Felicia’s Day

Felicia Day’s book just came out, and I’ve been annoyed ever since I heard she was writing it. I wasn’t sure why, exactly, the idea of some person I’d never met writing a book had me perturbed, but I’m pretty sure it had something to do with the fact that what she was writing was a memoire. In her mid-30s.

What gives her the right to think anyone would even care about the memoire of someone who’s barely been able to legally drink for a little over a decade? What could she possibly have to share that makes her so important that she could get a book deal over it?

Maybe that was it. She got a book deal to tell her life story, however brief it may be, and I haven’t. I’m 40. I have, like, ones of years more experience than her!

But no, that wasn’t it.

What upset me was the fact that I’m kind of an asshole.

What gives Felicia the right to publish a memoire? Nothing. And everything.

She has the right to do it because she wanted to, and she did. That’s it. What gave her that right? Certainly not me, or her publisher, or her fans. What gave her the right was her own damn self, and her determination to get it done. Writing isn’t some right to be bestowed upon anyone. It’s something you either do or you don’t.

As soon as I admitted that is when it hit me, and I figured out why I was annoyed by her book.

I realized I wasn’t annoyed by her book.

I wasn’t even annoyed by Felicia.

I wasn’t annoyed with her age or her talent, or anything else she has ever done or will do.

I was annoyed with myself.

The only problem I had with Felicia Day was that she’d succeeded where I’ve failed. She took her nerdosity (that’s a word; no need to look it up), and transitioned it into a career through talent, hard work, determination and perseverance. And luck, because there’s always luck.

But it wasn’t luck that made The Guild a hit. It wasn’t luck that taught her how to act. It wasn’t luck that taught her to sing, or write, or produce, or do any of the other hundred or so things she’s great at. All luck did was put her in the right place at the right time, which is all it ever does for anyone. The rest – all the heavy lifting – was up to her. And she did it.

Maybe I’ve never had my luck moment, but if I did, I probably just didn’t notice because I was too busy worrying about what someone else was doing. Or maybe I just don’t have the talent or the drive. I don’t know.

I do know I’ve tried. And I’m still trying. I realized I’ve even been doing a kind of memoire of my own, with these little entries I’ve been posting lately.

I’ll keep on working at it until I’m either successful or eventually get sick or old(er) and die, because I’m not failing by trying. I’m just getting better at what I do while I wait for my luck to get here. It’ll either happen or it won’t, but sitting around and not doing anything while I wait for my ship to come in isn’t going to give me a ticket to board. It’ll just make me the crazy dude who yells at his knapsack and sleeps on a park bench down by the river. Or maybe a van, because Chris Farley was hilarious.

I think that’s the problem with bitter people. They’re so concerned with what other people have that they eventually become fixated on the idea and become either angry trolls on the Internet or possibly Republicans. Maybe both.

Seriously, the key to understanding the modern Conservative is to take everything you learned in Kindergarten about being a decent person, and then do the exact opposite. If, for example, little Melanie wanted to play with the alphabet blocks, she should’ve worked harder to get to them before Jimmy. His mom drops him off early so she can make it to her spin class or whatever, while Melanie has to take the bus because her mom has to get to one of her two minimum wage jobs before the sun comes up because she’s lazy or something. At any rate, Jimmy has the alphabet blocks now, and he’s bigger than Melanie is. What’s she going to do, whine to the teacher to make him share? What is this, Communist Russia?!

If Conservatives really believed that people lived the high life on welfare and food stamps, I think a lot more of them would probably quit their crappy jobs and go on the dole. But they don’t, despite their rhetoric that taxing the rich disincentivizes being wealthy, because some part of them deep down they don’t talk about at parties knows they’re full of shit. Even taxing 90% of some rich guy’s $1,000,000/year income (which no one has ever proposed) would still leave him with a helluva lot more money at the end of the day than anyone on welfare and/or working at or around minimum wage has. Nobody wants to be poor, because everyone knows being poor sucks, even for the phantasmal “welfare queen” bogeywomen the Tea Party people love to talk about, and they damn well know it.

But enough about politics.

The other thing bitter people become are Internet Trolls and YouTube commenters, which are basically the same thing. These people live to tear down the work anyone else does online – especially if who they’re attacking has achieved any level of success. Why? Because they could do better. They could be funnier. They could be smarter. They could be…fill in the damn blank.

But they aren’t.

Like this, but with more resentment.

All they are is bitter that someone else is getting what they feel they’re entitled to, even when they don’t work to put anything out there and make it happen. People who actually create put a piece of their soul into every single thing they make, then they share it with the world. That takes a kind of bravery that usually goes overlooked by people who just consume content rather than create it, but it’s there. Baring your soul to the world is scary, no matter how you do it.

It’s especially scary when you know that there’s an army of bitter, entitled people out there who are just waiting, fingers poised over their rageboards, for you to press the Publish button so they can start keybanging their hate and bile all over your beautiful work. That’s what they do. It’s what they live for, which is why I explained Conservatives first. Because to truly understand the mentality of these sorts of people, you need a point of reference. Like, say, Donald Trump.

You have to give credit to Trump, though. He’s basically trolling the entire nation at this point, like a snickering kid on Xbox. But, you know, with grown-ups who should know better.

If you picture everyone leaving hateful YouTube comments as furious little Donald Trumps, it not only gives you context, but it actually helps a little, since the image of pint-sized Donalds hacking away at their keyboards gives you perspective.

And it helps you to never become that guy.

Like almost happened with me and Felicia Day.

So no, I’m not annoyed with Felicia’s book. I’m not annoyed with her success. Instead, I’m going the opposite route and have decided to be encouraged by it. Just like I’ve been encouraged by Jenny Lawson or Wil Wheaton, or any number of people I admire for what they’ve accomplished. Success isn’t guaranteed to anyone, no matter how many advantages they might have, nor is failure predestined for anyone, regardless of how many disadvantages they have.

I don’t live in or near Los Angeles or New York, where writers have a decent chance of finding work. I live in a small East Texas town, where reading anything that isn’t either in the Bible or on Fox News is how the Devil gets inside you. I don’t have any advantages, but you know what? Neither did Felicia.

She was born in Hunstville, Alabama, which is not all that different from Beaumont, Texas, except that Lynyrd Skynyrd never even wrote a cool song about my state. Pretty much all we can do is wait for someone to sing, “The stars at night are big and bright…” before we all break into a fit of clapping like coked up lab monkeys hitting the buzzer for a fix. (Seriously, give it a try the next time you’re in the Lone Star state. Pee-Wee wasn’t lying.)

And that’s the takeaway for today’s post, kids. Don’t ever let what someone else has discourage you from your own success. Don’t let that bitter monster take over your heart, because that way lies depression, anger and probably some sort of cryptic warning from Yoda that’d make his ears go down when he got to the good part. I don’t know, maybe something like, “Jealousy leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to…YouTube Commenting!” (Which is basically like the Dark Side, if being a Sith was less about choking people with the power of your mind and more about confusing them with your complete failure to grasp the concept of grammar.)

Also, don’t let the trolls get you down. If you’re creating, keep on creating. The only way the bitter people win is when everyone else gives up. If I were a slogan writing type, I’d probably say something like “Ignore The Hate! Just Create!” right about now, but thankfully I’m not. Slogans are obnoxious.

Now if anyone needs me, I’ll be out buying Felicia’s book today.

Because I’m not an asshole.

UPDATE: I didn’t go out to buy it, because I broke a tooth. But I did get it on iBooks; and so far, it’s great. I even went and added Felicia to THE TOP of my list of Nerd Heroes. Go check it out.

Sorry, haters.

Want some books? 'Course ya do!

NOTE:  I know times are hard and yeah, I need to make a living too, but if you want to read any of my books but can't afford to buy them right now, hit me up.

I'll take care of it.

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