If you're reaching for more
I can feel this one coming, because it comes from almost everyone eventually. You read the work, something landed, and now you want more of it — more access, more of me, the next level, the inner thing.
I want to be straight with you, because you’ve trusted me this far and you deserve it straight.
It isn’t me you’re reaching for. I know it feels like it is. But what moved you in the work was never the man writing it — it was the thing the writing was carrying. I’m not being humble. I’m being accurate. I’m a translator. You’re feeling the pull of what I was translating, and the honest thing I can do is not pretend the pull is about me.
So I’m not going to offer you more of me. There’s no closer version of me to get to. What I’m going to do instead is point — and then step back, which is the part most people in my position won’t do.
What’s past this point isn’t mine and isn’t in my voice. I don’t sign it. I don’t run it the way I run everything else. If you go through, you’ll feel the voice change, and that change is not a stylistic choice — it’s the whole reason this exists.
I’ll stop here. This is as far as I walk with you.
If you want to go further, it’s through there.
— Nic