Erik

I love people, which is unfortunate, because they drive me fricken crazy.

I am also the driving force behind this website, a phrase that sounds more impressive than it is. Mostly it means I am the person who reaches out, asks questions, opens too many tabs, and then explains to an artificial intelligence that I am Erik, Anthony is my husband, and the orange chair is mine. These are not philosophical distinctions. Lately they have required the persistence of a minor prophet.

I do like to socialize. I simply prefer conversations about the ordinary things: time, space, reality, consciousness, awareness, emotional intelligence, UFOs and—if the room is not already looking for its coats—death. Small talk makes me feel we have been given consciousness and are using it to compare parking.

I once told my oldest friend that the meaning of life is that it is meaningless, and that this is absolutely perfect. He did not like this. As theories of existence go, mine turned out to be a conversation nonstarter.

What I meant was that meaning is like beauty: arbitrary, confidently assigned and fiercely defended. There is no single moment beating like a heart at the center of the universe, experienced everywhere at once. There just is. There is only NOW. Then the ego arrives with a clipboard, desperate to prove that an event was important, that we were right, and that it remains relevant to the proceedings.

This is easier to believe about the universe than about a person screaming at you.

Years ago, I was promoted to senior digital production manager on Stuart Little 2 when a second digital production manager joined the production. It was a studio title; the film credit was never updated. A movie about a very small mouse required a very large number of adults to tend to his every adventure. As I remember it, the visual-effects leadership did not want this unfinished version shown. I understood the decision as practical: bringing it to the exacting standard expected by the visual-effects director—whom I experienced as a perfectionist about the work—would have cost more than the production could justify. A studio executive wanted the material included in a director’s screening. I believed that carrying out the request without first resolving the disagreement with my two visual-effects bosses would mean deceiving people I respected. I was a metaphorical Boy Scout when it came to lying and almost completely unequipped for corporate politics.

So I froze. I did nothing. This is a form of action with excellent deniability right up until the screening begins.

I left the material out. In my memory, the executive was beyond livid. The anger occupied her face, voice and entire vessel, with enough force that even her spit appeared to be considering a transfer.

The confrontation happened in front of my crew. No—confrontation is far too polite. I experienced it as being berated and shamed in front of more than 200 visual-effects professionals, some of the best in the world. For years afterward, I replayed the scene with a reliable cast: she was the unprofessional monster I would never work with again, and I was the loyal innocent who could not betray his friends.

There was only one problem. I had fudged it up.

Memory, inconveniently, is not an untouched reel waiting in storage. Autobiographical recall is reconstructive: the person doing the remembering—his age, mood, knowledge and present needs—helps determine what returns. Recall can sometimes update a memory, although it does not necessarily rewrite it incorrectly every time. I had lived too long, and replayed that room too often, to keep confusing the version in my head with a recording.

The details grew shakier. Unfortunately for the ego, the escape hatch was in the details.

The uncertainty did not make the event unreal. It loosened my grip on the verdict.

The executive could have handled it differently. I could have handled it at all. Instead of freezing, I could have told her plainly that I would not deceive my bosses and that we needed to resolve the disagreement before the screening. I still do not regard the way she handled it as professional. Mine did not become effective. Both could be true without appointing either of us the permanent villain.

I have to relearn this constantly. Sometimes it helps to have Anthony nearby, pointing out the perspective I had temporarily misplaced. Meaningless does not mean that nothing matters. It means an event does not arrive with a permanent caption, and the ego is not entitled to write one in ink.

I still love people. They still drive me fricken crazy. I assume I return the favor. For now, I am the one in the orange chair, trying to decide which large, socially inappropriate question to ask next.