What you become is purely a result of what you do | MARK HUGHES COBB
There's yet another of the "I'm a precious butterfly" memes rolling around, kind of like 15 minutes ago when every second person you know suddenly burst into introversion, as if it'd just been uncovered by diligent research that folks sometimes don't like being around other folks.
Aged wisdom: A lotta people suck. Crowds generally reek of their worst olfactory offender. No one likes having his or her personal space invaded (invitations inward do not count as invasion). You're probably just a typically easily annoyed human trying to navigate a crowded, too-connected world.
This newer one is akin to those who post photos of the stack of books they're reading, or about to read, or just have finished reading, so they say. I'd do that, except my books-in-progress cluster in backpacks, on the front or back seats of my car, at bedside, on desks .... Anyone with enough time to stack and photograph what they're reading is wasting time that could be spent reading, or maybe are just firmly convinced that they're the reader no one else is, or could be, and the world absolutely needs to feel their power.
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This latest meme-share inflates all would-be writers by claiming "Every writer has at least three of the following."
• A giant crate of unused notebooks
• A strong opinion about the Oxford comma
• A horror story about losing an unsaved draft
• At least three fun coffee mugs
• Crushing imposter syndrome.
Before we dissect, I can help those wondering if they might be a writer: Do you write?
As to the above, typed by someone who wishes to carve the fashion of a writer: Nah.
Notebooks get used, filled front and back, side to side, and in the margins. Those with "a giant crate of unused" must be living in fear of the day writing will suddenly break out, like zits, superflu, or clowns with chainsaws from creepy roadside motels.
If I have unfilled notebooks, it's only because phone recording devices grew sharp enough to be reliable. Some even offer transcriptions that save re-listening; they're often whimsically wrong, but at least as entertaining as trying to decipher my hand-scrawl.
Even then, I doodle, scribble and sketch on random paper, envelopes, peeled labels, discarded drink cartons. Anyone who can stand blank paper is probably not a writer.
Sure, we have all lived in fear of losing unsaved drafts, back in the 1980s, when typing away on a Mountain Dew-green-type Amstrad, the one where lines began to run downhill as it heated up, as if the works were melting. Saving seemed like a physical thing, a series of Indiana Jones leaps across an abyss of disks, chattering and clunking as if actual gremlins lurked inside, churning gears, sometimes falling short of the next rooftop, clawing for purchase.
But we learned about backups and redundancies, and modern processing programs auto-save. Plus the cloud is collecting everything, whether you like it or don't.
This whole pugnacious "Oxford comma" tempest in a tosspot seems overblown as Chuck Norris' fuzzy chin. This imagined belligerence, a fantasy of bellicose brawling editors, calls to mind one of Groundskeeper Willie's pronouncements: "Ach, ye talk like a poet, but ye punch like one too!"
Writers work around clarity problems by recrafting the clumsy sentence or phrase. There's really no need to develop attitudes about punctuation. It's like adopting feelings about tacks.
Yes to silly coffee mugs, but only because hungry writers grab all freebies from conventions, lectures, PR events or whatnot. Absolutely none of mine advertise anything like a personal status, because I agree with Fran Lebowitz: "If people don’t want to listen to you, what makes you think they want to hear from your sweater?"
I understand the impulse to claim crushing imposter syndrome, as hating everything I've ever done keeps me typing, but it seems too many use this as an excuse, like the mythical "writer's block," to explain why they're not writing.
With the possible exception of sociopaths, literally everyone worries that they're going to be called out by our betters — whomever that might turn out to be — for our skilled yet only lightly baked crusts of fakin' it 'til we can make it.
But as with most parents, advisers, musicians, painters and others for whom no practical markers, goal lines or rubrics exist to validate our amorphous abilities, you've got to at some point accept that you're doing enough, for now, and vow to make it better next time.
Just as we try and urge those insisting that no, they refuse to participate in democracy, they will not vote, because their saint of choice isn't on the ballot: Don't let the striving for perfection become enemy of functional good.
Not to say don't strive. That's a duh. Of course, strive. That's pretty much the point of life, boiled down to muscle and twitch.
But don't continually pummel yourself about the head and shoulders because you never caught up to the rainbow. It's still there, shimmering in your senses, there along the ever-receding horizon.
Who is the greatest actor working today, you may well ponder. I swear this has bearing on the above. Stick with it.
Meryl Streep? Idris Elba? Tom Hanks? Gary Oldman?
Helen Mirren, Jeff Bridges, Mahershala Ali, Cate Blanchett, Regina King, Ariana DeBose, Maggie Smith, Alfre Woodard, Emily Blunt, Michael B. Jordan, Tilda Swinton, Michelle Yeoh, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Viola Davis, Anthony Hopkins, Ben Kingsley, Sonia Braga, Denzel Washington, Joaquin Phoenix, Saoirse Ronan, Sterling K. Brown, Gael Garcia Bernal, Kate Winslet, J-Law?
All worthy.
Also all wrong.
The greatest thespian working today?
Old dude in the Progressive Insurance commercials guiding people who are turning into their parents.
Bill Glass.
Yes, another horror the pandammit wrought has been forcing on us commercials within streaming services that we're already paying for ... how exactly is this better?
Oh yeah. A million-billion possibilities every minute of every day. That is better.
Bill Glass, and yes, I'm typing his name more than once in hopes he gets another spider-scrawling hit, and thus receives the acclaim deserving of being the finest Bill Glass, plays a "Parenta-life" coach named Dr. Rick. Over a series of ads mocking youngish folks, Dr. Rick gently guides them to chip out ancient artifacts from freezers, navigate a football game without evaluating the parking lot, and enjoy a movie without moaning about prices, advising fellow adults to go ahead and use the bathroom whether they need to or not, and applauding at the end.
Dr. Rick, whose cakelike slabs of patience only occasionally suggest a quietly churning volcano of frustration bubbling underneath, waves off the applauder: "No one who made the movie is here."
What this has to do with buying insurance, I'm not sure, as I've switched from Progressive because they should put some of that ad money into keeping rates lower. Still, it's not just smart acting, but clever writing, gentle wit that sneaks up and smacks you: Oh wait, yeah, I absolutely am that idiot.
Bill Glass trained as an improv comedian in his native Chicago before moving to California. The naturalism, and fake mustache, make him seem wise beyond his years, and if what I've found can be trusted, he's merely 49.
Think writer, or actor, and chances are the person or persons writing these ads, and Bill Glass, would not be your first images in mind. And yet they in many ways have reached pinnacles of success others in their fields may never touch. Is this where they once dreamed they'd be? Maybe not, but by persevering, they are somewhere.
I've discouraged more folks from "becoming a writer" than I've encouraged, for a simple reason: If you can be put off so easily, you won't put in the work. It's my version of "parenta-life" tough love.
If you go ahead and do, despite some smart-aleck advising you otherwise, you might be.
Reach Tusk Editor Mark Hughes Cobb at mark.cobb@tuscaloosanews.com, or call 205-722-0201.
This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: What you become is purely a result of what you do | MARK HUGHES COBB
