The King of Everything

a journal entry that became a substack post halfway through

I wonder a lot about self-fulfilling prophecies.

At times, it feels inevitable that everything is going to fall apart. Emma Stone gave a moving speech about this in La La Land that I felt very aligned with, while simultaneously resenting her for giving the speech. She talks about how maybe she’s one of those people who has always wanted to do it (acting) but maybe it has all just been a pipe dream or something of the sort. I think about how, for many viewers, this moment rings true to their experience and the continued experience they may have forever, all the while Emma Stone has already “made it” and the acting she’s doing in that scene comes from a feeling she probably stopped having long ago.

I have to ask: does the very act of wanting something make it unattainable? Does the fear of becoming something doom you to a fate of being that thing? That would be ridiculous, but also, your reality is inspired by your actions which are inspired by your thoughts.

Here’s something: I’ve been trying to figure out my workflow for a while now. I have skipped around some jobs for the last few years, but that’s mostly because I keep moving. No, I am not a bad employee, I’m a good employee who sucks at everything. I’m a good employee who is impossible to hold down. I set myself a goal when I moved here: to see things through, finish the job, follow a thread until the end. What does that reality look like? Have I doomed myself to a life of jumping lily pads because I want so badly to find a lily pad I can stand to die on?

Fear based goals are no good. I gave up on a bunch of things a bunch of times in Los Angeles, so now I’m a little worried that it wasn’t just my environment, but rather something inherent in me that makes me ill-suited for long term commitments. Now, I am using New York City to prove myself wrong. Is this another way I have doomed myself - to see my life in geographic chapters?

I want to write a script, a book, a blog, a webseries, a sketch, a stand-up set, a journal entry, a short film, and a compelling “about me” page on a website. However, despite this, I can’t stop thinking about this new “Dorito theory” I keep seeing on tik tok. The theory is just the internet discovering that you can never get enough of something you don’t need - this meaning a sweet treat will never satisfy you the way a whole chicken with a salad will. Maybe one book wouldn’t be enough. I just wrapped on a short film last month and I am already thinking about the next thing I could write, then getting frustrated that, after a full day indoors, I do not have any breathtaking ideas worth mentioning (for the time being.)

This is where I find myself confused, a little irked, and positively terrified for the events that will make up my future: where can we apply the rules we learn about life? I learn one social cue from one friend, then I turn around and have to reevaluate all of that social learning to speak to another person. I can’t get enough chocolate croissants, so I should probably stop having them. I can’t seem to write enough words that I really ever want to stop, so I should maybe take a vow of silence? I feel like that’s all coming off very condescending - I am concerned and uncertain of my strategy for sharing this feeling. Do you believe me? Do you believe that doing something right could ever, has ever, will ever be important to me? What does “right” look like?

If all I want is to write, and all I can write about is wanting, then who the fuck is flying the plane?

Pause for a second here: what do I really want? I want enough money that I can relax about going out for dinner. I want the weather to improve. I want to volunteer somewhere so that I feel like I’m contributing a little to society, but not so much that the hours impede my ability to do nothing and be selfish. I want new shoes, but I want new shoes because I want shoes that are comfortable but also trendy, which I think means I want to fit in better. I want to stand out, but never admit that I want to stand out, just to stand out very naturally in a way that makes people say “wow, we always knew she would stand out and make lots of money.”

This last one is impossible, because I spend a lot of time thinking about how I should be thinking more about marketing strategies, then consequently feeling guilty about how little care or thought I’ve put into marketing strategies, and then the day is wasted and I want to express a thought that chips away at the overwhelm, but the only thing swollen large enough in my brain for expressing is this idea that, with the right set of circumstances, I could be a person who writes for a living because I figured out my perfect marketing strategy.

I’m wondering if I should try to write a feature length film before the world ends, or if there will be room in the wreckage for me to produce another movie about a girl who feels sad. I wonder where I should draw the line between accepting what is inevitable and giving up too early on something with real potential. I wonder about all of it, all the time. I wonder about my other friends - the people who have similar wants as me. Do they think I’m being cringe-pilled, beyond help? What do I think about what they’re doing? Does anyone care about anything, and is admitting you care about stuff one of the worst things you can do?

I have no idea how I am supposed to decide where to go from here, or whether I should decide anything at all in the first place. Nothing has gone the way I planned - but in a way it has all gone exactly the way I imagined it, I just had a poor imagination that didn’t stretch all the way around the hard parts. I of course can’t predict whether all of the effort will turn into anything or not, but I am laying the ground work for a path that will feel, in hindsight, the way I imagined it would be as a child. It is true that I am doing it for the 12 year old version of me, and that I am doing it for the 85 year old version of me, but there are many years in between where the motivation gets fuzzy. The 23 year old version of me is talking to the 12 year old version of me about what she wants, and they’re having a huge fight about how many hours of sleep I should be getting. They’re wondering if, instead of talking to each other, they should be talking to trusted friends and supportive family members. They’re both scooping handfuls from a 5 pound bag of blue frooties. I think they’re both proud of the way things have gone.