I have these little pockets of time, in the morning where i’m really inspired and really confident in myself, across the board. I get a little comfortable and say and write things I wouldn't say outside of the little pockets of time, where I think i’ve got a grip on life and what to do with it. i’ve taken to calling myself extra, extra talkative (my people get a lot of texts, probably mostly about music) and definitely extra with the content in writing (maybe too personal or revealing). at that time it all seems positively brilliant and I can do no wrong. I feel really funny, smart and articulate…and it’s enjoyable, I like feeling that way. all is well and I can do a lot of things. Unfortunately the fear of hypomania has to be a wet blanket on this joy, but nothing in this world comes for free, everything is balanced somehow.
that’s not really the problem, it’s the guy who comes into my head for his shift later (who is also me) that is like “you did and said what!?”. my thinking is so drastically different that I just kind of hide out and hope no one notices how extra I was. yesterday I wrote about how I should organize a book from my stories, augment them a bit, weave them together and self publish a book (cause you can do that nowadays). the extra guy told the other less confident guy about it during shift change and the less confident guy was like “damn, that’s a pretty big check to cash, man”. it is so rare that I delete posts, but the guy with all the fear and doubt actually took it down and wiped away any trace of it this morning. it was just fear.
it isn't like I have multiple personalities, they’re both me but they have such a different view of things, it’s kind of irritating. I don't appreciate cringing at myself later on, I could really do without it, thank you very much. it’s way too reminiscent of the mornings after a really prolific drunken blackout where i’ve made a fool of myself, and i’ve got to hear about it, minus the headache and dehydration. think of all of the things that the fearful, less confident Ev has and still prevents me from doing. I was writing about generative artificial intelligence in one of yesterday’s articles (yeah, the one I didn't delete), and how It read my whole blog and recommended I practice self compassion, and then my other mind comes in with absolutely none of it.
I guess someone with a mind like mine has to make of job of maintaining a little compassion for himself, and it’s not just a choice you make and you’re all set. I really have to challenge the cynical guy about whether or not he’s dealing in facts, here. i’m literally attempting to do that at this very moment, by typing about it. I want to really go for the things I want to pull off, like self publishing a book. why couldn’t I? I have an easier time being convinced of the negativity about myself than the positive things. it’s fucking my shit up.
I think about it, who is right? Mr. extra or the negative Nancy in me. herein lies another way of thinking that doesn’t serve me, the all or nothing/black and white thinking. life isn’t black and white there are infinite gradients of the shade of reality. maybe they are both a little right, and a little wrong, maybe there is a whole other take on it all that I cant even see.
one has trouble accepting the paradoxical nature of many things, because they don't fit it with the paradigm of clear cut logical explanations that satisfy our longing for order in a disorderly world. often things make sense way in reverse, way after we’d like to understand them.
I’ve taken to understanding how fluid this cycle is between positive ev and negative ev, and it’s stopped me from hacking the blog to pieces, hiding out and exclaiming that I quit writing because negative ev thinks something critical about the posts that possibly no one else does. I don’t know that it’s necessarily a balance but it does feel like a certain level of acceptance of my process. everyone has a process, I spend hours learning about the creative processes of my favorite artists, in fact I don’t know if there is a genre of film that gives me more joy than the Rock Doc, that goes behind the scenes of my favorite musicians. which brings me to another point that I picked up from being a keen observer of none other than The Grateful Dead’s career.
“they cant all be winners”
the grateful dead played over 2,300 concerts before the passing of Jerry Garcia in 1995. they we’re different than most rock bands in the sense they had no intention of perfectly recreating some 3 minute long song that was on radio and an album, and Garcia stated that they probably we’rent able to, anyway . every night was different, every song was played at least a bit differently, sometimes in a whole different tempo, time signature and arrangement. often after the song it would take influence from jazz and go completely improvisational, and music was created on the spot.
through this ethos, almost by accident, they we’re able to develop a unique audience and a unique relationship with that audience who'd be willing to follow them to the ends of the earth to take the artistic risk to play “without a net”. I fancy myself pretty knowledgeable when it comes to bumping around their tape archive, and I will admit that there are nights (especially later in the 30 year career) that are an absolute un-listenable train wreck. but here’s the thing, on the other side of that spectrum are the kind of transcendent spiritual experiences that would make you quit your job, worry less about personal hygiene and chase the next good night. you didn’t really know what the next night was going to be.
I know I refer to that band a lot, because i’m so fond of them, and this article isn't about the history of the grateful dead but i’ll mention an interview with their bassist Phil Lesh where he stated that the band essentially practiced on stage, in front of what sometimes was a sold out football stadium full of people.
when I got into writing, I took some of this stuff with me to the empty pages of medium. I hardly ever put much thought into what i’m going to type, it’s very train of thought and improvisational. this opens up the possibility that some of them aren’t going to be good, I decided I wanted to do it every day for practice, however. every couple of posts I would get into a flow state that felt like I was tapping into a force that wasn’t me, and it was dictating what was coming out of the keyboard. this feeling was so positive that it made me want to keep coming back to see if I could go there again. eventually the more I did it, the more frequently I could get there, and the more I put into it the more rewarding it became. i’m not practicing in a journal, either, i’m doing it where it can be seen. there is an audience, i’m not saying my blog is a cultural phenomenon like the Grateful Dead, i’m saying that I get really thoughtful responses from people all over the place, and there are people who have been willing to read the stuff since day one who still read it.I’m able to have meaningful correspondence with these people without a lot of boring surface talk. I like to think the discipline of regularly writing has improved the craft, I mean I hope so. having a relationship with your audience is almost equally fulfilling as when the process of creating
the extra ev always thinks he’s reached a new level, and gets all excited about it while posting all over every platform he frequents. in good spirits he’ll say things like “oh man, that was my Cornell ’77 of a story” referring to the most widely traded and highly regarded tape in the Dead’s career. negative ev is predictably irritated with this assertion, but he’s not going to be around forever. just like he wasn't here when i woke up this morning and typed this. i’m happy to tell you that this was one of those things that just fell out, which does a lot for my morale.
one of my first posts back in the summer of 2021, when I was encouraged by a bunch of folks to start writing again is entitled “i’m afraid to write every time”. I wouldn't do anything of the sort from roughly 2004 to 2021, although I enjoyed writing and researching the papers for my college classes during my unfinished liberal arts education at UMass boston. I was afraid the writing would be rubbish before I even committed a single word to print, and I would not grant myself the grace of a learning curve. I wonder how many people keep their talents from the world just because of fears like that. jumping off the deep end, over that fear changed the way I not only look at myself, but the way I looked at the very meaning of life. it sounds drastic but It’s true. so maybe I should push myself to face other things that scare the shit out of me, just work on the book. what is the worst case scenario?
afterward: this is an example of the kind of deep conversations I have with the audience for my blog, actually shaping where I go with it’s subject matter in the same way that the energy of a rock and roll audience feed into the band’s performance. it’s a beautiful thing to be cultivating this kind of double sided energy transfer with people, some of whom i’ve never met outside of the internet, some of whom I know very well. I have to express my sincere gratitude to those who read it, because they are a big part of why I keep trying.
I really need to come up with better ways to monetize this. you’re probably sick of these little “this blog is made possible by readers like you” things, and trust me i’m sick of doing it, in fact when I have over 75 dollars I omit the fund raising part because I don’t like it. when I am not in that position I can’t afford to omit my little impression of old school PBS telethons. it’s a matter of using the gifts you’ve got to help you sustainably live in an expensive city, during an expensive economical fuck show (late stage capitalist dystopia). if you have any ideas on how to shake some survival funds out of this bitch, please email me ev.penk7@gmail.com. if my work rings any bells for you and you’re in the fortunate position where you could help me, the donation link is here. I’m not trying to get wealthy and eat $14.00 burritos at chipotle , but I would like to be able to financially recover from a 3.00 ride on the E train over to Washington square park now that the weather is improving. if you cant drop a coffee, drop me a line with your thoughts, or spread the word about what i’m doing over here. I love the conversations i’m having with the people who read this blog.
I will say that I have well over enough followers to be what it’s called a medium partner where I could pay wall my content for Revenue but I will never do that I’d rather people read it then pay me to read it is 100% against my mission here to lock my writing and therefore prevent people from seeing what I’m doing.
