First, an apology that SethBlogs has been on an announced hiatus; you might be tempted to blame the new 9-month-old living at Seth Castle; fair enough, but you should also be aware that we have also been competing with a rival blogging outfit for the affections of our top writer. In fact, Seth has recently agreed to simultaneously write for SubStack under the ridiculously Seth-aggrandizing name, SethStacks.
The good news is Seth has consented to share many of his new writings with both SethBlogs and SethStacks, so if you are content where you are, please don’t feel any obligation to join SethStacks. However, there will be there some bonus material that is not here and vice versa, so if you would like access to the full Seth Canon, then we will forgive you if you choose to also subscribe to SethStacks.
The purpose of SethStacks is to build a larger audience for Seth’s next book, which will be a cheerful satire of modern wokeness. If you do go to Substack to visit our leader, you will find a frequently promoted option to upgrade your free subscription to a paid one (for “bonus perks”). However, earning money on subscriptions is not the current goal of SethStacks—especially from friends. So, if you are a long-time subscriber to SethBlogs (or a long-time subscriber to Seth-in-person), and you would like a complimentary SethStacks “paid” subscription, then send Seth an email at seth.mcdonough.author@gmail.com, and he’ll set you up.
But, if you’re content with the free version of SethStacks, then all you need to do to betray Sethblogs is to click here to subscribe.
When I was a kid planning my future as George Lucas’s writerly intern on his next Star Wars trilogy, my mom read to my siblings and me Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice, and my dad read to me Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations. While neither author persuaded me away from my Lucensian intentions, I did learn from those great comedians of character that not every hero must fly in a Millennium Falcon to entertain me, and not every villain is required to drive a star destroyer to earn my scorn.
Sadly, Mr. Lucas eventually retired from the possibility of being my mentor after he sold his company to the Disney Empire, so I was forced to deputize my appreciation for Austen’s and Dickens’ less explosive stories and write my own such tale.
Today, I am verklempt to announce that my romantic comedy of manners, A Boring Book, is now out in the world and ready to mingle with readers. While my near-hero, John Smith, is not an exciting, witty, or adventurous fellow, he does possess a heart that is three sizes too big as he often notices the pains of the more interesting people who surround him, and so he seeks to help them even though he lacks the confidence to carry out his schemes.
The book is intended to be funny as I, John’s ghostwriter, use my training as the author of How to Cure Yourself of Narcissism to point out the behavioural blunders of John’s co-characters. John, embarrassingly, doesn’t always agree with my mocking of his not-quite friends and family, but the bickering between us should entertain, especially since I win most of the debates.
Unfortunately, John’s kindness gets the last chuckle. To anyone who is motivated by this message to purchase a copy of A Boring Book between now and the end of 2022, please send me a note (to seth.mcdonough.author@gmail.com) with a picture or screenshot proving your purchase, and I will donate the Seth-bound royalties from your acquisition to Doctors Without Borders (John’s favourite charity).
I would have donated the results to the Disney Without Star Wars fund, but sadly I’m not the protagonist of this particular promotion.
As my fans know, I hate to brag. Therefore, I would like to thank The New Westminster Public Library for showing me off for me! My book, How to Cure Yourself of Narcissism, is now available for rent in that lovely library! This is a dream I didn’t know I had until it came true.
So yesterday with an ego in need of refuelling, I travelled to the new home of my tome to see how it was doing, and maybe take a selfie with it. When I arrived at the book collective, I immediately went to the “Librarians’ Favourites,” section, but strangely there it wasn’t! So I checked the public-facing computer and was delighted again that the digital station confirmed that HCYN lived somewhere in this large book forest. But where? I had never felt the need to learn our librarians’ unnecessarily confusing Dewey decimal system for sorting books. So I settled into my own superior approach, which is to note the general categories they assigned my book, which the computer told me were “Self-Care,” and “Health.” Sadly, my own diagnosis would have placed the book in “Humour,” but in defence of the library’s mischaracterization, they didn’t seem to possess a non-fiction humour place for books to hang out, so I travelled first to “Health,” to see if HCYN had settled in with those fine folks. When I arrived on that well-nourished scene in the back corner of the reading depot, I discovered, among the many books, two teenaged girls seated on the floor with one of the stacks I wanted to investigate as their backrest while they chatted about the latest innovations in high school gossip. None of the unblocked shelves housed my work, so I quietly peered around the yacking girls hoping they might take this as an invitation to make a little room for me to see what was behind them, but sadly my silent plea was either unnoticed or unpersuasive.
I know, I know: assertiveness advisors tell us to politely speak up and request the simple accommodation we are seeking, but somehow I felt squeamish about demanding room to look for a book so that I could take a selfie with it before putting it right back where it was; upon seeing the narcissism-curing claims of my book cover, my seated nemeses would surely then have suggested that I needed the book most of all.
So I travelled to the “Self-Care” section to see if it would provide an unobstructed view of my hopes and dreams. Sure enough; there were no babbling conferences blocking my access, so in I went and… found no indication that my book had ever been in the area.
So, if the book has indeed already reached the shelves of the New West Public library, it is likely behind those two shelf-ish girls. But, as I left the library, without a selfie in hand-held device, I realized that all was right in the world of narcissism. My ego-flattering pursuit had been disrupted by the ego-absorbed work of two library dwellers, which in turn proved that How to Cure Yourself of Narcissism has a rightful reason to be in our libraries.
Or, if you don’t feel like arguing with teenaged babblers, it’s also available for order online at most fine retailers!
TVA’s CATP has a fascinating set up as the elite comedian and storyteller launches himself and his visitors into conversation as though they’re at a pub, without artificial barriers of required topics, but instead with anecdotes and deferential curiosities that he surreptitiously ties to his guests’ wares.
Most fascinating to my philosophical eye, the podcaster dances with time as the interview ends with a mini-discussion of the conversation just past, which then becomes the introduction for the later-released episode. To my ear this post-convo pre-convo sets the listener up with a much more accurate and vibrant introduction than if the podcaster had begun with a pre-written description of what might be approaching.
Or, for the video version, watch the live initial broadcast below (although, since the live broadcast was live, it lacked the ability to anticipate its post-show introduction, so I recommend listening to the intro above before watching).
HOW TO CELEBRATE MYSELF FOR NARCISSISM COLLECTION:
In the metro Port Coquitlam area of metro Vancouver, BC, my friend Erik D’Souza has been dubbed by the staff at Sethblogs, “the author-wrangler,” as he has achieved the difficult, convincing local authors to get out of our book jackets. He interviews us (including yours truly here and here), he tricks us into reading our work in public, and he even wrangled a group of us to publish a collection of short stories called New Beginnings, and then he donated all profits to the Share Society.
In short, I was delighted recently to finally be given the opportunity to put the prolific spotlight provider in his own spotlight, as I guest-interviewed him on his own broadcast, about his mystery novel, Death in Halfmoon Bay. That conversation is now available for your consideration here (or watch the video below).
Well! I’m pleased to report that my book How to Cure Yourself of Narcissism has now found a starring role in two interviews, featuring yours truly excited and Erik D’Souza, author and author-wrangler.
First I was a brief guest called in to discuss etiquette on Erik’s Canada Day broadcast. (Click this link for our mini-conversation about whether Canadians are as polite as Americans claim we are, or watch the video here.)
Second, this past weekend I was the inaugural long-form guest on Erik’s Writers in Our Midst publication. (See the video at the bottom of this post to enjoy a cheerful, if meandering, discussion of self-absorption in modern society.)
Now you might think that the fact that Erik and I are friends implies that Erik may have invited me for nepotistic reasons, but you would be wrong—embarrassingly wrong! You see, Erik and I are both writers, which means we are rivals, and therefore Erik is best off not making me look as grand as I normally do.
In fact, in the long-form interview, Erik celebrated our rivalry with some tough questions, such as, asking me if I—of all wonderful people—was a narcissist.
You’ll have to tune in (here, or watch the video below) to find how I escaped that perilous query.
HOW TO CELEBRATE MYSELF FOR NARCISSISM COLLECTION:
In honour of me, I’m delighted to announce that my book, How to Cure Yourself of Narcissism, is now available at every worthy-of-me virtual location (and a few in-person shops). It’s ready for your delighted perusal in the following nearby and faraway places:
(4) “I’m pretty sure there’s more to life than being really, really, ridiculously good looking. And I plan on finding out what that is.”
—Derek Zoolander in Zoolander (2002), honoured above by Seth Zoolander.
(3) “As a specimen, yes, I’m intimidating! As you see I’ve got biceps to spare… I’m especially good at expectorating… I use antlers in all of my decorating!”
(2) “There are few people in England, I suppose, who have more true enjoyment of music than myself, or a better natural taste. If I had ever learnt, I should have been a great proficient.”
(1) “Would someone get this big walking carpet out of my way.”
—Princess Leia Organa, Star Wars IV: A New Hope after that particular movable rug, the Wookiee, Chewbecca, helped rescue her from her cell in the Death Star (1977).
I think I overheard that one of you has been requesting more information about the person behind SethBlogs. Well, in addition to being a ranter, I also work in canine colossus astrophysics. Utilizing my special expertise in duct tape application, I am helping to build “AirPug,” which will be competing in Portland Flugtag (Flying Day) on August 1st, 2015. My brother Calum will be riding our giant pug, while my sibling-in-law Trevor, my sisters Tarrin and Sorrel, and I will then skillfully push him (and then ourselves) into the water from the Flugtag deck in the sky (approximately 26 feet up). Following our motto, “When pugs fly, anything can happen,” our goal is to break the world giant pug flying record of one foot.
Skeptical? I refer you to the following twovideos which will verify my scientific claims.
You can also follow our puggy exploits on your favourite social media:
P.S. Air Pug flew well (click this pic for motion):
And we did break the world pug flying record! However, we haven’t yet gotten credit for it, as certain members of the media have suggested that I might have been on steroids at the time of pug flight. So we’re awaiting the results of that investigation before we get our membership in the Pugness Book of World Records.
Red Bull Flugtag 2015. Portland, Oregon. August 1, 2015. http://www.aflitt.com #aflitt #flugtag #redbullpdx
In the interest of full disclosure—and Seth-promotion—the spirt of this rant, and other works of Sethiquette, is now available in my book, How to Cure Yourself of Narcissism.
SETHITOR’S NOTE: Apparently, at the time of this post, SethBlogs used the term “social networking” to refer specifically to social media participation. This seems wrong to SethBlogs now (April 2021), as it seems to current SethBlogs that “social networking” could refer to non-digital socializing, too, but I don’t recall if the apparent error was a SethBlogs-original, or if he was copying consensus. As such I’ll leave the odd phrasing in because it may be capturing an intriguing moment in our linguistic history.
On the radio stations I listen to (CKNW and CBC), there have been several interviews recently featuring pundits decrying the anti-social nature of my home metro city of Vancouver. Apparently, we metro Vancouverites aren’t very friendly, or at least it’s difficult to make friends here, and many people are feeling disconnected. In each such discussion, callers to the radio shows have boasted of their methods of increasing interactions with their neighbours.
In one case, a man was so fed up with his friends’ anti-social tendencies that he was now standing up to them.
“They want me to text them instead of at least talking to me on the phone,” he complained to the soothing verbal nods of the radio pundits.
So he’s started a program in which he bakes cookies, and then takes himself on a mission to visit with his friends at their homes.
“About 50% of them didn’t like that I’d arrived unannounced,” he said, “so no cookies for them.”
From there, he explained that his goal was to give his friends a break from whatever project they were working on: who, after all, didn’t have 15 minutes to talk face to face and maybe share a cup of tea?
This cookie ferry was lauded by the radio pundits as someone who was showing merry creativity in his efforts to truly reconnect with his world.
On a rival radio station, meanwhile, a man called in to say that he, too, is an advocate of increased social interaction and so he tries to talk to people on the bus even though—he acknowledged sadly—in nine times out of ten he is rebuffed. In this case, the radio pundits were upset that the social hero had been so mistreated by snobby bus travelers, and they claimed to hope he would maintain his good spirits in pursuit of his good fight.
Such negative results proved, it seemed, that Vancouver was indeed an unfriendly city where making friends is a daunting pursuit. And apparently it’s getting worse! The highest percentage of people who find friendship-making a challenge are in the young demographic of 25-34 year-olds. This was especially sad to the pundits since, after all, within such youth there should be the greatest promise and opportunity.
But, just a for moment, might we consider the possibility that 25-34 year olds perceive difficulty in making friends because they no longer have the free-friendship-making services of school, and they haven’t yet learned how to acquire friends in other places? Or maybe this particular crop of 25-34 year-olds, compared with previous generations, has been nurtured into assuming that they deserve a large collection of friends at all times.
“And this,” one pundit remarked, “in spite of social networking.”
The implication of course being that social networking is a false form of human connection; indeed, the pundit now had proof that social networkers were ultimately dissatisfied in spite of their lofty technical connections. The pundit did not consider any other alternative such as, say, perhaps social networkers in that age group are spoiled by the ease of virtual interactions and so they mistakenly assume that it will be equally easy out in the face-to-face world, too.
Perhaps our city would benefit from greater social engagement than we have, and maybe social networking is hindering more than it’s helping. But if we’re not willing to scientifically interpret the evidence beyond simply taking as gospel a particular group’s self-assessment that they’re lonely, then we really have no way of knowing.
There seems to be an unassailable agreement amongst social interaction pundits that face-to-face meeting with human beings is always better than any other form of communication. Why? Have they never been to a gathering where the conversation is stilted, boring, or overpowered by a narcissist? Do they never wish they were home reading a book, or even watching TV? Moreover, some people are introverts, which I understand means that, unlike extroverts, they are not energized by socializing, so maybe they require less in-person visiting than those who love to be around people. Perhaps, for some people, social media allows them to engage while still possessing an immediate escape route.
And what about the benefits of engagement provided by digital communication? Each of these unholy media, from phoning, to texting, to emailing, to tweeting has the power to set up plans to meet more efficiently than traditional communication. Imagine how cumbersome it would be to set up a friendly flash mob without the internet.
Ultimately, I think new forms of communication give us more choice. Maybe today, as the pundits complained, we don’t know our next-door neighbours as well as we used to, but at the same time, instead of acquiring friendships merely based on proximity, we can now interact with people with whom we have something particularly in common, even if they live on another continent. Yes, perhaps these options are too many and are costing us interactions that would be good for us. I, too, find it often rude and disruptive, for instance, when people are habitually on their texter while officially visiting with someone in person. And maybe some people are addicted to their iBerry to the point that they are harming themselves without being aware of it.
But we need more evidence for the inferiority of modern communication as a whole beyond simply that it is not face to face. Not everyone wants to interact directly with other people all the time. That doesn’t necessarily mean we’re unfriendly. When I’m on the bus, I like to read or listen to my radio. I’ve met many strangers who have decided that I would be better off talking to them. And rarely in such cases have I found the conversations to be fulfilling. Perhaps that’s because I was enjoying my book or radio program, but it may also be because getting to know someone for the first time is stilted business, and so, if we’re not destined to be great friends, we’re doing the hardest part of socializing without the payoff.
I find that people on the bus are generally pretty friendly if someone is lost or falls down. We look out for each other if there is a need, but beyond that, maybe we’ve decided as a group that we’ll focus our socializing on people with whom we have a relationship, while using our solo bus trips as free time to catch up on the book we’ve been wanting to read or cell phone game we never get to play.
The truth is it’s not hard to make friends if you’re willing to go to places where stranger-interactions are an assumed part of the activity. Sports, clubs, conferences, volunteer endeavours, and weddings are all fertile contexts for friendship-making. So, instead of imposing oneself on the nearest stranger who already had plans for their transit time, why not go to places where people have chosen to engage with new people?
And, once people are friends, I applaud those who make the effort to create opportunities to interact, but the the idea that one’s friends should always be ready for a fifteen-minute cup of tea is the most fascist notion in the history of friendship. Dearest cookie-socializer, are there no times when you don’t want to socialize? Maybe you were just getting ready to take a shower after a long bike ride, or were planning to watch a movie with your spouse after a hard day at work; how would you like it if your friends arrived on your door step just then, informing you that it was time to socialize?
And let’s be honest: it’s not going to be a “fifteen minute” morsel of time: it’ll be at least an hour before you’ll be allowed to get back to what you had planned for yourself. Perhaps YOU, cookie man, would love such an imposition of impromptu interaction, but can you comprehend the possibility that some people may have chosen their own solitude or company just then? What gives you the authority to overrule your friends’ plans with your personal preference to be in their presence at that moment? Next time, just phone (or tweet) ahead to see if they’re up for a visit, and nobody has to get hurt.
Perhaps, as the pundits argue, the world would be a better place if we were to visit with each other more often, but those who hold that position would, I submit, have more success in achieving this goal if they were to persuade those of us less inclined by making the socializing inviting instead of obligatory. If we choose it, we will stay.
Since typing the above, I forwarded it to The Simi Sara Show on CKNW (whereon some of the SethBlog villains of this piece were originally given their day on radio). As a result, to my delight and nervousness, I was invited onto The Simi Sara show to defend my “anti-social position” (see the below video, “The Simi Sara Show Part 1”). And below that (“The Simi Sara Show Part 2”) is the audience’s reaction to my radical views. Apparently, according to the popular consensus, there is no middle ground between always being social, and being an unfriendly jerk.
