Like many jacks-of-all-trades, I’ve long yearned for a “unified field theory” of my career. I’m not a Renaissance Man in the conventional sense since the scope of my interests is limited to media, meaning-making and occasionally manipulating both for laughs. Call it a controlled burn with occasional fireworks.
The “UFT” (which, incidentally, is the sound I make when getting out of a chair) is a bit of physics jargon that was the holy grail of gents like Einstein, Schrödinger and probably his damn cat, who had the most to lose (or not lose) in this pursuit.
The goal was to unify an understanding of everything from gravity to electromagnetism and why traffic slows on the 101 in Novato no matter how many lanes are added. Did they succeed in finding this so-called “theory of everything?” No, but more than a few religions have smugly claimed to have found it millennia ago.
Regardless, the UFT remains a noble if quixotic ambition. And like religion will likely prove to be an answer rather than the answer when and if someone finds it. This is due to a peculiar hiccup in our ability to understand anything as a species. Inasmuch as Einstein posited relativity in terms of space and time, we are likewise conscripted to our own relative perceptions, shaped by our consciousnesses, experiences, and wherever we happen to be and when it is that we’re there. Which is to say, it’s very difficult to perceive objective truth through the lens of our own biases and filters.
For example, in my youth I was told that my future is so bright, I gotta wear shades—yet, as a consequence I’ve spent much of my life with a dim view of the world. To quote the Huxley-hued line from dance-pop band YACHT’s 2015 hit, I Thought the Future Would Be Cooler, “I thought the brave world would be newer.”
Anyway, does this mean that objective truth doesn’t exist? No, but you’ll never see it, so it’s tantamount to an act of faith to believe that it does. This late night, dorm room-level revelation has made working in news media particularly onerous (how does one fact check “alternative facts?”).
Like any experiment in unifying forces, my career has had its share of false positives and small explosions—some literal, some figurative. Every detour—from newspapers to novels, podcasts to punchlines—was just another attempt to coax coherence out of chaos. If there’s a throughline, it’s this: I’ve spent my life telling stories in different costumes, hoping one of them might actually fit.
Is it journalism? Is it satire? Is it just me talking to myself with better lighting? Yes.
I haven’t found a theory of everything—but I may have stumbled onto a theory of doing just enough of everything. And relatively speaking, that’s truth enough.
Editor Daedalus Howell is at dhowell.com.
