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.
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.
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