I'm here to do karate, dammit.

I'm always grateful when I see a George Tannenbaum article in my feed. This one really resonated.  

To live up to the Millennial trope, I knew from a young age that I couldn't do something 40+ hours a week for 40+ years of my life that didn't make me happy. Call me a snowflake, if you must, but Jimi Hendrix said, “I’m the one that’s gotta die when it’s my time to die, so let me live my life the way I want to.”

And he was born in 1942. 

I've always been enamored by the capacity we have to move each other as humans, the timelessness of a good story, the omnipresence of certain truths. At a young age, in addition to countless hours of reading books and watching TV, I started to put words and pictures on a page to see if I could be the one to make something moving. Conversely, I tried to put my emotions on a page, or canvas, or bedroom wall (thanks, mom!) to see what came out. 

Long story longer: I became a musician. I sucked at first, of course, but found over time that more and more people -- one sparsely populated coffeehouse at a time -- were resonating with my music. (Shameless plug: you can pre-order my next album now and get instant access to the title track. Nbd.)

15 years in, I found myself still in love with music, but increasingly curious about things like the extent of my creative abilities and, oh I dunno, a living wage? Maybe some healthcare? On top of promoting my bands, I was freelancing as a social media marketer/occasional event host for some local businesses and that didn’t suck, so maybe there was something there.

I did a little research, toured a campus or two, and, 3 years later, I was graduating from arguably one of the best portfolio schools in the country and head over heels in love with advertising. Tackling ad briefs felt like a Rubik's cube that necessitated that, in order to solve it, you had to make something that moved somebody. And, apparently, people get paid good money to do this.

JACKPOT.

Fast-forward (but just a little or you’ll miss it and have to rewind your smart TV with that one-button remote control) and I’m 7 months into an internship and on the hunt for a full-time copywriting position. As I type this, I’m doubting myself, my future, and especially that second cup of coffee I had this morning. I’m doing nothing close to the enthralling “what if?” ping-pong sessions I grew to love at the Circus. I’m getting none of the feedback that was so prevalent in ad school. (I feel like Daniel-san in The Karate Kid before Mr. Miyagi tells him there was a point to painting the fence and waxing the car. I’M HERE TO DO KARATE, DAMMIT! *chops air with knife hands*)

The feedback I do get is mostly from a client who doesn’t want me to write so much as they want me to rearrange the same buzzwords their industry has used for 40 years into different executions of the same thought -- to push the “nacho-cheesier nacho-cheesier nacho” as Mr. Tannenbaum puts it in his article. “It’s so much easier to take the road more traveled,” he says. “To assume the consumer is a moron. To abide by the dominant complacency of the age.” But I want to make inspired work.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not throwing in any towels. I’m just trying to illustrate how grateful I am to be reminded that some of the things I care about, someone else cares about, too.

 Thanks, Mr. Tannenbaum.