EditorialJoe.com | A Hack You Know and Love

I don’t write negative posts anymore unless they’re about some legislation that just passed or something in the entertainment world that annoys me. Contrast this to my journal from when I was a kid, where every letter and word was a focus on how I was disappointed in myself or why I wasn’t happy in own body.

Well, lately my whole body is lit up with self-criticism, and it’s been a couple of days since it started. When I say “my whole body,” I mean it. It’s not just thoughts. It’s a feeling that trails down the spine and leaves this awful tingling in my neck, my back, and my fingertips. So where’s this terrible feeling coming from?

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As a kid I had this idea of success in measurements of fame and wealth, which are understandable measurements–even for an adult. I had no shortage of plans for my adult-self, which included being an author, making movies, being a microbiologist, being an architect, playing music, and being a theoretical physicist.

There was also no shortage of faith that I would become whatever I had in mind. Though I was raised poor–though I spent a few formative years on welfare–there was no despair, no expectation that the success I was planning for myself would not come.

Then came the end of my Junior year in high school. After applying to about a dozen colleges, I was either rejected or wait-listed from each and every one.

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As I usually am, I was being a smart-ass on Twitter yesterday. Sometimes I’m not sure what it is that gives me a spike of followers or @ replies, but often I’m convinced it’s because I used some marketing keyword term that someone’s Twitter-API app latched onto. Rarely, it might be because I said something funny, but that’s doubtful.

Anyhow, I got an @ tweet regarding my 140-character bio.

@pdncoach: Hmm…read your bio @EditorialJoe So how are you REALLY?

My little bio is a little cranky, a little snarky, and a little fun. It states, as succinctly as possible, the randomness of my tweetspew:

I pretend to be conceited, funny, smart, brutal, terrible, obnoxious, involved, important, stupid, and insightful…all at once.

To answer the question about how I REALLY am, I directed him to my recent post: Who Speaks for This Man? But then it got me thinking about whether that answers the question of “how” or “who” I am. Then I begin to wonder–in the sense of the moment–if there was actually a difference.  Then this came out:

Turn to the mirror. Ask it: “___ are you?”

The differences ‘twixt “how” and “who” should bear little distinction in the mental mist; “what” should make you curious and “where” should make you adventurous. If you’re doing it right, “why” will fill itself in.

And hey, I thought that was neat-o. A little summation–an adventurous analogy regarding the question of identity. But no mind is an island in this web age: in the case of this post, the fuel, air and piston were mine…but the spark plug that ignited the combustion was Mr. Sturgell’s simple tweet. Whether or not the effects were intended, the weaving of the indented bold words above were absolutely dependent on the tweet I received. If he didn’t send it, I wouldn’t have had the phenomenological experience that primed that particular organization of my statement.

And looky here, the effects have COMPOUNDED! There’s now a blog post about it.

So here’s to Mr. Sturgell/@pdncoach, interactivity, and the unintended power of the meta-mind (even as it hums along in its prototype phase). The effects are tangible!

Every time I attempt to define myself, it’s a war of weird conflicting ideologies and expectations. Magic rituals share space with chemical systems. Literary creations speak in their own voices, chiding and praising the actions of their creator as he wanders through life. I bark like an old man about the glorious Halcyon days of which I was never a part, and in the same breath I cry injustice like a rabid youth demanding revolution.

These are soldiers of mental contradiction, my internal voices—balanced insomuch as our certainty is never guaranteed against our own numbers. I, the functional engineer, the singular entity defined however inaccurately by corpus as “Joe Callan”, represents my true self only as much as a nation’s president reflects his citizens.

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