Mary Volmer

Once upon a time Noah asked God to create a website and facebook page in order to market GOD. And God was like, “Market myself?  Forget it, man.  I AM.” 

Here I am, human, infinitely more limited than an omnipotent being, and still paralyzed by the thought of trying to define myself for an on-line audience.  Instead of getting to work, I do what I always do when faced with tasks that are foreign or mildly distasteful to me: I begin over-thinking. (Can you hear the existential crisis speeding round the corner?)

But who am I?  Am I just one me?  And if I am, as I have always suspected, a crazy collection of manifestations, no one of which fits comfortablyfor more than an hour at time, then which “I” do I put forth as the definitive edition?   Which I do I want the world to think I am?  And am I then stuck with the I that I create?  Is the I that I create, and the I that I am, really the same person after all?  And who is that?

But then I think to myself, hold on, self!  Wait just a minute!  Who I am isn’t really the question, is it?  The real question is, am I cool, smart, attractive, experienced, witty enough to represent the book I’ve written.  I’d buy and read my book.  But would I buy my book from me?   Or not from me, me, but from the me I find on my blog, twitter account, facebook page, website?  Because let me tell you that that confident, mildly attractive, carefully benign individual is not me.  No really.

Yes, I know.  Just write.  Of course I know because that’s what I tell my students to do.  Don’t worry about it!  Just write and rewrite and the universe will unfold as it should.  Hypocrite!  I know.  But that too is a part of who I am.