Human slush pile
Kurt Vonnegut once called a guy “The Stephen Crane of WWII.” And that guy once brought me up to his attic and showed me his slush pile. It was a big slushpile. Nothing else happened up there. He was a nice guy, Ian MacMillan. He said nice things about my writing and plucked a few manuscripts at random and read me some first lines. Just a sinewy guy editing a journal, winning O. Henrys.
I often think about the people behind that slush pile—all those SASEs, months waited for rejections in a no simultaneous submissions world.
The slush pile’s since gone omni. We’re all editors of our own inboxes—our filters our first-readers. Mindshare as page space. Rejection: unsubscribe.
My lifetime’s most diminishing inflations: trading cards, published writing, sex. (No better slush piles than dating apps.)
A slush pile is any designated space for no-one-needs-me-to-do-this-but-pick-me. The ones I find myself in lately are called “showcases.” I display my physical voice and body to other 3D people who applaud or don’t, in a succession of others doing the same. If I stand out I get more “work.” It hurts exquisitely and makes you believe you’re god. One day the feces between sneaker tread. The next day god.
On my way to each showcase, on the train or in an Uber, there is a point, a bit beyond halfway, when my full proprioception becomes a What the fuck am I doing? alarm. Internal nav programmed to Home, it is an intense “proceed to the route” course corrective tug, and my not turning in response means self-inflicted loneliness.
I could be at the house with my woman, eating guac. Off my woman.
Instead I am doing the town on a Friday night—solo. Everyone’s a decade younger and fully peacocked and friended and I am their… entertainment? Some hybrid of a movie they’re about to see and a waiter they’re about to tip.
I sit at the back of the room pretending to look at my phone then suddenly I am before the crowd of peacocked friended people, holding a mic. Shockingly these fun, attractive, disposable income’d strangers submit their full attention—all of them all at once. Before the night’s over some of their money’s in my Venmo.
Slush piling is hard. And because elective foolish. Long odds, unavoidably obsessive comparisons with peers, ultra-public embarrassment: that’s nearly all of it. Stupid if unaligned.
There’s two tricks I can see.
Don’t quit.
Be unlike nearly everyone.
Quitting makes sense and is easy.
Likewise being fashionable.
Most should do one or the other.
I want to live in a world where most do one or the other.
The daily question is Am I most?
And If yes, how bad would it be?
Maybe I’m reading it from a odd place of personal optimism, but this is a beautiful, hopeful thing. Thank you. Please continue to be unlike everyone else.
Wow, did you nail that!