Why the Long Face? (Bojack Horseman)

Commissioned by Aleph Null

TW: Suicide

I told you about my cat Jamara. I took her to the vet every Tuesday and Thursday, I liquidized her food and fed her with a dropper, I prayed for her to get better... I'd have done anything to save her, really. And yet there was a part of me-- the part that observes and writes-- rubbing its hands and saying, "Well, at least if she dies, I'll be able to use it in Animal Man. It'll add a nice touch of poignancy."
-Grant Morrison

I have a tendency to fetishize my depression. Maybe that’s not the right word in this context, but it’s right for this article. I sometimes joke to myself that my critical approach can be best summed up as “I get depressed at art for a couple thousand words.” Not all of my work falls into this mold, but a lot of it does. My initial blog project ultimately revealed itself to be a coping mechanism for my grandfather’s death. My next project was a series of reviews with the arc words “Why shouldn’t I commit suicide” that, in its book form, talks frankly about my desires to end it all. And my most recent project, a series of short stories based on episodes of Cowboy Bebop, perhaps my first non-I’m Depressed project, has largely been a wet fart both in my opinions of many of the posts and in readership. My brand, as is want to be called, is being miserable. It’s not all I am as a writer, but it’s a large part of it.

Furthermore, I’m also very self-deprecating, such that I will frequently talk about the ways in which I screwed up, sometimes without any care for the people who I screwed. Indeed, the original version of this article was another piece where the message is “Sean is rubbish.” But I came up with way too many examples of me being rubbish that I essentially hit a wall of existential dread over whether or not we can actually stop being the person we were yesterday or if the potential to repeat cruel acts makes us… I don’t know how to finish that sentence. I stared at it for a good minute trying to find the right word, but none came out.

When I try to watch Bojack Horseman, I feel like it’s hitting way too many seared wounds. It’s not a one to one connection between the two of us. Beyond species and profession, I’m not an addict to either drugs or alcohol. I’m too introverted to be the kind of toxicity that Bojack is. And mine wasn’t as broken a home as his. But… I feel a sense of kinship to the life and tragedy Bojack lived. The desire to end it all. The feeling that every action I take only makes things worse. The urge to be the center of attention, even when it’s time to let someone else talk. The lack and desire to have closure. But closure isn’t something you deserve. It’s something other people give to you. Sometimes, that means being told to go fuck yourself while others it means just sitting on a roof, silently looking at the stars.

And here again, I write autobiographically. I sometimes wonder if this approach is solipsistic, if I’m just writing to fellate my own ego for the sake of making myself feel better over the cruel things I’ve done. That I’m not really sorry for my actions, just going through the motions of “Cruelty, Guilt, Confrontation, Apology.” Not necessarily in that order. I haven’t seen a therapist in years. A lot of other stuff took priority. I could talk about those things, but those aren’t my stories to tell. At most, I was a supporting player to those events, some I’ve discussed at length. Others are best not expressed publicly for many years.

Oddly enough, one of the many reasons why I argue I should kill myself is that I’m just a space filler. I don’t add anything to the conversation and what I do add is, at best, superfluous and, at worst, inaccurate. Anyone could do what I do and many do it better. I add personal value to the people who know me, but that’s basically it. And that loss could heal in time. Hell, I set up the blog so that, if I were to kill myself after writing this entry, you wouldn’t notice until December. (I’m not going to for a variety of reasons, the least of which being I preordered tickets to Gothic on Wednesday, I’m planning on seeing Sweet Movie a week from Saturday, and I’ve got a Sherlock retrospective essay planned I’m hoping to get onto Graphic Policy. Fittingly, the title structure for each part is based around the song “Don’t Stop Dancing ‘til the Curtain Call” as a metatextual joke about where Steven Moffat’s career would’ve gone were he to stick with sitcoms. Oh, and I’m also going to Grad School in June.)

But then… I want to put a “but then” sentence here, but I don’t really know what would be right. Whenever I write about reasons not to do it, it always feels a bit too cliched, too obvious and straightforward. You are not alone, It won’t hurt forever, I’m willing to listen, and all that. But it feels… not enough. Like I don’t fully believe the words. There are times when rock bottom turns out to be a ledge you hit that crumples as easily as paper. I want to conclude on an optimistic note because, for all my self-loathing, I believe things can get better. I believe I can be a better person than I was yesterday, even though I am still capable of doing what I did and may even repeat my cruelty in the future, intentionally or not. But I am capable of stopping myself. I am capable of doing the right thing. And sometimes that means shutting the hell up. Sometimes that means not begging for closure from those you’ve hurt. And sometimes… it means reaching out to help someone who’s only halfway down.

(Shit, I need another 50 words to accurately call this “being depressed at art for thousands of words.” …Quotes have worked out for me in the past, why not?)

I know that you're tired
I know that you're sour and sick and sad
For some reason
 So I'll leave you with a smile
Kiss you on the cheek
And you will call it treason
 That's the way it goes
Some days a fever comes at you
Without a warning
 And I can see it in your face
You've been waiting to break
Since you woke up this morning
-Catherine Feeny, Mr. Blue Sky

ICU (Free Churro)

Commissioned by Aleph Null

Bojack seen.

Bojack Horseman is another example of a show I’ve been told to write about that I don’t feel I can do justice with the limitations of the commission process for the Patron Tier of $5. It’s a show I haven’t watched much of and what I have watched makes me not want to watch it. Not because it’s a bad show or anything, just… look, I’m working on a book that’s largely about a guy coming to terms with his failed suicide. The major project I worked on prior to that (that has been released to the public) was in large part about me coming to terms with the death of my grandfather and was about a guy having a near death experience to come to terms with a depressive period of his life. Bojack Horseman is a show about a depressed actor who is self-destructing. There are loads of reasons for me not to write about it.

And yet, here I am writing about it. More specifically, Free Churro, the best episode of the whole series… the one where Bojack gives a eulogy for his mother, a woman who died not even knowing who he was because of a stupid disease. It’s structured like a joke. “A man goes to a funeral to give a eulogy for his mother. He had a complex and depressing relationship with her, one that didn’t end well, and yet he had to give a final statement on her. He doesn’t know what to say, so he starts rambling, as we’re wont to do. Then, an epiphany happens. He realizes the nature of his mother’s relationship to him and looks at her body. But she’s not there. He went to the wrong funeral.”

Not funny when told in that context, but still. It’s the structure that matters. We are all trapped by the structures we find ourselves in. The face we’ve given ourselves, our style. I’m going to change things up once I finish One Must Imagine Scott Free Happy. I just can’t stand doing the same kind of writing over and over again. Being stuck in that rut ultimately has me saying the same five or six points about myself. I need to shake things up and do something new. I’m not in a place where I can actually write about what I want to write about when it comes to Free Churro. It hasn’t ended yet and so it’s too soon to actually talk about it.

I have it planned out though, probably… five years from now? I have the next project and a Chris O’Leary riff to get through first. But for now, I’m writing about something else… Why do I write, I sometimes ask myself. Why do I write the way I do. These stories about the things I watch and read. The ways I talk about myself through them. There are many reasons for that, but the one relevant to this one is… I want to be seen. I want people to be able to see me for me. Not the whole of me, there are some things that I don’t bring up in the very personal old post that’s coming up on the 29^ththat make me look worse. I don’t talk about what I did to compensate for my failings. Or, rather, “failings.”

I’ve done things I regret. Things I wish I never did. Things too recent to just throw them under the rug as the actions of a dumb teenager in high school. I’ve said the wrong word, done the wrong action, made the wrong call. And I don’t want to talk about them. Not yet, not here. Even though Bojack Horseman, a show about imperfect people trying their best to be better despite doing some truly horrible things, would be a fitting place to talk about them. I keep trying to find the right place for them, but they’re too raw at the moment.

Because that’s the thing about being seen, it’s different from being shown. To be shown is to not have agency in being looked at. We all want to be seen, but part of that is a level of agency. We decide what other people see. A corpse can never be seen, for a corpse has no agency in being looked at. An author, likewise, cannot truly be seen through a text. For even in my honesty, there’s still a level of artifice to such things. I can say that my name is Sean Joseph Dillon, a 23, soon to be 24, year old man who writes and edits for a living. But that doesn’t tell you much. Even when I talk about personal things, memory cheats and makes them seem better or worse than they actually were.

There is one thing I could tell you, something that’s relevant. When I was a kid, I was bullied. Frequently, and I didn’t take it well. I’d do a lot of things that were, for lack of a better word, awful. I won’t go into specifics, but there were times when I was a genuine creep who thought my loner status put him above the rest, even as I was self aware enough to know that such archetypes were a bullshit artifice to hide my own insecurities. One of the ways my bullies would torment me was through calling me “Seen.” That would always get to me because I didn’t want to be “Seen.” Because I wasn’t “Seen.” I was Sean. I am Sean.

Over the years, I’ve contemplated a lot of the implications of that statement. What it means to be Sean and whatnot. There are times when I don’t like being me because I’m a fuck up, an ass, and a jerk. Sometimes, I wonder about aspects of myself, if and how I should change my behaviors and outlooks. I try to look at myself through the lens other people, other versions of myself. I’ve even pondered my gender, especially after two major influences came out as trans within a month of each other. (I still haven’t come to a full conclusion, but being trans myself doesn’t feel right for me. I’m comfortable in my masculinity, but not in traditional masculinity, if that makes any sense.) I’m a bit too anxious about how people see me, intentionally or otherwise. And that anxiety causes me to sometimes lash out at people. But ultimately, I try to be better. I sometimes fall back into bad habits and attitudes, but in spite of that, I feel like I’m a better person than I was when I was younger.

I’m trying to be, at least. That’s the best we can do really.