We’re All Full of Shit – David Duchovny Would Agree

90705344 7fd0ce01ee d Were All Full of Shit David Duchovny Would Agree

Live any honestly self reflective life and you’ll have this thought:

“I’m full of shit.”

Occasionally paired with this thought:

“I hope no one else notices.”

I know I do. More often than I’d like actually.

So where is all this coming from? Clay brought it up when we met up for brunch on my roadtrip.

“People are full of shit.” That’s what he said.

I laughed. I knew it was true.

Look at it this way. There is this epic joke that one day people are going to catch on to. That I’ve really no clue as to how to live and have just been ranting and raving lunatic things. That’s how I’m certain it looks. We’re on the edge – our unconventional lifestyles, vagabonding, freedom businesses, liberation manifestos, working for no man… we teeter very close to lunacy (not that I mind).

So we’ve got to push the joke past the limits. You’ve got to believe your own joke.

Really, that’s it. Being the real deal is doing it even when you don’t believe yourself. You’ve got a mission, the hard facts of life, and the road before you. If the words that come out of your mouth feel fake – fake it. Sometimes to be the real deal we have to act it, like David Duchovny.

That’s right. You’ve got to be so full of it that you can fool yourself into believing it’s possible. That’s your game. It isn’t just positive affirmations and productivity tools it’s about action in the face of self doubt.

Once you’ve got that. You’ve got it.

As long as you’re the only person to catch on – good – the longer you can get away with it.

Cause, really, we’re all full of shit.

Flickr photo courtesy of danny.hammontree.

Also, this post in no way has been endorsed by David Duchovny – even though I think it should be.

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Posted on 18 August 2009 by Carl

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Categorized | Feature, Play

Tags | david duchovny, fake it to make it, freedom business, full of shit, liberaiton manifesto, lunacy, on the edge, unconventional lifestyle, vagabonding

ChristiaanH

It's completely legit to be a mental case in the blogosphere.

That is, as long as you KNOW you are. It's at the point that you know longer know this that things go terribly wrong and we all end up reading blogs written by fakers. Be proud of what you are but more important, know thyself. If you have no idea who you are, how are others supposed to know? Be honest, even in shitting with people. Do it with flair and commitment.

There is no faking, really be the mental case that you know you are. Yes we're on the edge of sanity in this field of personal development and lifestylde design, but we like it this way. And if you didn't notice the blog heading here.. " We don't care, what you think"

We're a bunch of mental cases, but we wouldn't want it any other way.

Thanks for this virtual ass-kick Carl, I needed it and really enjoyed this blogpost as you might have concluded from my comment. (Hint: it's a good thing when I start rating..)

Amit

Wow. I have to see I really resonated with this post. Once I decided to pursue an unconventional lifestyle I felt like a lot of people looked at me like I'm an idiot. There's a point I believe anyone in the minority feels like they are "full of shit" and the majority might be right. I have to remind myself though the path that I am on is because I don't like what the majority is doing. Yeah, I might be "full of shit" but its fine, because there is a point when you feel so crazy, so delusional, and if you can fight those feeling you might just be able to pull it off.

Duff_McDuffee

"Being the real deal is doing it even when you don’t believe yourself."

Doing it when you don't believe yourself is called faking it, not "being the real deal." Saying to yourself "right now I am experiencing self-doubt" is being the real deal. All social interactions involve a degree of inauthenticity, whether you choose to project a false, well-crafted self-image of authenticity or not.

"So we’ve got to push the joke past the limits. You’ve got to believe your own joke."

Acting as if your joke is real is a great strategy for living an inauthentic life. It also turns your life into a joke. A little postmodern irony about the nature of the ever-shifting sense of self as innumerable social roles is a good thing, but believing in the joke is going too far, IMHO.

"You’ve got to be so full of it that you can fool yourself into believing it’s possible."

Yea, that's what we need, more lying to ourselves, believing our own lies so congruently we can fool others. Nonsense!

Perhaps we should abandon even appearing to be authentic, trying to be "on the edge," or posturing in any way whatsoever, completely surrendering to the meaningless void, and finding radical freedom in the experience of true spontaneity and creativity without pretense or bullshit.

CarlNelson

I believe the difference is understanding that you're still joking even if you believe it. It's when you get caught up and forget that it's still a joke that you get into troubled water.

Or in other words, that being authentic is understanding that sometimes you've got to fake it a bit, not be a fake.

And It's not about appearing authentic, it's about understanding your own place in who you are. If there was some confusion - which it seems there was - this is more of how I intended this.

itzallrelativ

i loved this post but i struggle with the "fake it 'till ya make it" idea because i'm tired of fakers and faking. isn't it better to just be comfortable with the ambiguity of "maybe i'm just full of shit right now"? at least it's authentic. you can still take action in the face of doubt and not be a fake or faking anything. known too many people who are drunk on their own kool-aid and believing their own joke for so long that they've forgotten to consider the possibility that at that moment in their lives, they are really just full of shit. which means they aren't really living an honestly self-reflective life any more.

CarlNelson

I guess this goes to the point I mentioned to Duff below. It's not about being a fake, it's about faking it and know that you are.

I used a few different terms here, faking it, full of shit, joking. I'm using them more as an interchange for different ways to read it.

And yes, if you forget that you're joking and have been drunk on your own kool-aid well you've definitely lost it. It's the self-reflection that you are full of shit, that it is still a joke, and that you are acting it or faking it once in a while that is important.

Lake

Wow, man, you posted this at the right time for me. As a writer, I sometimes stay up at night facing a half-finished manuscript and wondering who will read it, who will care, who will think it's worth their time? Sometimes it's enough to make hurl all pages off my balconey (after they've been set on fire). I don't do this, of course, because the only option is to be brave about it and write another sentence, another paragraph, another page. Writing is the journey and "Being the real deal is doing it even when you don’t believe yourself." Thanks.

CarlNelson

Thanks Lake, I agree... sometimes that late night quiet crunch is when these moments happen and you want to hurl your work off the cliff, shut off your blog, and skip out on it all.

Michael

In fact this article is full of shit. Not that I mind, cause I read it and enjoyed it:)

But aren't what you say just another way of saying: you are what you think? Oldschool buddha stuff in plain everyday english?

Best regards from Denmark

CarlNelson

In some ways yes. In other ways it's saying that you have to know that knowing your full of shit is important. Knowing that keeps you humble cause if you push it too hard and forget that - forget that you're joking or sometimes just getting by - then you've lost it and can slip into your ego-driven self-entitled world.