Chameleon
Faking It In 2015
I didn’t have a lot of confidence in middle school. I was lanky, with a weird pre-pubescent mustache I was too embarrassed to shave off. I wore graphic tees like “Back By Popular Demand,” and that one with a squirrel that says “Protect Your Nuts.” I quoted Monty Python, like, daily. It was rough.
My dad and I used to go grocery shopping together. First, we’d hit the Costco off Emerald, then go to the Albertsons off Oceanside Blvd. I have no idea why I remember this so clearly, but we were driving away from Costco when I asked him how I could be more confident.
I don’t think I even knew what confidence meant. It was just this word that my friends Julia and Alex would tell me I should have more of.
He jerked his head, and thought for a while. “You ever hear the phrase, fake it ’til you make it?”
“No,” I said.
“Okay, well, can you think of someone you think is, like, confident?”
“Not really.”
“Alright, that doesn’t help. Just start looking around. You’ll see people do things that seem cool, or who just, I don’t know, seem sure of themselves. Pay attention to what they do, and do that. It’ll feel weird at first, but eventually it’ll start to seep in.”
“Wait, just like, copy them?”
He jerked his head again. He did that when he was thinking. He still does. “Think of it more as being a chameleon.”
I’ve recently gained this weird internet-fame opportunist personality. I’m constantly working on some blog, some web series, some ebook. I just looked up mics to start a podcast. I’m at the point where I don’t even care what it is, I just want something to take off.
This year was the year of failed projects. I started three blogs, three web series, a book, a screenplay, and a Vine account. Some of these got pretty close to finishing, others barely got off the ground, but the fact remains — the year I felt so sure would be my year is over, and all I have are some dead links and a Celtx account.
I did book a national Mcdonald’s ad. It sounds pretty cool on paper, but realistically, I ate a McMuffin. And it’s harsh when the highlight of your professional career is taking a bite out of a bargain breakfast sandwich.
More than failed projects, this was the year of fake it ’til you make it. I spent a lot of money to make WriterBuilds look really professional, and we used verbiage to make us sound like a large team of people who knew what they were doing. I spent a lot of money printing out nice copies of scripts for Grown (a web mini-series I co-wrote), just so the friends that agreed to help would take it seriously. I spent countless hours texting back and forth with a friend about e-publishing opportunities and feeding it into a larger media company, when I could have actually been writing. Faking it felt good. It made it feel real.
Looking back, I wasn’t doing fake it ’til you make it. I was putting the cart before the horse. It’s a thin line, but a crucial one. I was thinking about advertising opportunities before a single person said they found WriterBuilds helpful. I was thinking about platforms and a phone call from Amy Poehler before we even said “action” with Grown. I did the exact same thing with Square One (another web series).
It took moving home to realize that this is not a personality trait — it’s a habit. I get some satisfaction from imagined success, so I do it. Constantly. Incessantly. A little might be good for motivation, but if people knew how often I day-dream about being on the Late Show and killing it, I’m not sure anyone would talk to me anymore.
There was a moment writing Grown that sticks with me most. The other writer, Ian Saunders, and I were a few beers deep at Southern Pacific, a brewery in San Francisco. We were trying to figure out this episode where the characters go to someone’s childhood home, and how one character, Sam, would react. Something felt weird about it, and we both fell into a silence. Staring into our beers, we both slowly looked up, caught a look of recognition, and said, “Sam wouldn’t go at all.” That simultaneous realization was pure psychic magic.
That probably doesn’t mean much to anyone except Ian and me, but I about jumped through the roof with excitement. And it had nothing to do with future advertising opportunities. It had nothing to do with recognition. It had nothing to do with “the next step.” It had to do with the story we were working on, right then and there, in the present. That was important to me, because that’s a place I’m rarely at.
I need to be there more. I hope that moving home will give me the frame of mind to rework some lifelong habits. If I can ditch the chameleon and focus on creating more Southern Pacific moments in 2016 — a little drunk and focused on the task at hand, doing it for the sake of doing it — maybe the rest will come.
