February 6th, 2023 - The Middle Voice

Dear TNY,

Well it’s another easy critique with “The Middle Voice”.

Why? Because this story is very, very unreadable so after about two thousand words I just gave up. Didn’t even scan it. Just put the motherfucker in the dirt. So this story saved me some time.

I’ve been talking to this woman.  About my life and her life and other’s lives and such.  And I’ve been talking to my ex wife about her life and my life and my sons’ lives.  And lots of people about their lives.  Etc.  And this woman put it pretty concisely in that, thus far, I’ve lived an epic life.  Certainly not the most epic, in my opinion.  But varied?  Interesting?  Challenging?  Adventurous?  Yes.  And in the case of the conversation with her, intimidating (maybe?).  But, I say that to say that lives have flavor. She deemed mine epic. My sons’ lives, both of them, are dichotomous. My ex wife’s life, likely casual. You get what I’m saying.

So, I think that, as I have said many times, I’m not the right audience for your stories because they describe lives of a flavor different from mine.  To be clear, the lives in these stories are SO FUCKING BORING I DON’T KNOW WHY THESE PEOPLE DON’T BLOW THEIR FUCKING BRAINS OUT OR BLOW THEIR FUCKING LIVES UP AND DO SOMETHING WITH THEIR LIMITED TIME ON THIS FUCKING SPACE-ROCK.  And I think the readership for these stories, stories like this one, an overwrought (been doing that a lot lately, TNY (e.g. “gibbous thirteenth-day moon”)) pile of  banality, that readership leads lives that look similar.  And, if I’m honest, I just feel bad.  If this is what you think living is, you’ve got serious problems. It’s sad that this is how you choose to use your, if you’re lucky, 75 winters, 75 springtimes, 75 autumns, and 75 summers (I stole that brilliance from Holy Man). Live! Live, you dumb sonsabitches. Get some fucking perspective so that all that mediocre shit you think is “good” looks academic and pointless. Get some fucking sand in your teeth and get in a fistfight with your best friend and fucking pour your heart out to a beautiful woman you barely know even though you are afraid of what she could do to you. BE AFRAID. Do shit that scares you. Print shit that is fucking terrifying. MAKE YOURSELF UNCOMFORTABLE. Jesus Christ, Larry. Use up every fucking second of this existence. Wring the fucking life out of it. Break bones. Cut yourself. Eat drugs and look your loved ones in the face and tell them how much you love them and fucking mean it. Goddamn it, son. Fucking blow it all up and start over again and again. Vibrate with life. Fucking EXIST.

Or don’t. Waste away behind the illusion that you matter (<—a destination that is fucking earned, not a birthright)

Phew.

Fuck me. I’m insane.

But like I tell my kids, there will be so many opportunities for them to excel in this world and do cool shit, because most people will be at home jerking off each other’s ego over shit they are too stupid to recognize is keeping them down.  Like your fiction. A future. Security. Planning. Safety.  The “freedom” of America.  A concept I love, by the way (also, before you get bent out of shape and tell me to leave America if I don’t like it, I fought for your fucking “freedoms” so you can eat shit; I paid for my opinion with six years of my life…DID YOU?!?!?!?!?!).  I love all these motherfuckers out there saying how goddamn free they are while they work to pay debt off that they were trained to create through a lifetime exposed to advertising.  Brilliant strategy, that.  Oh, and those people decry the homeless, who actually are free and are an excellent example of what happens when you don’t drink the fucking Kool-Aid.

I’ve spiraled.  That’s a fucking tangent and a half right there.

What I’m saying is that these stories are written by, presumably, boring people who lead boring lives and they are adored by boring people who lead boring lives.  And that’s fine.  There’s room for everyone, as some would say.  No one is forcing me to read this shit.  It’s my fault.  I’m sick.

I’m one week out from moving to Hawaii.  I have once again blown my fucking life up and reformed it.  I am terrified.  I have a lot of work to do on myself.  To be better faster stronger.  I’m hoping to get somewhere, healthwise, between Burt Kreischer and David Goggins.  Fix my liver.  Fix my heart.  Fix my brain.  To Love, capital L intended. And, sadly, in my Sisyphean struggle, I’ve let the rock come down a little too far on this hill.  But, what a glorious existence in that it’s not too late to start pushing back.

Until next time.

Nick