Everything

The Big Bang!

A friend I am in love with told me about Everything, a video game wherein you start as an animal, let's say a bear, and when you encounter other life forms you have the option to become them. A blade of grass, a lady bug, an amoeba, a star system, an ice floe. There's no objective except to explore and, hopefully, immerse yourself in the real realization that we're all made of the same stuff - throughout the whole universe! - and should treat each other accordingly, with the unconscious kindness we lend to our own obvious kind. "You'd like it,” he said, “If you played video games.” (Flirty.) And while he’s right and I don't have a penchant for virtual worlds (the one we’re in can be really! quite! good!) I see the value in their offerings. Especially now when those linked images feel very far away and real life feels so incredibly theatrically gross and mean. Seems unlikely that I’ll get a Playstation but I like knowing that people were/are out there building things that are impartially tender, asking us to reconsider our ideological programming. Another way to describe art in general, I guess.

My last missive from November was about zooming out and so is this one evidently. Everything shows us that everything and nothing matters. Reminding myself that I am but a speck (or could have become an ice floe) is really helpful when the squeeze of existing is coming rapidly from all sides. Okay so, I closed Club Vintage in December after 3.5 years of chugging along as a cool place for cool people to buy cool, planet-friendly fashion and furniture. The company was born from both a dream and, honestly, a harbored bitterness. I did it with no money, an all-in attitude and a primal need to prove something. I’ve replaced the bitterness with acceptance - I definitely proved something - and am, ultimately, proud of the work we did as, with and for Club Vintage. This sentence comes with the caveat that I owe lots of people lots of money so there hasn’t been - nor will there be - a clean division between then and now. In an ideal world, I’d have time to compose, conceptualize, experiment in finding my groove but the one thing you don’t fuck with, globally, is people and their money. It’s one of the very few things we all have in common actually (love and mortality being the other two). So, for now, I’m on to the next thing with the biggest paycheck while clinging with both fists to my speck-ness. It’s an unhinged dance but should be rewarding in the end.

When I tell people I’ve closed the business, they look at me with sad eyes and say, "How do you feel?" And when I respond with a chipper, "Relieved!" they're surprised. "Really?"

Yes. Relieved that I don't have to maintain the slog of selling clothes to keep a business alive. Relieved that I am the only person on my payroll again. Relieved that I can go work for other companies that have resources and support so I can pay down my debt with a job that ends at the end of the workday. And will reward me for my really good ideas and exceptional talent! I will say that building a business is a syllabus-less MBA; mostly rewarding and ultimately a shortcut to being extraordinarily capable even if the business did, technically, fail. You really learn to roll with the punches when you are the punching bag.