You Don’t Need to Read This
By: Peter G. Penton
Tags: Mental Health, Writing, Failure, Newfoundland

From Free Icons Library

You don’t care about what I have to say. You don’t care about any of my essays or short stories. You don’t care about my perspective or insights. You don’t care about what I’ve learned from my struggles and failures, my scant wins and voluminous losses.

And why should you? Who the hell gives a shit about the next hot take from a white, 41 year old Newfoundlander who watched half his life zip by like fish heads on the way to the trunk hole? What qualifications do I have? What makes me stand out?

I don’t have a degree. No diploma besides high school. No certificate or equivalent work experience. I don’t have a library of published work. I’m not black. Not indigenous. Not an immigrant. Not a woman. Not trans. Not even gay! (I guess writing for the CBC is off the table.) I’m exactly the kind of guy the whole world is telling to shut up.

A white, middle-aged dude.

So, why am I here?

Well, a long time ago I read The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis. In it a demon named Screwtape provides advice to his nephew Wormwood, who is trying to claim a man’s soul for the Devil. Screwtape tells him his job is to reduce the man’s soul to the point where it’s like a dull candle: never burning brightly, just sputtering and struggling, a small, pathetic thing that’s always on the verge of going out but never does. Muted and frail but never dead.

That’s my dream of being a writer. I haven’t been able to make anything of it, but it refuses to die and leave me in peace.

I mean, I don’t even know if I can write anymore. Am I too old? The brain changes as you age. I’m not as quick as I was when I was younger. I’m no longer quite as certain that my revolutionary fantasy trilogy will alter the socioeconomic structure of the planet like I was in my twenties.

And I’m certainly starting late. Past forty with nothing published? At this age Wilbur Smith had released over fifteen hundred novels (it’s true, go check Wikipedia).

Even the technology seems to have outpaced my understanding. I used OpenOffice (bulky resource hog) for my fifteen hundred novel attempts throughout the decades, but I managed to get Office 365 a couple of years ago. I open Word and I’m like, how the hell do I double space? Why is there a gap between paragraphs? Does anyone indent anymore?

But here I am because that flame is steadfast in its refusal to die. So what does a 41 year old white father of two write about? What’s my area of expertise? “Fact Check: Am I Really the World’s Number 1 Dad?” (Spoiler alert: no.) Maybe, “Hop on Pop By Dr. Seuss: The Penton Review.” How about, “I Spent Two Months Farting in the Office Chair My Wife Gave Me: Here’s What I Learned.”

What about my past? Well that…that is just a flaming landfill of crap. I’ve been fired from or quit dozens of jobs, drove away every friend I ever had, had half my family die while we were estranged, spent time in a nuthouse, met more mental health and addiction professionals than there are Trump tweets, and the only job I can handle is delivering for SkiptheDishes because my crushing anxiety and lack of self-worth prevents interactions with people that last longer than five minutes.

(I know. I’m like a living Rick Ross album.)

But maybe that’s it. Maybe I’m here because I have to make something of the Oilers roster that is my life. And maybe to do that I need to embrace every one of my doubts and fears as an asset. No, I’m not BIPOC, nor trans, nor gay, nor a woman. But I’ve suffered. I’ve suffered, and I’m still alive. And do you know what that makes me?

Just like you.

So I will not blow out that sputtering candle. I will not let the flame of my dream die. I’m gonna fan the shit out of that fucker and who knows, maybe it’ll catch. Maybe you will like what I have to say. Maybe you will read my essays and short stories. Maybe you will care about my perspective and insights, my scant wins and voluminous losses. And if you do, maybe you’ll give me what my soul has yearned for my whole life:

Money.

’Cause SkiptheDishes doesn’t pay me shit.