When I was naught but a wee nineteen-year-old, Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace was released on home video. I wanted to buy a brand-spanking new VHS copy of the movie, but my coworkers at Blockbuster demurred: I should just wait and buy a used one. I’d even be able to hack into the mainframe and find out which copy was rented the least, thereby ensuring quality and fidelity.

For some reason, this turned into an entire, internalized existential debate, something I mulled over for literal days, because I didn’t yet know who I was or the weird ways my brain worked. Nor did I know that the prequel trilogy would age about as finely as a banana; I just liked Star Wars, thought Darth Maul was cool, and had expendable income for the first time in my life.

Anyway, as I was living at home at the time, I mentioned this to my mother in passing and she seemed genuinely perplexed at my hesitation. When, she asked, did I ever care what other people thought? I had always marched to the beat of my own drum — momspeak for was a headstrong little weirdo — and if I wanted the tape, I should just buy it.

I think I did, ultimately, buy the tape new, but I don’t actually know. A The Phantom Menace VHS did, indeed, become mine, but that’s all I can say with certainty. I have no memory of my next steps, nor do I still have the videotape to reference. I don’t have a DVD or Blu-ray either, because that’s how little impact owning a copy of The Phantom Menace actually ended up having on my life.

***

An old therapist once told me that I wasn’t depressed, I was just “in tune with the sadness of the world.” She also said the pandemic wasn’t real, so obviously her advice is extremely questionable, but I think she was right about my being more empathic than I ever gave myself credit for.

There was a big dust-up in the indie horror world over the weekend. I don’t actually know what happened, not beyond the vague tweets and apologies that followed; I don’t know either of the parties involved personally or professionally; I don’t have a horse in the contested race, nor do I have an opinion worth sharing. But the bad vibes on social media have been weighing me down all the same. Things have been heated, with people — strangers to me — arguing and sniping with one another.

And, I don’t know, I feel bad. Every time something like this happens, I get absolutely rattled in a way that doesn’t make sense. Like, yeah, there are specifics somewhere in all the hurled insults, and probably actual grievances and good points, sure, but I just feel shitty that so many people are being shitty. The urge to dogpile and take sides and make enemies and refuse to give an inch to nuance — and to do so immediately — just bums me the fuck out. Literally makes it difficult for me to function.

Some of it likely stems from the very human urge to be a part of the community. I want to know what’s happening so I can fit in. And if everyone else is all shook up, then I should be, too, right? As a writer and editor I should have an opinion about This Thing That Happened. But the more I try to understand what happened, to form an actually enriched opinion, the more horrible shit I take in, the more concern and well-meaning I take in, the more people mad about the concern and well-meaning, more and more and more of the crossfire, trying to understand all sides, and then I kind of just short-circuit.

All of which is a roundabout way of saying that I don’t think social media’s for me. I am not built for that kind of Being Online. Feel free to consider this my resignation.

***

In The Good Place, Chidi Anagonye once described his brain — his anxiety and constant indecision, more specifically — as a fork stuck in a garbage disposal. I thought that was a pretty apt description of my own brain, but I think a more fitting metaphor might be the proverbial infinite monkeys at infinite typewriters. Because I’m not just hearing other opinions, not just trying to understand things, but trying to do something with that influx of information and misinformation and general vibes all at the same time, all the time. Whether it’s as simple a task as buying a movie or as complex as trying to solve the internet’s propensity for half-baked righteous fury.

It is, logically, an untenable position, I know — I’m constantly trying to carve an ice sculpture from a fire hose — but here we are. That is who I am and how I work.

I want to tell you I’m learning to control the monkeys, or at least harnessing their powers for good, but I’m currently writing, editing, and formatting a novella all at once, plus working on the cover, so who fucking knows. Editing as I go has always helped me piece a story together better, and the formatting helps me keep a consistent tone, but I’m also way behind with my NaNoWriMo numbers, so the jury’s still out on whether this was a good idea. (I was also planning on this being a brief update about health and publishing stuff, but, whoops.)

I will say this, though: I’m really enjoying the writing. When everything clicks, it really clicks, and I’m actually having fun again.

For the last few years, I’ve been caught up in the notion of who I’m supposed to be: what kind of writer, my brand, my image, etc. It started when I was trying to land a literary agent and kinda snowballed from there. I was constantly paring down the monkeys in my mind and presenting and pigeonholing myself as something, an essayist or a novelist or a sci-fi guy or an entertainment reporter or whatever. One of the ridiculous ironies of being a person who creates entire worlds from nothing is how much the industry loves boiling you down to a single, concise label.

Nothing’s really stuck because the monkeys are, well, monkeys. Wild animals. Maybe you can put ’em in a tie or sit ’em down at a keyboard for a while, but they’re still furry, smelly, and constantly flinging poop.

I’d say that makes me an agent of chaos, then, but (a) that’s another label, and (b) edgelord shitweasels like Elon have co-opted that image for all their hilariously one-note right-wing reinventing/ruining of things that already exist. So, instead, I’ll once again take my mother’s advice and simply let the winds of my whims carry me, and be the headstrong little weirdo I am.