Om ingenting. Eller någonting.

Fear is a completely new experience when you take adderall.  It tastes different, it feels different, it has a new source and travels to odd places where it sits and festers for a while.   It’s sharper, so much more acute and identifiable, but it also has a shorter life span–quick, cruel bursts followed by a slow, barely perceptible shadow that fades but never dies.  For me, fear and anxiety always started in the stomach.  Now, it starts in the front of my head and it shoots through my body once, and settling on the top of my tongue and in my teeth.  The flavor is always yellow. It’s not fluid, and it breaks into tiny little specks of yellow pebbles that carry and shoot electricity through my tongue.  I feel it inside my teeth, where all of the little yellow pebbles swarm.

But that’s no fun to hear about.  I just wanted to describe something that I experience, on average, 3 times a day.  It’s not bad, it’s just different.

Now, I am going to address the title of this post.  See, I have this job.  I might have mentioned it.  Ranted about it, even.  I do this because every day I wake up and say to myself “this can’t possibly be real”  or “this has to be an elaborate joke.”

There are two aspects of these statements:  the first aspect is that I am glad to have a paying job in this economy, a job that does not require hard physical labor, a job in a fairly comfortable setting and a job where I do not have to sell people things.  The other aspect of this statement has to do with the fact that I am working in advertising, yes, which is what I wanted, but that the advertisements my company churns out are the kind that turn my stomach.  The kind of ads that make people say “I can’t believe this ad–this can’t possibly be for real, this has to be an elaborate joke”. These are bad ads.  Ads that have as much visual and copy information crammed into them as possible.  Ads that have certain words bolded, or in ALL CAPS, or ads that, without a hint of irony or a wry smile, tell you to do exactly what the client has determined the consumer should do, which is buy this product, now! This product is great! Ads that take an art form of persuasion through interesting word play, clever ideas, new and intriguing images, punches it expertly in its delicate stomach, throws some comic sans on it and tells you that you won’t believe these prices!  Come on down! Oh, and for fuck’s sake, make the logo bigger!  We have to give the client what he’s paying for!

Everything I know and feel about truth, beauty and love is being crushed.  I am ready to work hard, and I do, I put serious thought and effort into my work and try to make the best ads possible, only to have them slashed and torn apart, twisted into something awful.  It’s cruel.  I imagine it would also be a bit sad too if only bits and pieces of my work were taken and made into something great–sad because I was not able to come up with something great myself–but I think I would also be happy in the end and be inspired to work harder.  But no, this is awful, because I am not inspired to work harder, I am starting to question what is “good” and what is “bad”.  Am I the one who is wrong?  It’s like the twilight zone and my sanity is at stake.

There are two art directors who are amazing and I love them, and they are probably the sole reason I am able to keep it together.

I think I blame everything on my boss.  S/he takes my work, (which admittedly, might not be good or great, but they have ideas, some strategy, etc) crosses out half of a sentence, scribbles in something that doesn’t really flow as well, and credits his/her internal copywriter for the brilliance that they have added to my concept.  Ok, fine, whatever. Boss(B, from here on out) will then rewrite my copy because, well I don’t know X(X=the field of the client or the relevant information about the product), so I couldn’t possibly be able to write about it as well as B, who has personal experience with X.  I don’t know.  Last but not least, I am told by B that B has been in the business for 25 years, so yeah.  Trump card, right there.  25 years is a long time to do something, and it seems intimidating or authoritative.  We should listen, we should care, because so much time has been spent doing something.  But I cannot let that slide.  Like a resume, it’s impressive to look at, but it’s all smoke and mirrors, there might not be anything behind it.

You can do something for a long time and not do it well.  You may have made many ads, but it’s possible that none of them have any value.