If you live in Michigan or anywhere Michigan-like, you know that the weather has just given up. We had the polar vortex and then five winters worth of snow and warming and then snowing and then raining, and now the world is covered with something that isn’t really snow or ice, but more like a white Slurpee with gray highlights around the mangey edges. Oh, and it comes in urine flavor too, which is in great supply in my backyard.
Making Your Mark: How do you know what you’re doing matters?
This tweet floated past me earlier today and caused me to pause mid-scroll:
https://twitter.com/FastCompany/status/428570261605351424
The full quote from actor and comedian Aziz Ansari, which I found when clicking through to FastCompany is, “I just want to produce one movie that makes a mark–like Will Ferrell with Anchorman, or Judd and Steve Carell with the 40-Year-Old Virgin–so no matter what happens, I can say, ‘That really captured my voice. That’s the kind of comedy I was trying to do.”
A Fraud from the Beginning: A new adventure, page one
I started a new book last week. I mean, technically, I “started” a “book,” but all that means is I have a few scenes from a hypothetical story outlined in a notepad and sketched out on my computer. That’s not a book. That’s not really anything. In fact, I stumbled over the first line of this blog for some time, because even saying, “I started a new book” sounds like a fraudulent statement.
It’s funny how the tiny beginnings of major happenings can make you feel exactly like that, like a fraud, just pretending to be something you have far more fantasies about than experience. It’s like referring to yourself by a fancy new title on your first day of work, or commenting on your marriage the day after your wedding. The claims feel sort of contrived and uncomfortable. Technically, you are those things, but it still feels like you’re faking it.
Natalie Burg 