MYTHIC LOSER

I'm the most unsuccessful person I know. A happy story.

Everyday I see casualties. I see people get married to the wrong person because they’re scared to be alone. Fearful of unchecked boxes. I see friends become addicted to being important on the internet — so they create shit in hopes to get shit. Fuck art or soul or meaning — that takes too much time plus who cares! I NEED SHIT NOW. I NEED SHIT. I NEED. I.

I was laughing at myself yesterday because anytime I trick myself into believing I am a good spiritual person, I am revealed a new layer I didn’t know I needed to shed. I am one of the most unsuccessful people I know, by the world’s standards. I have no money. No one cares about my comedy now - or maybe ever. Yet no matter how much I shed, I still catch my reflection inward and realize I have more to go.

I can’t help but cling and claw and scrape together the shrapnel of my life to try to create an identity that someone else may dictate as IMPORTANT. I need it so badly it’s humiliating.

I occasionally run food at an establishment in New York City. For unspoken reasons I need to state: I AM NOT A SERVER. I AM A FOOD RUNNER. In the restaurant industry caste system, that means I am a step above a host on the value scale — but I am EONS below the ALMIGHTY SERVER.

They are gods and goddesses among us, in black non-slip shoes. Seriously. One time I was publicly flogged for questioning a server at my job after he told me something. He thought I was questioning his holiness.

Regardless, I need you to know I know, in the cosmic realm of THE FOOD SERVICE INDUSTRY, I am a shitty mortal.

My boss thinks I have an attitude problem, so he gives me fake jobs the same way a parent gives their child a used Barnes & Noble gift card to play pretend with.

I let him believe that the added responsibility has inspired me and imbued me with purpose. I pretend that I don’t notice that my time is not worth the little money. I deny him the reality that my need for food and shelter leave me no choice but to validate his purpose.

So I pretend that he has authority over me, and in exchange he leaves me alone and I can pacify myself with half of an edible and the meditative practice of plating chicken fingers and dropping them off at tables.

It was a particularly busy night and they had just promoted three other people to servers (more gods) instead of me (still a fucking mortal) To distract me from the disrespect, he asked me to Quarterback the food running in front of the whole staff. Huge. Mortifying that that did make me feel .0000001% more important. The way when they find an amoeba on mars, it is still technically life. Nothing, but not nothing at the same time.

However, I was usurped. The 22 year old screenwriting postgrad I was working with, felt like she better identified with the role of Quarterback. *ah ehm…demigod*

BUT I’M THE FUCKING QUARTERBACK?! I CAN’T BE TURNING 31 IN A WEEK AND NOT EVEN BE THE FAKE QUARTERBACK AT MY SHITTY NIGHT GIG.

OUR GOD, YES — THE GUY IN THE ILL-FITTING BROOKS BROTHER’S SUIT, RIGHT OVER THERE, THAT NO ONE RESPECTS, YEAH, HE TOLD ME I’M THE QUARTERBACK.

I laughed to myself. Is this how spiritually bankrupt I still am? Is this how much I still need to be in control? Is this how far from God I really am? I can’t let a 22 year old girl who hasn’t even been crushed by society yet, believe she is the Quarterback in a game we’re all losing anyway. I don’t even know what the Quarterback does. It seems like he just does one thing at the beginning, and then lets everyone else do the work, then he gets all the head.

Sigh. There is no course of action but to let her be Quarterback. Yet again I must surrender to the natural flow of the Universe. I must surrender to God while wearing a hairnet. Being such a worldly loser makes me feel so close to God, and God is Love. But trying to choose Love, here on earth, feels like actual descent into madness. It feels scary. I mean we all kind of liked God-fearing Kanye and look what happened.

I plate french fries and count my failures.

1. I worked in porn and wasn’t even the Porn *Star*

   1. I guess I shouldn't beat myself too much for this one. This past year I took a writing job — my first writing job that is. I was a chatter for OnlyFans. I SOLD PORN TO MEN SUFFERING FROM THE MALE LONLINESS EPIDEMIC. Which is a cause I care deeply about. They are so lonely. They are so scared. They don’t understand what happened to the world. They miss the days that whatever woman you could club over the head first — was yours. These aren’t bad men. These are simple men. And there I was using my film degree and passion for the written word, taking their money so that I could make rent. Although I wasn’t the star — I told myself I was the soul of the star.

2. I literally own nothing

   1. I used to joke that my laptop was the most precious thing I owned. And then I was fired three times in 18 months from all of my craigslist jobs because I have no business prowess. Three times I got hired for my vibe. Three times I got fired for my vibe. My vibe is good because I hate money and work. I get hired and fired by corporations for the same reason I would get selected and then discarded by men — my vibe. It intrigues people until they realize I’m not doing a bit.

   2. We’re all just mirrors. We're all just walking each other home. I used to think all I had was my laptop. But the “U” on my keyboard is on the fritz and now I think all I have is MY VIBE. My vibe is my only asset.

3. I lost my job and my apartment and no one started a Gofundme for me

   1. This one is pretty obvious. If something bad happens to you in the year 2025 and none of your peers starts a Gofundme for you should probably just Gofuckyourself.

4. I don’t know how to care about anything anymore.

   1. I feel about comedy the way I feel about myself. Aggressively reluctant acceptance.

   2. I meditate and chant Shakti — but I say it like fucking Shakti. Fucking Universal Power. A few weeks ago I really wanted to die. I didn’t tell anyone this, but I went to my roof and looked up at the night sky and asked the big “I AM” to please just take me in my sleep in exchange for truly a lifetime of trying.

   3. God compromised and killed part of me — now I am finishing the game in a new form. One that has absolutely no skin in the game and doesn’t dare form a desire in the year 2025 and on.

   4. Finally no desire, so no more suffering. Ok I can live this way I think. I’ll try at least. So I do my spots. I ordered a bagel for the first time in my life without shame and the guy who made my bagel told me I had very beautiful eyes. Perhaps this ego-death will be fun. Maybe I’ll be one of those girls who gets random free shit now.

I’ve been meditating on The Power of Myth, and I find it exhilarating and comforting. I’m so compelled by myth because it allows me to be softer to myself as I figure out how to live on planet earth in late stage capitalism. The Bible says “the meek shall inherit the earth” — but what if you’re poor and not meek. What if you’re poor and just deeply flawed?

Joseph Campbell writes: “But if you will think of ourselves as coming out of the earth, rather than having been thrown in here from somewhere else, you see that we are the earth, we are the consciousness of the earth. These are the eyes of the earth. And this is the voice of the earth.”

Suddenly I am imbued with real purpose. Suddenly I am not powerless. Suddenly, I am a mythic loser creature standing in her nature with everything she needs from the surface of her skin to the infinite inward of her soul.

Joseph Campbell 1. Chloe 0. Mythic Loser. ∞