My First Foot Forward: An Introduction
First impressions are very difficult for me. I stumble on my words trying to talk to someone at a bar. I use sarcastic language in emails to colleagues with misunderstood sincerity. I shake hands with strangers with sweaty palms, then feel the need to over-explain why my hands were so wet in the first place, so much so that it sounds like a lie, so I end up trying to abruptly leave the interaction before tripping on my own feet and crashing face first into a wall. You know, the typical awkward shit.
Starting this… whole thing on Medium, I wanted to get my weirdest foot forward simply because of the fact that I never get things right the first time. I know this is a writing platform, and I can edit my words before anyone sees them, therefore revealing the best of me right out the gate. Two things stopped me. One, in true hipster fashion, I didn’t feel it would be authentic enough as an introduction.
Two, and more to the point, I wanted to illustrate, albeit in a very roundabout way, my favorite quality I have: I try.
You might assume I don’t think very highly of myself if my favorite trait of mine is that I attempt life. As hurtful (and correct) that assumption is, I think there’s a lot of beauty in a good old-fashioned try. As an aspiring writer with no experience writing professionally, I was always terrified to present my work to the public, as if I was never going to say what I wanted to say correctly. Now, many years later, as I’ve matured and practiced my craft, literally nothing has changed. I’m still aspiring to be a writer, and I still have no experience and a fear of my work not being sufficient enough. Ready or not, though, I’m going to take that leap.
I plan on posting reviews of comedy specials on here, as well as various commentary in the world of politics and pop culture. I’m going to do my best to entertain you as a reader with humor and intelligence, I’m going to write with zeal and tact, and there’s a possibility that none of it will work. This piece is to simply say that I am passed the point where I can care about that any longer, or at least have it stop me. I want you to like what you read, and engage with what I’m passionate about, but from this point forward, I no longer have sole control of the perception of my writing or myself. I could be boring, I could be brazenly incorrect about what I talk about, or due to the collapse of the global political systems and environment alike, I could perish before anything I post on this website does anything for my career as a writer.
But I’m going to try.
