B (10:18)
I could talk about this forever self indulgently, but I think that I will put it in this framework. I have been interviewed many, many times by people who write articles about writers or do podcasts about writers or, you know, kind of cultural critics type people. And one of the things that's said often is, I mean, I actually remember someone, a very famous cultural critic, saying to me during an interview about Untamed, do you ever think it's arrogant to write another book about yourself? And I didn't, I couldn't. I didn't think of anything smart to say in the moment. I just have thought about it every night since then, like it's my Roman Empire in my mind, wanting that moment back every time. I mean, side note, like when Untamed, I think it was around when Untamed came out. I've mentioned this before, but one of the major newspapers in the book section said Glennon Doyle has a third memoir question mark. And then underneath it was David Sedaris, 28,000th memoir out today. Question mark. Like she's still talking. This woman is still talking and we're letting her anyway. There are many ways to look at it. What I can tell you is that I, what drives me, what I am most curious about in the world, the only thing I can get myself to care about really is like the human condition, what it's like to be a human and how do we operate and how does this experience work here and how can we do it in a way that brings us more joy and peace and how can we work in community with each other, me being human and you being human and do better down here and have I'm. That's all I care about. Like some people care about science. And so they are constantly experimenting with petri dishes or whatever. I don't know. But this is my driving question. Okay, now, when you want to spend your life thinking about spiraling around, being curious about the human condition, I suppose you could use for that experiment yourself or you could use other people. Okay. What I kind of wanted to say to that person, if I could redo it was I can barely. I use myself. I'm interested in the human condition. So I use, I offer myself up as the specimen. And that's what I'M doing all the time. I'm trying to say, this story, is this about all of us? I'll use myself so that we can talk about this thing. Maybe that's arrogant. I don't know. What I can't imagine being arrogant enough to do is be interested in the human experience and only use other people as specimens. I cannot. I can barely. I can't. No, I shouldn't say I can barely. I can't even truly figure out my own motives or emotions or drives or ambitions or faults. I sure as hell would never purport to publicly try to understand someone else's. I would never, ever look at someone else's art or life or something and write pieces about that person, analyze that person's motives, take apart that person's life and feelings and whatever, and come up with some kind of premise about that person. To me, that is far more arrogant than using your own life and saying, I am really interested about this and I would like to create a campfire for us all to talk about it around. So I'm going to use myself and never you. If you want to bring your own thing, let's talk. But I will only use my own story in this experiment that I want to spend my life doing. That is what I would say. Like, maybe it's arrogant. I can't imagine the chutzpah, the whatever it takes to say, I'm gonna use you. I'm gonna criticize your story, your life, your whatever that is. What? When I read those pieces, that blows my mind. Maybe it blows their mind to see me mining my own story again, but it blows my fucking mind when I see people decide to do that with someone else's life. That is my answer. And I want to say to anyone who feels the same way as I do, your story is your fucking right to tell. And by the way, they only say this about women. Nobody says to David Sedaris or whoever the hell, whatever guy is writing the next thing, that it's a navel gazing, that it's confessional, that it's this or it's that. Men are writing about life, women are writing about themselves, men are exploring the great ideas, and women are navel gazing. I actually believe that there is a space that most of the drama and trauma that's happening in our lives and in our world is because people aren't doing enough fucking navel gazing. Like, maybe people really need to sit with their own story, work out their own shit before they unleash it on everybody else. I reckon I encourage It. So all of that is to say, I will tell my damn story however the hell I want to for the rest of my life. And I will continue to resist analyzing, criticizing or pathologizing or pretending to understand anyone else's life. I will stick with myself.
