Not too long ago, I operated under the belief that the most important things to look for in people are the things that you have in common. I recited that line from High Fidelity more times than I can count¹ and I said it to people like it was a Bible verse, repeating it whenever the subject of popular culture and preferences came up. I calculated the probability of how much I would get along with a person, based on what they liked. People who liked the same things I did were more attractive to me, even though they turned out to be pretty lame jerks, once I got to know them better.

A question: Why does it matter? A couple of years ago, a wise man named Chuck Klosterman tried to tell me that it didn’t, when I read an essay in his book, “Chuck Klosterman IV.” On the subject of guilty pleasures, Klosterman said: “It never matters what you like; what matters is why you like it.”

Very recently, I met someone I had nothing in common with. We didn’t like the same things and we didn’t have the same friends. We didn’t spend our time in the same manner (I’m assuming), or talk the same way. But there was this certain, particular moment of attraction, of being drawn to his personality, just because he was so earnest and so unapologetic about everything he did and said and believed in.

When I won an LSAA² for Graphic Design, a lot of people were surprised because they had expected a win for Fiction. I’m not saying this to brag or gloat, but because it caused gears in my head to click together, and it was just very telling of my tendency to shy away from the possibility of rejection. See, I’ve always wanted to be a writer. I couldn’t tell you how many countless times I re-wrote my autobiography. I wrote a retelling of C.S. Lewis’ “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” when I was in the third grade. (It was crap.) And if I could, the first things I would save from my hypothetically burning house are my books. One of the panelists for my thesis even said that it seemed like I spent more time writing than designing, which is a comment that is meant to be insulting (as I am an information design major), but it was like (good) music to my ears, because all of them agreed and thought that my writing was good.

I’m more comfortable when my visual work gets rejected, than when the things I write do. I guess the stuff that I write mean more to me, because I put more of myself into what I write than in what I make. It sounds terrible when put like that, but it’s the truth. Writing out feelings and thoughts is a little more personal, a little more confrontational, to me, than making something pretty out of these thoughts and feelings. If someone doesn’t like what I make, it’s very easy to dismiss it as a taste issue. Maybe it’s not their aesthetic, or they just don’t like or get my style. And then, I’m fine again. But if somebody dislikes the things that I write, it usually ends up feeling like a knife to the gut.

The pressure to write something spectacular has been looming over my head for the past two years, which is actually when I stopped writing complete stories. (I would always have a beginning or a middle or an ending, but never all three strung together.) And then there is this feeling of crippling doubt, and then I come up with nothing, or I just don’t even bother to try anymore. I didn’t apply for the LSAA Creative Writing division because I didn’t think I was good enough, because I never tried to be better, and I never put myself out there enough. I was scared of what people might think of me when they read what I write, because it was so easy to hide behind the ambiguity of art… People can ascribe whatever meaning they wanted to on the things that I made, but it’s not so easy to be vague and abstract when you write something out. It’s easier to judge a person that way, and that’s one thing I didn’t want to be done to me.

Chuck Klosterman’s “Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas”

The problem today is that people care too much about what other people think. Personally, it took me to a point where the ‘me’ that I presented to people became such a carefully-crafted character, just so I could impress the people I liked and stand out from the people that I didn’t. I was still me, but I was some sort of veiled, half-me, where all the embarrassing parts ended up being the hidden parts — reserved, I guess, for my family to see and get to know. (Unfortunately? for them.)

When asked why he chose that particular way of dancing, that not everybody “got” or understood, the earnest guy , with a shrug of his shoulders said, “That’s just what comes from my heart.”³ It’s one of the simplest things I had ever heard in my life (and I’m sure I’ve heard it at least once before), but it was also one of the truest.

I don’t know where to go with this, really, but one of my resolutions for 2010 was to “be brave” and I guess that’s what I’m trying to do. I want to be brave, because people might not like what I write or the way I tell my stories or the words that I choose, but I need to learn how to not let that stop me.

I’ve given up on some of those resolutions on my list, but I’ve still got this, and I’ve still got time, and for now, that’s seems as perfect as it can get.

———
¹ “…what really matters is what you like, not what you are like… Books, records, films — these things matter. Call me shallow but it’s the fuckin’ truth.” — High Fidelity, 2000.
² Loyola Schools Art Awards.
³ Translated. He said, in Filipino, “E ‘yun ‘yung nasa puso ko e.”