A Bug Trying to Be a Salesman
Includes Podcast Recs! :)
I somehow unlocked a magical YouTube/Instagram/Spotify algorithm synchronicity that has brought me a stream of new, good podcasts to listen to. If you’ve been reading my writing for a while, you might know that I love podcasts. I tend to be even more unadventurous with podcasts than I am with music, however, listening to the same three or four voices over and over again, suffering withdrawals when I run out of new episodes and back catalogues. In my defense, you spend a lot more time with a podcaster throughout a single episode than you do with a musician during the performance of one song. A podcast has to have the right mixture of episode run time, topic, non-annoying speech patterns, and authenticity to keep me coming back. When I was in my 2020 crash dieting phase, keto podcasters/bio hackers were my favorite. For a while, I wanted comedy and chill vibes, so I sought out Not For Everyone and Good Hang.
These days, I look for podcasts that give me advice on fostering my creativity, seeing the world in a more positive light, and navigating burnout (why yes, I am in the trenches—how could you tell?), so I feel perpetually grateful to have discovered three podcasts that both cover these topics and are hosted by creators with energy and passion that drive them to post frequently enough to feed my hungry heart. These podcasts are Wild Geese, hosted by Anna Howard, Internet People, hosted by Anna Seirian and M.J. Mayes, and Soul Gum, hosted by my favorite Instagram-lawyer-turned-poet-podcaster-and-yogi, Victoria Hutchins.
Listening to Wild Geese feels like stumbling upon a rainbow after a thunderstorm ruined your walk home. Anna brings so much warmth, curiosity, and openness to everything she talks about that it’s hard to stay depressed when I listen to her. She makes me want to do things, she makes me want to try something different. I recommend all of her episodes, but if there’s one that I think everyone should listen to, it’s episode 24, “how to fall down a curiosity rabbit hole and reconnect to your creativity.” I won’t summarize it; just go in blind and give it a listen.
Internet People is my most recent podcast discovery, one that came to me in a roundabout fashion. Turns out, I’ve been following one of the hosts, M.J. Mayes, on Instagram for months now, and I always enjoyed her content there. I had no idea that she had a podcast, however, until Spotify recommended it to me. It was only after a couple of episodes that I realized the “Bare Minimum Mondays” she was talking about were the same ones I watched her discuss on Instagram. This podcast is largely responsible for my reappearance here on Substack. Their most recent series, “Substack 101,” has been gently dismantling all the excuses I’ve so carefully constructed to keep myself from posting here. It’s given me encouragement and the priceless advice to treat creation as more of an act of “getting stuff down” instead of “thinking things up.”
Soul Gum is an absolute gem. I find Victoria Hutchins’s prolific creativity inspiring and energizing and I am so glad that she has put in the work not only to produce multiple podcast episodes posted in rapid succession, but to create Instagram reels filled with grounding advice and publish a debut poetry collection that I find myself turning to again and again when I feel down and out. Earlier this evening, in the middle of my weekly Sunday Scaries crash out, I turned on her newest episode (aptly titled “How to get Unstuck Post-Crash Out”) and cooked myself dinner. This episode was full of calming advice that brought me back down to earth, but it also gave me an image that I think I will be chewing on for quite a while. When discussing Kafka’s Metamorphosis, Hutchins summarizes the story: “It opens with the protagonist, who is a salesman named Gregor Samsa, waking up to find he has transformed into a giant bug, like a cockroach. And rather than his first thought being, holy shit, I'm a bug, where did my bones go, he is worried about being late for work.” She then goes on to explain how
This book is a metaphor for how we suppress the truth of ourselves to try to meet external expectations, because we want to continue being the version of ourselves that we think the people in our life need and want. And…at some point, no matter how much you're willing to sacrifice yourself on the altar of being what other people need, that becomes undoable. It doesn't work. You become so incompatible with the old version of yourself that you can't even play the role well enough to be what they need.
She concludes by suggesting that the listener ask herself, “Where am I a bug trying to still be a salesman?”. What a question. It’s no wonder Gregor Samsa didn’t want to ask it. It’s no wonder he chose to hold on to his role as a salesman rather than confront the exoskeleton staring back at him in the mirror. It’s a lot easier to stay inside the image you have built for yourself—with the help of friends, authority figures, and family—than it is to accept that you have changed irreversibly.
I’m turning 27 next month. I’ve been working on managing my anxiety for at least 20 years now. But it still gets the better of me, especially on Sunday nights and during my drive into work on Monday mornings. I try to manage it by swapping coffee for tea and limiting screen time, but these don’t really help me see the antennae and wings. The anxiety keeps coming back, and lately, it has been dragging out my old identity of people-pleaser, mother figure, self-effacer, and dropping it at my feet. I keep holding onto this worn-out coat, pushing my arms through moth-eaten sleeves that catch on my rings. It doesn’t fit, and the lack of proper attire leaves me jittery and frantic. Patching the coat won’t solve the problem. I have to learn to leave it behind.
A bug trying to be a salesman is an effective metaphor. Maybe I should try and make time for a podcast or two.