i am who i think you think i am
on not being the best // season one finale
In his book Finite and Infinite Games, philosopher James Carse says there are two types of games - finite games, which one plays to win by ending the game, and infinite games, which one plays to keep the game going. Winning a finite game comes with a title - a recognition of past play. This title becomes part of one’s identity as a conditional truth that must keep renewing as true by winning again and again and again.
Winners, especially celebrated winners, must prove repeatedly they are winners. The script must be played over and over again. Titles must be defended by new contests. No one is ever wealthy enough, honored enough, applauded enough. On the contrary, the visibility of our victories only tightens the grip of the failures in our invisible past.
— James Carse
Kim
Kim was my first therapist. Well, she was the first who didn’t trick me into paying a hefty deposit for a change-your-life weekend workshop called, I shit you not, Genesis II, only to deny my request for the deposit back when I said that money was tight and very much affecting my mental health. LA, baby!
I went to see Kim because I felt like a failure who couldn’t make it as an actor in LA. "I don't care if you work at 7-11 or are the most famous actor in the world,” Kim once told me. “You're still the same person. How I think of you doesn't change."
I didn't believe her. I still don’t.
If I was a successful actor, she’d think I was really cool and talented and awesome. She - and everyone else - would ask me what I did for a living and I’d say “actor” and they’d go “ooohhh” which really means “hey now, straighten up everyone, here’s a real somebody - a genuine article - a real mCkoy.”
No, Kim said: the person you are isn’t what you do for work, it’s something else that transcends your job. You are you regardless.
Huge if true. But is it?
No. It can’t be.
running it back
It’s mid November of 2023 and I’m sitting at the kitchen table, actual beads of sweat pooling in the tributaries of each finger as I stare deep into the floppy oversized phone book looking tome known as the McGraw Hill 6 SAT Practice Tests, Fifth Edition.
I am anxious, but I am also excited, because I am about to retake the SAT.
What is for most a frustrating thing standing between them and the college of their dreams is for me an entire identity.
See, In the fourth grade, a time when most kids were perfecting the dark art of the armpit fart, I was prepping for the SAT. Every Saturday I’d spend four hours at Russian Math School twiddling my thumbs across a TI-83+ as I sliced and diced my way through fractions and similes, quadratic formulas and run-on sentences like this one I’m writing right now. By the time high school came around, I was a well oiled machine. Confident. I’d seen every type of problem and I knew how to defeat them all. Sure, the test was tricky but I knew the tricks. I was in control. I was going to win.
And I did. I got a perfect score.
You know that already, though, because you read my whole essay about it. But this one isn’t about my perfect score. It’s about the score I, a person in the early years of his mid-thirties, got last month in my kitchen.
A few months ago I decided to write a series of essays all about this sick need to be the best and how it only made me feel more like the worst. The hope was that I might, as Alexander Hamilton once famously said in the 1700s, write my way out.
Today we’ll find out if it worked.
who.i.am
Legendary BAThead
recently shared this quote with me:I am not who you think I am; I am not who I think I am; I am who I think you think I am.
- Charles Horton Cooley
Bit of a brain tickler, that one, but one that’s worth unpacking. Cooley called this ‘the looking glass self’: however I see myself through your eyes is who I end up becoming, like a self-fulfilling prophecy of the self itself I’m sorry I am.
Applying that logic - I am who I think you think I am - to my doubting Kim when she said my job wouldn’t change how she saw me brings me to a rather troubling realization: I’m the one who judges myself for working at 7-11.
I see how Kim must see me - a dude working at 7-11 -- and I am not happy with what I see. I see what I believe she sees – a loser, and thus I become one.
Last night I asked myself a question: would I see Wilder my 2.75yo son any differently if he worked at 7-11 compared to some high-status profession like ‘architect,’ a job I’m still not sure actually exists but everyone seems to respect nonetheless?
I want to say no, of course not! But that’d be a lie because the real answer is more complicated. I’d ask follow up questions to hedge for the fact that maybe it does matter even though I know it shouldn’t? Questions like - Did he enjoy his work? Did he, unlike his old man, understand that work is one small part of life and not the entire thing and thus appreciate much more richly the other things he’s got going on like a partner and friends and his active community of recreational frisbee golfers?
running it back (cont’d)
The first section of the test is 25 minutes long and all a sudden there are only 12 minutes left. I’m only on question nine, some f(x) bullshit that I used to solve like that - finger snap - but now felt like this - me rubbing two sweaty fingers together hoping for a sound but there is no sound there is just nothing.
I feel like the NBA players in Space Jam after the Monstarrs stole all their talent, just flailing their limbs around on the court like a buncha floppy fish.
I waddle my way through questions 10-15 until the phone’s way too cheery alarm alerts me that time is up. Huh. Well, that definitely wasn’t an A+ performance but that’s ok. Onto the next section - what’s this? Questions 16-20? There were 20 questions on this section, no that’s – no.
The only thing sadder than a man in the early years of his late thirties taking a practice SAT is that man panicking because he worries that he’s going to get a bad score on said test.
That man was right. He - I - got a 560 on the math portion of the test. Obviously I’m not great at math but that feels a whole lot less than the perfect score of 800 I’d gotten in high school.
I look up the percentile for someone with a 560 and it said 75th. I then, alone in my house, say the word ‘fuck’ out loud, three times. I consider just retaking the test and pretending this one never happened.
But that wouldn’t change the truth I now knew - I was a normie nothin burger non-genius idiot.
I wander the house in a daze of a haze no longer feeling like myself, embarrassed in that second arrow sort of way about how much this was affecting me.
A friend texts me to see how I was doing. I tell him I’m doing bad. I tell him I just got a 560 on my SAT. He asks why the test is so important to me. Is it a soft pillow I can rest my head on, he asks, a laurel that says ‘no matter what, I’m always this?’
No, I said. It wasn't the pillow, it was the whole fucking bed. It was a cornerstone belief, the type you build a life around, like “I’m Irish” or “I love my family” or “thin crust pizza is the best kind of pizza.”
It was the given that made so much else in my life acceptable. It was the context you needed to understand that even though I might put my face into a gas fireplace that I’d just turned on and flick my lighter just to see if it was working and obviously it was so the fire slapped me in the face and burned all my eyebrow hair off leaving a stink in the airbnb for the rest of our trip - that even though I did dumb shit like that, I was still a certified A+ genius, smart and special and gifted. It was my alibi: ah it's okay, don’t worry about Alex, he’s a real smart guy here look at his SAT from the year 2005.
nowhere fast
I bought a ‘walking treadmill’ over christmas - a gift for myself since a) no one thought it was a good idea for me to get one and b) I still don’t understand how christmas works. The plan was to use it while working at my standing desk, a paragon of ergonomic efficiency with nice calves to boot. And guess what, I do! I use it all the time. Right now as I write this, I’m cruising at a rate of 2.0 miles per hour. But not really, since in an hour I’ll still be right where I started.
Which is where I was a few nights ago, walking nowhere fast, when this song came on. Play it if you can.
The sparse tingles of tickled ivory - poompom, padoom - over an ambient nothingness washed over me like lilacs in the mist. Hopeful but not cheesy. Sad but happy too. Nice without making a big deal of it. Pleasant.
A blur appeared at the window. It was Lauren holding Wilder, and they both cocked their heads back once I saw them, laughing big like a golden-age sitcom. They’d been screaming for some time, it appeared.
I couldn't hear them, but I saw their mouths say "We're gonna go for a walk."
"A what" I said, pretending not to hear.
"A WALK," Wilder said back, and something about that music and him saying that and Lauren laughing and me walking on a treadmill I’d bought for myself and feeling good about my calves and it all sort of made sense. There it was. My simple, happy life. All I had to do was stop walking in place and join them.
And so I did. I chased Wilder as he screamed “you can’t catch me” while a nine-month pregnant Lauren walked slowly behind. I’d chase Wilder away from her and then chase him back toward her, boomeranging ourselves toward home.
This was happiness. I could feel it. The nothing much of it all, the equivalent of ‘how's the weather where you are?’ in a conversation - boring bland blah and yet here, now, perfect. What really mattered was right here, as simple and complex as a god damn walk walk around the block with the fam. It was so easy. I didn’t like that.
Specifically I didn’t like the question such a truth begged to be asked: if this was happiness, simple and accessible by all - then what the fuck have I been doing with my whole life?
Anyone can have this? I felt sick. No - this happiness must be earned. It’s a reward you get for achieving something great. Otherwise, again, what in the almighty fuck have I been doing? Was my obsession with winning only deepening my feeling of it’s opposite? Here’s James Carse again:
The more we are recognized as winners, the more we know ourselves to be losers.
problem solved yay jk
Here we are, at the end of the season, and I’m left wondering — did I, as the actual Alexander Hamilton once so eloquently sang, ‘write my way out?”
Na.
But perhaps I wrote my way through? Who knows. I don’t think it even matters.
What I do know, for shore, is that I am tired of writing about all of this. If you gaze into the navel long enough, you end up at the back, right above your butt, smelling your own farts.
Writing about this stuff doesn’t feel all that helpful. In fact, it all makes me more competitive.
Writing about big questions and dumb thoughts that make me laugh - that’s fun. That’s infinite. That right there is huge, if both are true.
mr balloon hands
The other day I took Wilder to a birthday party at the bob barker marionette theater. Before the dope performance of the nutcracker started, I found myself on stage among a gaggle of little goons bouncing balloons up into the sky and hitting them, keeping them up in the air. As we kept the blue balloon from hitting the ground, I heard my brain thinking "Oh, I'm the cool dad that really plays super actively with his son,” the subtext being, “Look at these other loser dads they suck I rule.”
I was who I thought these parents thought I was. Which meant I HAD to be a winner which also meant I was better than those other parents. Even here, for some reason, there was a competition.
But here it was so clear how absurd it all was. The game was literally happening in front of me and it was called ‘keep the balloon up in the air.’ There were no winners or losers, just a bunch of us and the balloon. This, James Carse says, is the infinite game.
As much as it breaks my brain to say it, I’m not the best. There’s no such thing, really (he says, trying to disprove the concept rather than face the truth that he simply might not be it).
I don’t even really want to be! I want to be someone who doesn’t care about that. I want to be the person Kim saw me as. Just a dumb lil idiot guy doing his dumb lil idiot goofs, keeping the balloon up in the air. Knowing it’ll fall and picking it up again. Walking on the treadmill or off of it and knowing that it doesn’t matter how fast you walk or how you compare to everyone else. What matters is the other stuff. The easy stuff. The stuff that most people can have right now and that all people deserve to have always, regardless of who they are, because who they actually are is a tangle of relationships with people who love them even when they’re being awful competitive morons who can’t see the amazing life that’s right in front of their face.
From this perspective, the idea of what someone does for work actually mattering becomes absurd. Kim was right. AA
Lauren got me an adult scooter for christmas so I could ride with Wilder. The other day we were cruising through the neighborhood when he started to zoom toward the house. When we got to the driveway, he looked back, proud as a plum, and said, “I win!” smiling all big, “you don’t.”
Little does he know.
—
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Comments
woof, the season is over thank god! lotta big ideas in this piece that I tried to rassle down and explore. curious what y’all thought.
do you think being the best matters? does the job you have matter in terms of how you think people see you?
if you are who you think other people think you are, then who are you?
couple deep cut references in this one - space jam (not that deep) and mr. balloon hands (deeper) - did ppl get them?
do you also own a walking treadmill for your standing desk lol let’s talk
did you ever attend the Genesis II workshop?
did you ever light a match into an open gas fireplace and burn off your eyebrows? lol let’s talk.
not a question just a massive thank you to everyone for sticking with me for this ride of a season I honestly can’t believe it I love yall thank you.
"If you gaze into the navel long enough, you end up at the back, right above your butt, smelling your own farts" is the quote of the year, thank you for that. But you're right. Addictions to our sense of failure is a sure fire way to keep that dope alive. I'll say that the cliche is true: as you get older, you care less about what people think—nay—how YOU think about what other people think of you. This morning I got into a webhole about Gen Z ripping on Mills for their skinny jeans and tucked-in sweaters and ankle boots, and for a split second I thought, omg I'm Gen X and even MORE uncool. But then felt the gentle soft weight of not-caring embrace me like a Snuggie (that I wouldn't wear to the mall per se, but maybe to the post office). Stellar story arc of a season, Alex. I hope there are new gems materializing in your BATcave.
I really enjoyed this season, Alex. You're not alone with these thoughts. Also want to say that my mom got famous (as an actress) when I was a kid living in a rural town a zillion miles from where she had to do her big, glamorous work. It never made me proud. It made me lonely. And my dad downshifted his acting career and stayed home. He was also a writer, and obviously that was available to him right at the kitchen table, and so he sat there every day, back curved, muttering over his legal pads, scribbling and smiling. When I was a teenager I rolled my eyes at him. But now I see that the way he just worked to delight himself because he loved it was absolutely legendary. And like I said--my mom got no glory at home. We needed the money, and I appreciate that she made it, but her worldly persona will always be a little alienating. I way prefer her with no makeup and mismatched hair clips, singing off key in the car (even though she has also sung at Carnegie Hall). Anyway, all things you might consider from Wilder's future POV.