I'm the Hero of a Story With No Third Act

What to do when the world doesn't want to hear your dull stories

Yes, I’m boring!

Not an ideal way to start a story, but stick with me.

I don’t write from a villa in the south of France.

I don’t travel to exciting places in Southeast Asia.

My neighborhood isn’t as interesting as Brooklyn.

I don’t do things and I don’t go many places.

Shit’s expensive these days — I stay home and make my own coffee.

When I do go get coffee, the shops I go to are dull because I favor space and quiet with good wifi and free parking instead of bustling hot spots that play music too loud.

I sit on my couch with my computer in my lap and stare off between a ridiculously large TV that I regret buying, and an art wall that has a large painting missing because I haven’t taken the time to reset the hook.

I’m an artist, but I haven’t made any art in months.

I’m a designer but I haven’t designed anything more complex that a t-shirt in almost a year.

I get up early to make breakfast for my son before he’s off to school. I do dishes and water my lawn.

I have a studio that’s absurdly cluttered because I procrastinate about putting things back in a natural order.

I live a half-mile from a Southern California beach that I rarely go to (I’m not alone, most of my city doesn’t go either – it’s weird, I know).

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I have shared many times about how storytelling is the cornerstone of building up loyalty from our fans and followers, but I struggle to find myself in situations interesting enough to turn into a story.

If this post was a hero’s arc, it would look something like this.

• Hero is a creative individual with aspirations to lead a charmed life of endless experiences that fans adore.

• Unfortunately, our hero is boring AF and struggles to find any inspiration that would make people pay attention. He’s over-burdened by dullness and rigamarole.

• Hero finds solace in his mundanity, tells stories about his sock drawer. People find it fascinating and republish everything he writes.

Writing those first two parts of the story is easy — I’m living it every single day. Finding the connective tissue that resolves the conflict is the tough part. A to B? Easy, but getting comfortable moving to C — Not so simple.

It Rubs the Irony on Its Skin

The ethos behind my brand, Lost Mixtape, is finding the pleasure in disconnecting from our digital existence and moving toward more human experiences.

In the face of AI and overwhelming social media algorithms, I believe disconnecting is more important now than ever, but yet here I am spending half my day in front of a computer, when the real human experiences are beyond the distance between my eyeballs and the Macbook on my lap.

Author Note: Writing a post like this for the newsletter doesn’t count because this feels like a conversation, albeit a mute one because you don’t leave comments on my posts!!!

Seriously though, removing myself from the infinite scroll, although difficult on my best days, has been one of the most personally rewarding feelings. I won’t be so cavalier to prescribe it to everyone, but really, you should try it.

There’s only one choice

Get comfortable, because you’re stuck with this dull version of Dave. I may be in my boring phase, but maybe this phase is actually most interesting part about me to others (I’m incredibly hopeful about that part).

After all, when we share our humanity through lived experiences (not manufactured reality through social media), people can and will relate to us. Not all, but some, and those are the ones who matter.

I sometimes talk a lot about techy and business-y things here, and that’s cool. I enjoy that part a lot but it’s only one facet of this unpolished gemstone.

All that to say that I’m working on sharing more of these lived stories, and honestly, I blame Jenna Park for the inspiration. I’ve been binging her content lately, and the parallels in personal experiences are almost uncanny.

So yeah, grab your polishing stone, and let’s get to rubbing the dullness into a fine lustre and I’ll spin some yarns out of beige threads.

Things I’ve Seen

I found myself on an interesting side of Substack this week and I feel like it’s time for me to get back to sharing some of the good things that have landed in my lap.

1. Gen X was obsessed with anti-sellout culture, but maybe capitalism won after all

This was the post that turned me into an instant fanboy of Jenna Park. Relatable beyond anything else I’ve read in years – I felt seen despite the melancholy nostalgia her post gave me.

“Gen X really was the anti-sell out generation. It was so core to our countercultural ethos that it was embedded deeply in our collective mindset. Being called a yuppie was an insult (now there’s a word you don’t hear anymore) and there was nothing worse than being accused of selling out and betraying your artistic integrity.”

2. I Made Six Figures Then Had a Crash Out: Part 2

A couple years ago, I fired all my design clients. To be fair, some left on their own, but I chose to not replace them. It was difficult; financially painful, but also the most relief I’ve felt in a long time.

Alice Lemee’s work is new to me, and this post about letting clients go in order to relinquish some of her soul is a little heartbreaking, but also generous in it’s honesty.

“That 22-year-old backpacker had never angrily typed “MORE HUMAN” to ChatGPT, sent a project proposal, or checked Slack on a Sunday.”

3. Chinamaxxing and the Western Gaze

Because of my feelings around this entire post, I started looking more deeply at people sharing their gritty, unpolished selves. That’s how I found all three of the ladies in this section. Imagine the upside when I found Jing’s Substack (the founder of Fly By Jing chili sauce — try it, it’s fantastic).

I’m old and don’t understand all of these maxing trends, but I appreciate Jing’s take on how Americans have been coerced in how to feel about China and its people. We hear the word China and are drawn into feelings, mostly because of a certain fascist administration and their narrative about who are enemies are.

I don’t know Jing, never met her, but I love her business, and I appreciate her world view.

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