I have a friend who’s a huge literature geek. He likes all the tortured artist types of writers, from Hemingway to Bukowski to Burroughs to London and all of them in between.
I hadn’t seen him in a couple years. When we were catching up, he asked what I was up to. I told him I was enjoying my writing and growing my audience on my blog.
“Oh, really,” he said. “How many followers do you have?”
Yep… Always the first question.
When I told him, his jaw dropped. To me, it’s not a huge number, especially compared to some of the internet superstars I follow, but it’s a good size number, nonetheless. One I’m very proud of.
“Wow. Really?”
He was befuddled. Like he was searching for his next statement, trying to piece together his words so as to not offend me.
“Wow, man. That’s great. Just imagine if you drank more, had promiscuous sex, and addiction issues. You’d have an even BIGGER audience.”
What he was implying was…
“Geez, your life is pretty lame. You’re pushing 40. You’re married. You have a kid. You shave. You have no tattoos. And you never talk about any issues. If your life were more dysfunctional, you’d have more exciting stuff to write about, and you’d be HUGE.”
See, my friend is a brilliant guy. He loves reading. He has a way with words and can tell a story with the best of them. He wants, so badly, to write his own story, but I know he feels that deep down, he, too, is too ‘lame’ to write a great work of art.
This bothers me. It’s not just him who has this sentiment with writing. How many others out there have great stories to tell, but keep their stories hidden because they feel it lacks the dramatic, dysfunctional conflict of the great masterpieces?
Here’s something you must realize…
Our lives may differ, but our conflicts are universal (tweet that!)
A good story boils down to conflict. And, being human, conflict is one thing we all experience, in some way, shape, or form. The *content* of the conflicts we experience may be different, but the context is shared.
Unlike Bukowski, I haven’t had to deal with the specific issues that come with a life of cavorting with loose women and wrestling with the bottle, just like he’s never had to deal with a screaming 2-year old in the baked goods section of the local grocery store. But we’ve both tasted what it’s like to feel as if we’re at our wit’s end. Sure, his story might be deemed ‘sexier’ than mine. But even though I’ve never lived his story (to his degree, at least), and he’s never lived mine, we can relate to each other’s conflicts.
I fight with this all the time. I wrote a piece a while back about being a ‘family man’ while wishing I was as hard-core and punk rock as Henry Rollins, one of my heroes.
On my blog, every day, I write a little thought. An idea. A quip, if you will. These thoughts are born out of one thing… Conflict. A rough spot in my life that needs smoothing out.
Although people may not be able to relate directly to the details of each piece, they can surely relate to the universality of the conflict that rests at its core.
Fear.
Anger.
Jealousy.
Feeling small.
Hope.
(Enter yours here)
Urinal Phobia
Public restrooms used to make me incredibly uncomfortable. There was a time, not too long ago, where I could not, for the life of me, relieve myself at a urinal next to someone else who was doing the same.
Yes, friends, I have urinal phobia. Something, as I find out, that many men suffer from quietly (many of whom emailed me after I wrote this post about it). I won’t go into the difficulties of this phobia here, as this is not the time and place, so I’ll leave it with the point that it’s an incredibly inconvenient, embarassing phobia.
Now, as unfortunate as this phobia is, it’s not as dark / tortuous / glamorous as addiction or abuse. As a matter of fact, it’s fairly trivial in nature. This is not a crippling ailment. It hasn’t ruined my life. No one has had to intervene. I haven’t almost died from it. But it did connect with a lot of men (while making others chuckle).
And, the nice thing is, after I came out about it, my phobia went away. Yep, as of the time of this post, I’m proud to say, I can stand shoulder to shoulder with another man at a urinal, comfortably and proudly.
What’s the point?
Now… Going deep and dark is fine. It’s great, actually. Some of my best, most shared, most satisfying posts have been dark. But I know that, if that’s all I wrote about, I’d live my life looking for those things so I could write about them. I’d try to dig out as many disturbing elements of my human experience that I could. And to me, that’s no way to live. Most of the time, I prefer to see the beauty, the folly, and the conflict in the seemingly mundane moments of my life.
So, please know that, no matter who you are or how ‘lame,’ ‘boring,’ or ‘menial’ you deem your life to be, I guarantee there’s conflict. There’s those itches that sit awaiting you to scratch them. And I guarantee you there’s a reader or four out there who’s feeling that same itch. Maybe not in the same exact place yours is, but pretty darn close.
Itch it for her. You don’t have to live the life of a rock star or a social deviant to craft a good story. Your life has plenty of conflicts to iron out and share with the world. I guarantee you.
Image by Elias Ruiz Monserrat
