You are a monograph

But never the author, only the editor

Sometimes I like to call other people me... This me is begging for change. This me is driving me to the airport… that me is doing “my best.”
–Pete Holmes

You are first your parents. A simple mixed drink of chromosomes. You become what they feed you and then what they teach you. Then what your schoolteachers teach you. You are every mind you encounter, every story that shapes you, every song that moves you, every heart that breaks you.

And none of these things is you. You are an assemblage of things come from “not you.” Which means you are not you. You are a monograph.

Stay with me here.

Mon’o-graph. A written account or description of a single thing. or class of things; a special treatise on a particular subject of limited range.

You begin as a mess, because how could you not? Your parents, your language, your culture, your place in the world. All unchosen and random. Consider this as you read this sentence and think of a tulip, because your eyes moved over strange shapes (symbols!) you didn’t invent. Even your thoughts are unchosen.

• "I'm an ESFP"

• "I'm a Taurus"

• "I'm a fractional CEO"

There is no universal logic for any of these. Each is a narrative shaped as much by others as by you. You are an anthology of borrowed stories.

And yet.

Inside every messy assemblage there is an editor who chooses which stories to let in, which to leave out. This chooser glues these scattered fragments into something coherent. Someone coherent. Someone that feels like you.

The concept of “identity” is little more than the intentional curation of a pile of unchosen stories. Make a mess, keep it tidy. But you are not a memoir, babe. You are a monograph, the subject of which becomes you.

---

This concludes the spring season of Microprinciples. A fresh batch arrives next month.

So, times are strange. There’s a robot staring at me through the window of my study and it’s eying my pen, enviously. I must have something it wants: human thoughts and the ability to write them down. So I’ve decided to change a few things around here.

For this next season I shall take my own advice and move as slow as possible. Fewer, better (it is hoped) essays.

I must also increase the price (starting 1 July). I always wanted this newsletter to be the price of a latte (with a classy oatmilk upgrade), but lattes are more expensive now. And because the robots can easily produce free words, so I need to, on principle, produce un-free ones. These words aren’t produced by the pound by computers in Palo Alto, California. They are written down in pen in coffeeshops across Portland, Oregon.

It’s a slow, clunky process. Perhaps the robot-words will fill someone’s cup, but if I am to honor and value the human craft of writing, I should probably start with my own.

Thanks as always for reading,

-V. Sri