The Last Author Bio
Loathing writers overshadows many mundane writing tasks such as this bio. Much effort exerted trying to write an author bio, feeling a professional obligation to perform this chore. A chore this is because writing an honest, fact-filled bio violates the author-reader relationship, epitomizing terrible writing as it tries to qualify and authenticate me to satisfy you, demeaning us. For you are too stupid to discern me from my writing, and I am too stupid to realize your deductive skill.
The bio writing task led to multiple failed attempts, which I published to show honesty and dishonesty. Holding different bios dealt from the deck of life should tell you much about me, making these truths and lies the greatest form of bio.
Having written only one resume as a formality to get an interview for a shitty job and posting some bullshit on LinkedIn, I have little understanding of presenting myself. This ineptness might seem unbelievable to younger generations who believe authenticating oneself a vital task: a belief unfairly thrust upon you by technology. I empathize and recognize authentication benefits job and reflects you to the world through social media, but it is the dullest part of you, at least to me.
The “you” I want to know is the girl sitting behind her laptop filling out a job application, wanting to write a fake name and lie about references, not just bend the facts, but boldly lie. You scroll the job listings for executive positions and scheme ways to fake a portfolio, not because you want the job but to satisfy the curiosity of possibly obtaining the high-status position and proving the nagging suspicion “all jobs are bullshit.” You wonder what happens if you become a CEO, and suddenly, you walk power’s tightrope between tyranny and altruism as you indulge both fantasies equally.
The “you” I want to know is the guy sitting in traffic envisioning the boss’s reaction after telling him to go fuck himself, not because the boss did anything mean but to learn if a person exists beneath the corporate veneer. You smash the brake because an asshole cut you off, provoking the desire to jam the gas pedal and crash through the traffic, screaming the severity of the existential crisis caused by sitting in a tin can wasting life in traffic jams. You listen to podcasts and music, but the vehicular homicidal maniac is right there, beckoning just beneath the surface.
Knowing you is in no small way knowing me: a beautiful relationship formed in the love of life’s great narrative. Yet, deep-rooted hate of the writer bars our connection, and oh, I hate him. He is the third wheel on our storytelling date and sits on the couch between us. You hate him too because he is mimesis incarnate and indignity’s pinnacle, presenting himself as wisdom’s elusive agent while groveling, “Read me!” Like a jonesing addict, the writer begs for readership’s fix with repugnant false humility, pseudo-intellectualism, and sophistry. The worst of them are the genre fiction writers who dwell in online communities chattering of fantasy, horror, and science fiction as though categories of fiction mosaic life’s truth. All the while, they hope and pray for a bestseller to free them of this desperate living. Part of their praying is the ritual glorification of the holy books of Stephen King, who is their god, but rather than just venerate King, they beg for a nod and toss of a Milk-Bone of admiration. The bone never comes, and continuous, unrequited faith quells not the begging of the starving dogs.
Pathetic. Any writer with a modicum of integrity would say, “Stephen King, go fuck yourself!” They would say it the same way King tells them to go fuck themselves every day when he rises and begins writing without wasting a thought on them. Perhaps King and I telling each other to fuck-off speaks from the heart of this bio as we focus on the job of writing unconcerned with each other.
Once a girl told me, “Maybe your job as a writer is to say nothing. You are only the witness.” She was wise. Perhaps the story is just a brushstroke of life, and the writer’s job is to put the brush to canvas. If there is any wisdom, then it will effuse from the painting. You can glaze and brighten colors, but you can’t paint with any oil other than life’s truth and lies. Any other purpose turns the Monet to paint-by-numbers. Writing proves lies are just as valuable as truth, and if you understand this, you know me, and I know you, rendering all bios pointless.