Being In Between Versions of Yourself

Plus recs for musical time machine Radiooooo, Bill Hader and Seth Meyers, and Anne Helen Petersen on #tradlife

This week, I was doing a podcast interview with the cartoonist Liana Finck (it should come out in a month or so) and we ended up talking about what a strange feeling it is when you’re in-between phases and don’t quite know how to define yourself.

Whether it’s personal or professional, it’s strange to feel like you’ve grown out of one self but you’re not quite sure how to pinpoint the next. Does that resonate for you at all? I don’t know if it will. But when Liana mentioned it, I felt like someone was saying exactly what I’ve been feeling for a while and couldn’t put into words.

lianafinck

A post shared by @lianafinck

For years, I felt like I knew exactly how I wanted to be defined. After college, I was “a teacher.” One of the biggest perks of the job, in my opinion, was that I could tell someone what I did and they instantly understood it. We could either move right along or get right into stories about their experience in school or my students.

Then I was “a comedian.” That was an identity that I very consciously wanted and worked hard to own. I told myself that you’re only a comedian if you do comedy, so I did my best to perform and write and make projects and hang out with comedians and do any comedy thing I could. But even then, I kind of had the nagging feeling that you’re only a real comedian if you make a living doing it.

Even once I managed to make a living doing comedy, I sometimes got self-conscious about saying I was a standup, worried that I didn’t perform enough or at the right places or for big enough crowds. Eventually though, I felt like I’d been around for long enough and was part of the community enough to comfortably call myself a comedian.

lianafinck

A post shared by @lianafinck

But now, for the past few years, I’ve been doing a lot more things that aren’t comedy at all. The podcast I host is very much not edited for laughs. I do a lot more earnest events. I still love to do comedy and to make people laugh but it’s not my only thing. And I’m figuring out what that means.

I don’t have a clear word that defines what I do now. Self-help doesn’t feel right. Certainly not the tone that I am aiming for. Writer is only a part of who I am. Same with podcaster. Comedic but also sometimes earnest creative nonfiction guy? I don’t think that’s going to be a business card you see anytime soon. (Not that I ever used a single one of the 200 “I’m a comedian” business cards I paid for in my first year of comedy.)

I know that humor is always going to be a part of anything I do. That’s just who I am. But it’s not the only part. And I think a piece of my current transition is trying to be more honest in my writing and my work too. Sometimes being more honest means talking about things that aren’t just the funny ones. I sometimes wonder if naming this newsletter “Bright Spots” boxed me into a corner where I’m supposed to only talk about positive stuff. But I don’t think that’s an expectation coming from anyone other than me, is it? Please let me know if you’ll immediately unsubscribe the moment I stop being a clown.

I’m glad that I’m not staying the same person I used to be. I think that’s quite literally the definition of personal growth. But it’s also a weird, vulnerable feeling to try and relate to the world in a different way. The people that I admire the most are the ones who push back against whatever box they’re “supposed to” fit into and instead are just themselves. I’m realizing more and more that being yourself isn’t one fixed thing. I just have to lean into whatever I am in the moment and trust that that’s okay.

lianafinck

A post shared by @lianafinck

My projects and upcoming events:

PODCAST: How to Be a Better Human (TED/PRX)- This week on the podcast, Lori Gottlieb, therapist and author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, talks to me about the similarities between therapy and narrative fiction, how changing your story can change your life, and what to look for when you’re thinking about seeing a therapist for the very first time. Link here

ONLINE: In conversation with Roy Wood Jr. (TED membership event)- There’s a saying that comedy is tragedy plus time. Perhaps that’s why some of our biggest problems feel easiest to manage with a dose of humor. Comedian and actor Roy Wood Jr. has spent his career finding silly in the serious and using this tactic to influence real change. Join us for a live conversation about how we can confront history with humor and use comedy to improve ourselves and our world. Link here

LIVE IN NYC: WRONG ANSWERS ONLY (LabX)- THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 14TH at Caveat (21a Clinton Street in Manhattan). Watch as comedians Jo Firestone and Karen Chee learn all about the neuroscience of music. Tickets for the live show (or the livestream, if you’re not in NYC) here

This week’s list

GREAT:

I have been having so much fun with Radiooooo, ever since I discovered it this week. It’s a “musical time machine,” where you can click on any country in the world and select a decade and then hear music from that time and place. I’ve been sitting in my house and suddenly time-traveling to Senegal 1978, Guyana 1994, and Armenia 2019. It’s amazing to hear what was happening musically around the globe at any given moment. The project was started a decade ago by a group of friends who decided to share their record collections, but it’s since become a collaborative project with researchers and music lovers contributing from all over the planet. Radiooooo

FUNNY:

One of my favorite genres of interview is two really good friends reminiscing and making each other laugh. This conversation with Bill Hader and Seth Meyers on the SNL sketch that bombed the hardest made me laugh so much. Especially the very last line, when Bill Hader describes the moment before they went on live television. Perfection. Bill Hader and Seth Meyers on bombing (I believe that video should start playing at the right time for that story, 17:37, but the whole interview is a lot of fun too.)

INTERESTING:

One of the many reasons that Anne Helen Petersen is such an important writer today is that she’s willing to seriously examine topics that other writers at “prestigious” publications think of as fluff. But so much of culture these days takes place online or in niche social media pockets. I always really appreciate her willingness to dissect what is happening and where it comes from. This is a piece where she dives into why “stay-at-home girlfriends” have gone viral and what it means to glorify “traditional” gender roles. “Submission and simplicity can be most attractive during times of duress. People have historically glommed on to charismatic religions when it feels like the world is changing in ways that make it feel unfamiliar—and they crave something, anything, steady. It makes sense, too, that some of the women who become followers of religious sects that preach the gospel of biblical womanhood may be escaping some form of personal or familial trauma. To give up control can feel very much like achieving it.” Anne Helen Petersen: My So-Called #TradWife Life

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That's it for this week. Thanks for reading! Please share Bright Spots with anyone you think might enjoy it.

You’re so brave,

Chris Duffy

This has been Bright Spots, a newsletter.

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…wait, who are you?

I'm Chris Duffy, a comedian, TV writer, podcast host, and both a former fifth grade teacher and a former fifth grade student.