The road to uh, I dunno.
I often wonder what kind of a change my writing is going to instill in me. It’s weird to think about what I was doing before I started jotting down daily messages to myself in a trendy Moleskine that I got from some party at the Nike Store (random epiphany-inducing event, right?), and how different things look to me now. That was only eight months ago—it’s been two since I opened Chris Reinhard dot com.
In such a short time, the perspectives I once held pretty steadfastly to have either become exponentially more solid or, conversely, laughably debunk. And while I believed writing daily, picking apart the negatives and positives of the world around me would eventually lead to some plane of enlightenment, thusfar I’ve only gotten more jaded. It’s kind of like starting your first band and realizing that without planning it, all your ideas are coming out of the stacks as three-chord emo. I’m not bothered so much by the disturbing fact that I can’t seem to evoke adult emotion through my writing, but rather that artistically it’d be a stretch to say I’m any more capable than a sixteen-year-old with an acoustic guitar.
Rather than taking this realization and letting it tangle up my ambition in self-doubt, I think I can look at it as the beginning of many new stages in my work. The process is indubitably endless, but that’s the gift art provides for all of us. Pretty amazing that I am lucky enough to have an outlet for this stuff (and so do you, so give me something to read!).
Anyway, back to the topic at hand. Thinking about who I will become because of my writing is easily one of the most horrifying concepts I’ve ever encountered. I think about people like Thoreau and Lord Byron, and how different they were, yet how globally crucial their influence has been. I think about Bukowski, and how the mere mass of shit going through his mind was enough to drive him to alcoholism. I think about Hunter S. Thompson and how the only works of his worth mentioning are drug-induced vacations from sanity.
I think about all of that, and then I wonder where I’ll fit into the spectrum of notable writers, if at all. Almost no one in this realm is normal by any stretch of the imagination, yet they’ve created art that is accessible to almost everyone. So who am I to become if that’s the kind of infamy I aim to achieve?
I like to picture myself in the future first as a pop-culture icon (like Thompson or Bukowski) and later as a visionary in some unknown region of the writing world. And with enough practice and enough life-changing experiences, I see both as completely feasible accomplishments.
But first, I have to get through to you, because you, the people supporting me from the get-go, are those who I am most likely to connect on that deep, intimate level. So by all means, tear me apart before I get up in front of the rest of ‘em. I could use the criticism.
Besides, I’m way too big for my britches these days, anyway.
3 years ago