celebrate what I did rather than focus on what I didn’t.
These past few weeks, along with failing to understand time as those around me understand it, I finally let myself relax a little. The previous three months were pretty stressful, as you know, what with the whole layoff thing and my cat in the hospital (he’s ok now) and my own health and the situation with my landlord (I only have this apartment until the end of April and then… who knows!*). I jumped into doing this newsletter and worked a little on another project, plus I wrote a book review that will be in the New York Times the week after next. Even with no job, I didn’t give myself a chance to disconnect a little and regroup.
Plus, I started overthinking this project. I started thinking “This newsletter should be about something. It should have a focus.” I’d see how one topic was more popular with readers and think “oh well, I should do more of that, because then I make my readers happy and grow my audience. Popularity matters.” Or, “oh people really responded well to that one, I should write more about that.”
I don’t only want to write about what’s popular. I mean, obviously I want people to enjoy this and subscribe, but I also want to use this space as a way to explore. Al the topics I’m thinking and writing about – friendships, values, social media, technology, the tech industry, work, fear, anxiety, loneliness, identity, how we exist in and move through the world – it’s all connected. Maybe I don’t have a central thesis yet, but I feel like this is a good way for me to talk it through and be in conversation with you, to write letters to you and get better at identifying how everything ties together. Some days I’ll have a very clear theme and some days I might noodle more. I hope this is okay.
One of the things I think about a lot, and have thought about for a long time, is a concept I call “oneness.” A sort of singularity of the soul, if you will. You might think of it more as a specific vs. non-specific way of being. Or in terms of work maybe someone who has a calling vs. someone who bounces from career to career, or is a multi-hyphenate.
To me, oneness has two parts. The first is that singular focus or brilliance, the sense that a person seemed pre-destined for one path or simply found what fit them best and stuck to it. You know, people who literally seem made for the thing they do. Famous athletes like Lionel Messi, Simone Biles, Carlos Alcaraz, Michael Phelps – people who are preternaturally gifted, whose entire being seems specifically built for their chosen endeavor.
Or people you know in your own life who you kinda can’t imagine doing anything but their chosen path: My brilliant friend Brian, who is one of my favorite writers. When I think of him, I genuinely cannot imagine him doing anything else but writing. Sure, he’s changed throughout his life, pursuing different interests, and he writes about a wide range of topics, but that almost inherent writer-ness – it’s always there. Same with my friend Kevin, a musical genius with an encyclopedic memory and a heartbreaker of a voice (and who I describe as “if a circus ringmaster and a big tent revival preacher had a baby and dressed it like a disco ball” – he tours now as Shinyribs but you may also remember him from The Gourds). Kevin’s interested in everything under the sun, but he also seems like he was born to music. Another friend has had multiple careers, but her personal style, her home, her visual aesthetic have all remained consistent and very “her.” Or even my dentist! She became a dentist over 40 years ago and absolutely loves being a dentist, couldn’t imagine being anything else.
The second part of oneness is an all-encompassing idea that I project onto others. I’m talking about a sense of cohesion. I see someone else having a path they’ve identified as the one they will follow and I envy it. Or I see someone else with an aesthetic that seems so effortless and I think, ugh why do I look like I got dressed in the dark. Or someone I perceive to have an unassailable sense of self. Could be all of the above! Just a way of being in the world that seems so sure and true. A classic case of comparing other people’s outsides with my own messy insides.
This is something a little hardwired into many of us: We should be A Thing. We should fit into definable categories that help us identify ourselves and help others orient themselves to us. Frequently (at least in the US) it’s career-based, but that’s obviously only one small part of it. If you’re a writer you know what you do. If you’re a New Yorker that’s where you’re from. Obviously there are racial, ethnic, sexual, and gender identities. But there are also medical diagnoses, parental status, sports teams, musicians, on and on. People take so many things and use them both to make sense of the chaos of being human and to signal to others. This is who I am! This is how we can connect! This is how you know what matters to me!
The challenge, at least for me, is that I don’t feel a sense of oneness in almost any area. I feel like my identity is very much built on both “yes and” as well as “but.” Am I writer or a researcher? Yes, both, but which. I grew up in Colorado but I was born in Philly, so where am I actually from? Yes I love cats, and dogs too.
What am I trying to say here? Is this just a long-winded way of riffing on Whitman’s Song of Myself?
I don’t think everyone is super complex. I do think some people have a much simpler way of being in the world. Trust me, I’ve done enough research interviews to know there are people out there who listen to exactly two playlists, and one of those playlists is comprised solely of Disney songs. People whose entire persona revolves around an obsession with Christmas and, specifically, the movie Elf. I know Brian and Kevin contain many many multitudes, despite having found a calling that suits them perfectly, and I am also sure that many people who have never found a calling are still perfectly content with their lives and their identities.
But I think, in a world – or at least, in an economy – that wants you to pick a path, it is hard for a lot of us. Last week I got a message from another friend, who reached out to say hello. When I asked him how he was, he said fine, just trying to figure out what am I doing with my life? This friend has a whole career, one many people would aspire to, and here he is, convinced he’ll wonder what to do with his life for as long as he’s kicking. You could probably describe me this way, right? For the past decade plus, I’ve had a pretty incredible career. A placement recruiter recently told me I had a dream resume – sexy and impressive big-deal companies, senior roles, tons of success I could point to. People want my career too, and yet I always have that same sense as my friend: What am doing with my life?
It’s fascinating to me because I have tried on as many different selves as a person possibly can. Sometimes, in conversation at my last job, I’d mention something I did years ago, and my younger coworkers would laugh. How many lives have you lived?? they’d ask, shaking their heads. My family jokes that I don’t like change, but I change my life pretty regularly. Careers, cities of residence, interests, styles. It’s a strange sort of discomfort, a rootless and restless sense, caught between knowing I need to work to support myself but not ever being sure I’ve found “the thing,” whatever that is. Whereas some people pursue a path, I think others pursue a feeling.
I used to think that I would one day I would have it all figured out. A lot of us grow up thinking this, right? We imagine a time when we’ll finally feel like a grown up, like one minute we’ll be sitting on the stairs, listening to the adults downstairs have a party, and the next we’re doing the frug** while holding onto a martini. Like we’ll magically emerge into some version of ourselves, knowing all the things we thought adults knew.
Now I think that what holds me back from this so-called oneness is my own dumb fear. The number of “hardwired” things I’ve ignored or tossed off is substantial, so why hold onto this one? Why assume that I have to have a topic or A Thing? Why not just pursue what intrigues me and see where the paths lead, whether they reconnect or take me in opposing directions? Why be afraid of what you might think when I write this, when I could just hit send and see what happens next?
Until next time!
Lx
* Fun fact: Today is my 4-year anniversary of moving to NYC!
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Three recommendation from me today, if recommendations are your thing:
This video of the watusi.
This version of the frug.
I just love you.
You speak directly to an essential part of me, and I'm thankful. This post gives my brain a launchpad and a couple of landing spots, and I needed it/them.