An Idiot's Epiphany
This Sunday, I had a conversation with my longtime friend and fellow Dim the House Lights co-editor Juan Barquin about writing and pitching. Pitching is a grind. Pitching is a hustle. Pitching is functionally a second job that I would get pennies per hour to do. Just elbowing my way to the table where all the editors sit would make a giant dent in my work-life balance (which is already kind of precarious, if I'm being 100% honest with myself).
And so I had an idiot's epiphany: just write for fun, you dingus. And dig this, genius: it doesn't even have to be about movies! It can be about music or wrestling or fucking occult horticulture if that's what grabs your attention that day. You can just write what you feel like writing because there's nothing more liberating than realizing that no one really gives a shit. Says the homie Austin Kleon:
Nobody’s really paying attention. This is the big secret. Even if you think you have an audience, nobody’s paying attention. It’s depressing at first, but once you wrap your arms around it, it’s liberating. Enjoy it. Have fun with it.
When I first bought my dot-com, my modus operandi for Ahead on Differential was to make it “like Kottke, but shittier.” So far I have done a piss-poor job of jumping over even that low bar, but I endeavour to at the very least give it a shot from here on out. Obviously longer film stuff will still be at Dim the House Lights, but everything else will go here.