3: On Hypocrisy, and setting words free.
I begin this mini-essay with a confession about an annual source of personal envy.
Whether the whole affair is a product of social conditioning (#NewYearNewMe) or something more innate to our relationship with nature and the cosmos, I’ve always admired those who, amidst everything else that tugs at the margins of our time, consistently use the end-of-year period for true pause and reflection. Those who, with workmanlike, clock-punching reliability, always manage to produce a written retrospective to their Instagram or blog, or mail out a letter to friends, before another page of the ol’ Gregorian gets turned. In 2024, I managed to produce a dispatch of my own, albeit in December 31st’s waning seconds; in 2025, aka a couple weeks ago, I returned to my tradition of whiffing completely. Maybe I’ll count this effort as some kind of honorable mention.
The point is, for many people and occasionally me, it’s a season of mining revelations from another solar revolution, and setting intentions for the next lap to come. And despite my failure to post a summary this go-round, I did at least squeeze in some quiet, personal stock-taking. When I did, my recollections tended to orbit the same few occasions and events, which I don’t need to get into here because they’re not the point (though I will say they include installing an above-ground pool). Later though, I realized I had forgotten something obvious, something that at one point I definitely considered among my personal highlights of 2025. A thing that had escaped my mental rummaging for a pretty straightforward reason: it never saw the light of day.
For those who aren’t at the mercy of its arbitrary, interminable and often cruel rhythms, the professional (and economic) life of the modern freelance writer is likely not top of mind. Up until this past year, it wasn’t really for me either. I’ve written freelance pieces off and on for the past eleven years, but always for local outlets who were more or less prompt in payment—not the private equity-funded, mostly faceless major players who can easily disappear into the ether when financial conditions call for it, or whose Russian nesting doll-like corporate structures can can leave basic administrative tasks unresolved indeterminately. (In recent years, I’ve lost track of how many culture writers I’ve seen online talking about the money still owed to them by one venerated publication or another. For those fortunate enough to not be stiffed entirely, compensation can arrive 30, 60, or even 90 days after publication. I’m not going to say a rap review is as important as a repaired toilet, but I’ve never heard of anyone paying a plumber three months after services rendered. Why, then, is it an acceptable practice from Cool Media Brand LLC?)
Last year, these realities became a bit less abstract for me when I was asked to write for one of those bigger sites. Wanting to make the most of the opportunity, I threw myself into the assignment—before even sitting down to write, I had at least half a dozen calls with artists and fellow writers that, for a column-style opinion piece, weren’t technically required. But I wanted to do a good job. I anticipated that when it was released—some time in the early fall, supposedly—it would be a great look for not just myself but for Super Empty as a whole. For someone who’d covered culture in his own area for a decade but had never been asked to opine on matters of larger national significance, the moment when it dropped was going to be satisfying indeed. And then… it never did.
As the months dragged on without pay or publication, I mostly let the whole thing go, to the point that I (as we’ve established) nearly forgot it happened. I chalked up my lack of frustration to the usual reason: that I’m such a nice and wonderful guy. But another, more likely, explanation has since occurred to me: that acting any differently would have been the height of hypocrisy; that I don’t have the slightest leg to stand on. As I hustle to the finish line of a debut print issue for Super Empty magazine, I am not merely a temporarily inconvenienced freelance writer wondering, four months later, when his short column with [name redacted] will ever come out. I am also an editor sitting on more than 10,000 words of others, who are all wondering that same thing.
At one point, my goal was to release the print magazine last summer. Then, it became some time in the fall; later, by the end of the year. Strike one, strike two, strike three. Now I just want to get the thing out at all. Temporal motivations having obviously failed me, it’s time for a different approach. Maybe something more personal, like an appeal to one’s own pride. Like seeing if, before some other editor finally releases your words into the wild, you can do the same thing for others yourself. I heard last week that the project I wrote for is coming out soon. I’d better get to work.