The truth is that I always thought it would be cool to be a brooding, isolated person who was misunderstood by everyone. There may have been times in my teens and early twenties when I actually practiced this artifice on people with the convenience of being able to revert to my happiness.
I had a very good childhood, and that never boded well for me as a writer. I needed to have a terrible childhood, been abused or something. I needed a tragedy early on to be a good writer, because in my mind, if there was no tragedy, there was no conflict, and thus (thus?) nothing to write about. If there was no family tragedy, then I’d have to drink, snort coke, do (do?) speed, drop (I know this one is correct) acid, or something. I wasn’t interested in any of that, either.
So now that I got my wish, experiencing all of it genuinely, hearing from people of different degrees of importance in my life that I am aloof, an asshole, that I isolate myself, I’m unfriendly, moody, unreliable, a terrible host, bad friend, that I exhibit the behaviors of an alcoholic (Yes, someone recently said that to me despite the fact that I drink one beer every two or three weeks, but I think I’ve figured out why I come across this way.) — now that it’s all too real, and that there’s nothing I can do to revert to my strong roots in happiness, it is remarkably and unmistakably painful.
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Well, I know a dangerous little about you and try not to relate or be sympathetic, yet can’t help but hear you here. Lose the lesser ambition and go for the real. You as your ideal audience and screw the woe be ever commercial literary aspirations. Easier said than done, my once colleague and still sorta friend. Believe me, still working on this mojo myself.
It’s evident that I don’t know anything about you anymore, so what are you actually talking about?
What do you mean — my pathetic cries for help?
I used to pretend I was brooding — like I was depressed.
Now I am depressed and brooding for real, ironically.
Real depression is painful.
That’s it in a three-sentence summary.
Word, son. Depression is the worst. At least you have a wife and kids, that’s pretty cool. I miss you, by the way.
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