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Hi friends,

I started editing my About page today and it basically became a post in its own right and something I wanted to share more officially.

I’ve been up against the wall lately with learning to be ok with being me, with coming to terms with the fact that being me is enough – that it’s the only real job I have in my life.

I change the purpose of this site all the time with my new ideas, thinking I have to be clear about what I’m doing so you have a reason for coming here (and thank you so much for coming here!). Then I feel somehow trapped, like I can only talk about that one thing from then on – but I have SO many things I want to share with you.

The problem is not all of my ideas really go together: I want to talk about Oman, about the graphic novel I am writing, about the ways I am growing creatively and as a human. I’m all over the map.

If you ever read anything about having a blog or doing something creative, they say you need to know your audience. Got it. Check. Makes sense. But how do you maintain an audience when you shift gears all the time and talk about loads of different things? That, my friends, is the question that haunts me (ok, that’s a little dramatic…I think about it sometimes).

I saw a really brilliant image in the book Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon, (go get it right now! it’s incredible) and it gave me a huge sense of relief about this problem. Here it is:

And lo, the clouds did part!

So rather than freak out because my projects all seem so disconnected, I decided to accept that they all have a uniting element, me.

It feels incredibly egotistical and arrogant to write a whole post and About Me page about me, but I am going to be honest, it is the opposite of that. It is actually really quite vulnerable. I think this distinction is a big one for us all to be aware of: that talking about ourselves is not a bad thing; that sharing who we are is not arrogant; that being our full selves – not just one project, idea or tagline – is pretty fucking great.

So here we go.

[clears throat]

Ok.

I am me.

I like lots of things….

…most things…

…all the things.

I find everything interesting and I am curious about pretty much everything under the sun, around the sun, beyond the sun, through the sun…I like it all.

It’s a problem.

I feel like there is SO much to learn and understand and only one lifetime to do it in. This leads me to start lots of things but finish few of them.

I’m learning to be ok with that. I’m learning to enjoy the thing I am doing and appreciate its role in that moment. I’m learning to let go when it doesn’t make sense to do that thing any more.

I love people.

I find everyone interesting.

I think everyone has a story and that our stories all connect in very fundamental ways.

I believe that if you put any two people in the planet in a room together, they would be able to find something they have in common, something to connect about. In the worse case scenario, they can connect over the fact they are both human. They both need to eat, to sleep, to poop. They both want love, connection, and security.

We’re all people, people.

I think we are really scared of what other people think of us, but that it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to be.

Imagine yourself on a stage.

Picture it.

It’s scary, but it’s not real so you’ll be ok.

You drop your microphone on your toe.

Then you bend over to pick it up and your pants tear open.

You die a little inside.

You know, you just KNOW, that everyone in the audience is laughing at you. Making fun of you. And you feel really pretty small and shitty. You finish what you need to on stage and walk away (holding the seam of your pants together behind you) feeling dejected and awful.

Imagine yourself in an audience.

There’s a person on stage. It’s not real but you’re still pretty impressed they are up there because you wouldn’t ever want to do that. Ever.

That shit is scary.

They drop their microphone on their toe.

You feel their pain. Not the pain of their toe, it’s only a microphone after all, but their social pain.

They bend over to pick it up and their pants tear open.

You die a little inside.

You want to go give them a hug and tell them it’s ok – that these things happen.

You want to let them know that it’s ok, that you are impressed they were on the stage at all because, Dude, that shit is scary – things like microphones dropping and pants tearing can happen up there so it’s a brave thing to risk.

You want them to know that you respect them for being so god damn courageous, that their strength and fearlessness inspired you to do some things you’ve been afraid of…

I think we’re all secretly rooting for each other and that things would be a whole lot better if it weren’t such a big secret.

So yeah. That’s a little about me. I think about stuff. I write about stuff. I do things then forget I’m doing them because I get curious about other things.

I am me.

Who are you?

Love,

Follow @3MileAnHour
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