barraged
once again, Will Leitch has amazed me with the insightfulness and incisiveness of his writing. if you haven't bought his book i implore you to do so. it's worth it just for the first story that culminates with his appearance on Win Ben Stein's Money. but soon you'll find yourself smiling knowingly as you read on. more to the point, you'll simply find yourself, because it's nearly impossible not to find relevance to your own life in what he's writing. here's a bit from his most recent column about the nature of self:
You have to know what I'm talking about. Surely, the conversations you have with your parents are dramatically different than the ones you have with your significant other, just like those are different than the ones you have with your close friends, just like those are different than the ones you have with your co-workers, and on and on. You're shifting on the fly. You know when you get a phone call at work from someone who wants to talk about something personal that you're not comfortable discussing next to the big haired lady in accounting? That's two worlds colliding, right there. Which one is the real you? The easy answer is to say the personal one, but which role do you spend more hours a day playing? At what point does the performer become the individual? Does it even matter?
frankly, the mere thought that the "at work" version of myself might be the real me is chilling to the core (numerous daily blog postings aside). it's that sense of uneasiness that makes the fact that he will only be writing 7 more columns a decidedly mixed blessing.