"Don't try to be creative. Just be human."

March roundup

Hello, readers! March somehow managed to move both too fast and too slow at the same time. Between a hectic travel schedule that turned out to be unexpectedly joyful, and a lingering sickness that had me moving in slow motion, it’s been a month full of surprises. But I feel rested and ready for what’s next.

At the beginning of the month, I went to a good friend’s celebration of life ceremony. Greg was truly one of a kind and maybe the funniest person I’ve ever met. He created and ran a comedy wrestling show in Houston called Doomsday. (Ages ago, I used to be in it!) Back in the day, when Doomsday first started taking off, I remember trying to convince Greg to make the show bigger. Take it to other cities. Pitch it as a TV show, even.

“Huh. Yeah, maybe,” Greg would always say, before promptly doing nothing of the sort.

It wasn’t because he lacked ambition. He just had a different definition of success. His only goal was to create a show that made people laugh like crazy. For him, scaling up didn’t mean franchising or fame; it meant making the show sharper, weirder, funnier. And he did.

Greg taught me that life is short and that you should spend as much of it as possible making ridiculous things with people you love. He was a beautiful weirdo who appreciated the beautiful weirdness in all of us who called him a friend. He saw the world as a giant playground, and he had the confidence to take chances on his vision — even if that vision involved Mormon luchadors tackling a wrestler dressed as a banana.

Greg’s mother, who is also an incredible person, has been hit with significant medical and funeral expenses this past year. If you're able, please consider donating a few bucks to support her.

Speaking of incredible people…My friend Emma Pattee’s book, Tilt, made its way into the world. It’s a fantastic read—sharp, soulful, and impossible to put down. It also received a glowing review in The New York Times, which, for a writer, is the equivalent of winning an Olympic gold medal (but with fewer ankle sprains). I followed Emma to New York to celebrate her book launch, and it was such a joy to do so. At one event, she talked about the value of seeking creative community and the dangers of trying to write in isolation. This felt pretty relevant to me, someone who defaults to writing alone and struggles to ask for help.

In other news, I took my first improv class. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do, mostly because everyone I know who’s taken an improv class swears it’s life-changing. I figured I’d learn a thing or two, but wow. The truth bombs our teacher drops in class make me want to stop everything I’m doing and write them down. One of my favorites, when a student asked how to be more creative in a scene:

“You don’t have to be creative. Just focus on being human, being authentic, being vulnerable. Then the scene will become creative.”

In other words, being human is being creative. So creativity doesn’t have to be something we chase. It emerges in the real, human experiences, thoughts, and moments of our everyday lives. (This also reminds me of the idea of sprezzatura: the art of hiding art)

And finally, a word I learned this month. The Japanese term itasha translates to “painful” or “cringeworthy car.” It describes the subculture of wrapping one’s car in anime stickers and graphics—a trend that originated in Japan in the 1980s, but has since exploded here in the States. (Once, after a long and exhausting flight, a Lyft driver picked me up from the airport in his itasha, blaring the Princess Peach song from the Super Mario Bros. movie on repeat the whole way home. But that’s a tale for another day.)

There’s something oddly poetic about this: The idea that a car—meant to be functional and efficient—can also be an absurd explosion of self-expression. Itasha is a moving testament to the fact that we’re all just out here trying to find ways to make our utilitarian lives a little more fun, a little more creative.

Or maybe that’s just the improv talking.

Shareworthy

• I worked on this Hidden Brain episode about transformative experiences. It features the work of L.A. Paul, a philosopher who argues that when faced with “transformative” decisions (like becoming a parent), it’s irrational to choose based on which path we think will make us happiest, because we can't know who we’ll become on the other side.

• This fascinating interview with a neuroscientist on how memory shapes our identity, and what that means when our memory begins to fail us.

• I watched the Sinead O'Connor documentary, Nothing Compares. I always knew she was a force, but I didn’t realize how much of a force. It was a powerful reminder of what it means to have conviction and to speak up—even when it costs you everything. Which, unfortunately, seems particularly relevant right now.

From the archives

The Imaginative Powers of a Brain on Autopilot (The Cut)

This week’s soundtrack

Greg introduced me to Rufus Wainwright, one of my favorite artists. And this was one of Greg’s favorite songs. You will be missed, my friend. We’ll see you on the other side.