I Contain Multitudes, Man, and It’s Exhausting…
So I’m in the studio. The dog is asleep. And somebody, somewhere, probably a guy with a podcast about productivity, is looking at my life and going… what’s his deal? What’s his brand? What’s the through-line?
There isn’t one. That’s the through-line. There’s no through-line.
Because here’s the thing, man. I don’t do one thing. I never did. I write marketing books. I write about protest songs. I make art. I sit in this studio, write stuff and talk into a microphone. And somewhere along the way somebody decided that was a problem, like I’m a restaurant with too many items on the menu and the health inspector’s getting suspicious.
But I’m not a restaurant. I’m a person. And people are multi-faceted. That’s the deal. That’s the whole deal. It always was the deal.
And I know why it doesn’t sit right with people, because it didn’t sit right with me for years. The whole world tells you to niche down. Find your lane. Own your category. Become the guy who does the one thing so hard that when people hear your name they think of the one thing. And look, I get it. I’ve written books that say that. I’ve sold that. There’s a version of me that’s very good at explaining why you should pick a lane and stay in it and build a moat around it and defend it against all invaders.
But then you wake up one day and you’ve built a moat and you’re in the moat. Alone. With your one thing. And the one thing doesn’t cover it. The one thing never covers it, because you’re not one thing. You never were.
I write marketing books. I also write about protest songs, about the music that got made when people were furious and scared and needed to say something. Those two things don’t go together on a spreadsheet. They don’t share a target audience. There’s no synergy. And yet they’re both me. They’re both the same guy sitting in the same studio trying to figure out what’s true.
And then there’s the art. Which doesn’t sell, much. Which doesn’t convert. Which doesn’t do anything except exist, and make me feel like a person instead of a brand. And the marketing brain in me looks at the art and goes… what’s the ROI on this? And the rest of me goes… shut up, man. Not everything’s an asset. Some things are just yours.
We’re multi-faceted creatures. That’s not a flaw. That’s the design. You’re not supposed to be known for one thing. You’re supposed to be known for being you, and you happen to do a bunch of things, and some of them pay and some of them don’t and some of them make sense together and most of them don’t.
And I think the pressure to niche down is really the pressure to be knowable fast. To be legible. To hand people a label so they don’t have to do the work of knowing you. And that’s fine for a business. It’s a nightmare for a life.
So no. I’m not niching down. I’m not picking a lane. I’m not going to pretend the marketing guy and the protest song guy and the art guy are three different people who happen to share a body. They’re one guy. This guy. Sitting in a studio. With a dog, who is snoring.
Anyway. That’s the rant. I don’t have one thing. I have several things. They don’t match. That’s the point.
I’ll be in the studio. Doing… all of it.
Heavy, man. But good heavy.
