Kind of a Sad Guy

Ran into Marc Maron the other day in Austin. He asked how I was doing and I said that I was miserable, not because I actually felt miserable, but because I recently heard him describe me as “kind of a sad” guy and I wanted to give him the satisfaction of being proven correct, which is the greatest gift anybody can give to Marc Maron.

I will say, however, that when I heard him describing me in those terms, I was kind of surprised. I don’t think of myself as “kind of a sad” guy.

Then, yesterday, Martha was reading my piece about consciousness and she said it seemed like there was a tinge of despair to it. While I admit I wasn’t in the best mood while writing it, I didn’t think it came across as “despairing”.

Ok look: I’ve been through an emotional wringer over the last year and change for no obvious reasons. A lot of weird, depressive episodes that seemed to spring, fully-formed, from my dumb and broken brain like Athena being birthed from the head of Zeus.

Coupla sad guys.

I’ve battled depression my entire life, but the recent episodes have been more intense than in previous years. I don’t know why. On the other hand, I’ve gotten better at communicating about what’s going on with me and finding new ways to deal with them when they do pop up.

Meditation and cannabis have both been helpful. Yesterday, for example, I felt like I had a pile of soggy paper towels in my brain (as described in the piece); I hadn’t had any edibles in over a week. Last night I took a little, and it totally lifted that heavy feeling. I don’t understand why, and I’m not questioning the result. Nice job, drugs.

Today, I’m sitting poolside at a hotel in Savannah feeling entirely restored. I’ve got a glass of iced tea at my side, the weather is perfect, and I just ate a wholly acceptable Caesar salad. By any measurement, that’s a good day.

(When I say “any” measurement, I obviously don’t mean the metric system because I’m not a commie.)

The contented person lounging here is the person I believe myself to be, even though I know that’s not always the case. I suspect a lot of us have a self-image that contradicts the image others have of us. The Moth Radio Hour just aired an hour of stories about exactly this problem.

It featured a story about a Latino driver being interrogated for not necessarily “looking like an American citizen,” a trans kid auditioning for a non-gender conforming role in an elementary school production of How The West Was Won, and my friend Jessi Klein’s funny recounting of her time working as a writer at SNL, in which her image of her own abilities became threatened when she couldn’t figure out how to crack the show’s comedic code.

Incidentally, Jessi wrote the funniest sketch we did on our single season of Michael & Michael Have Issues. Ironically, it’s about dealing with depression.

We’re the only species that seems to have this problem. Cows don’t worry about how they come across to other cows. People do, though, and this is one of the many problems with having a human brain.

How smart are people, really, if we can’t even get out of our own way long enough to enjoy the benefits of ruling the planet? Like, if panda bears figured out how to take over, would they suddenly get all emo about it? No chance.

So what’s our problem? Does greater intelligence necessarily come with existential dread, or does the brain eventually evolve to the point where it can chill the fuck out for two goddamned minutes? Is there a way to get some kind of “panda serum”?

Is that what ketamine treatment is?

We’re complicated creatures enduring complicated emotional states for reasons that don’t seem to make a ton of evolutionary sense. After all, what’s the benefit of self-generated misery? Even dung beetles seem happy, and all they do all day is walk around eating literal shit. Do you think they ever nibble on turds to fill the hole in their hearts the way I do with Hint of Lime Tostitos?

I imagine it can cut the other way, too, where people may think of you as a happy-go-lucky, good time Charlie, and you view yourself as a tortured artist or some such thing. Aspects of both may be true. You know, with us containing multitudes and shit.

All of this is a roundabout way of saying that maybe there’s some value in paying attention to the narratives others tell about us even if they don’t agree with the narratives we tell ourselves. I’m not saying we need to agree with them, but Marc Maron’s comment about me was kind of an eye-opener, as was my wife’s.

Obviously, certain characteristics about ourselves are immutable. Identity, though, is fluid. Who we are one moment isn’t necessarily who we are the next. Certain aspects of our personalities are highlighted or obscured depending on the day, the circumstances, or the quality of our poolside Ceasar salad. We can change by degrees or, sometimes, seemingly all at once.

The good news is that we have it within our ability to create new narratives about who we are. It may take a while for the Marc Marons of the world to catch up to the person we are now versus the person they imagine us to be, but that’s ok. We’re no doubt misconstruing other people as much as they are doing the same to us. Like I used to think of Marc as a bitter young comic who engaged in petty fights with his peers for no reason other than to bolster his own insecurities. Now, though, I see him as much older.

I’m kidding – over the years, Marc actually has mellowed into a lovely guy. My narrative about him changed. His about me remained the same. That’s fine. Maybe I am kind of a sad guy, but I’m also an aspiring panda bear. It is towards that goal that I will continue to place my energies.