Peeling off the layers

Trying to be authentic when there are so many Jakes

Whenever I wrote a blog post back when I had a job, I used to think about how, in some small way, I represented my employer. I still really tried to sound like me, but I was never completely unaware of my boss. This isn’t to say that my bosses were hounding me all the time, far from it, I hounded myself without realizing it.

This perceived constraint is now gone, but I still have plenty of fake voices:

• There’s promotional Jake, always thinking about how to get you to sign up for his newsletter or buy his book or come to his workshop. I can’t make that guy shut up.
• There’s apologetic Jake, who backtracks so he doesn’t offend anybody. Is it because he’s really nice, or because he cringes at comment arguments?
• There’s provoking Jake, who has strong opinions and writes adversarial clickbait headlines, hoping you’ll come and read. That guy is a jerk.

This sounds sort of jokey (there’s a jokey Jake too, and they’re all dad jokes) but I’m dead serious. Writing is talking, and if I’m not talking like me, I’m not me. This is about life, man.

I keep thinking about this: In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by CS Lewis, there’s a scene where a character called Eustace has been turned into a dragon, and he tears his skin off, layer after layer after layer, to try to turn back into a boy. But it’s not till Aslan, a magic lion, tears it off for him — and it really hurts — that he’s transformed and he’s himself. In the book, it’s some allegory about Jesus. I’m not necessarily saying I need Jesus, but jeezus, being myself ain’t easy.

This post first appeared on The Pastry Box Project.