Are You Cool About the Things You Love?

Because some people are. And some of us step directly on our own tongues the moment someone asks the right question. I have done extensive research on which one I am.

I have been thinking about the two kinds of passionate people in this world. You know both of them. You are probably one of them. I am absolutely, categorically, not even a little bit one of them.

😎 TYPE ONE - The Cool One

Deeply passionate. Would talk about it for hours if asked. But never brings it up first. Just sits there being interesting about it quietly.

🫨 TYPE TWO - The Other One

Someone asks one question. One. And suddenly it is forty minutes later and the other person is nodding very slowly with the eyes of someone who has given up.

I want to be Type One. I admire Type One enormously. I have watched Type One operate in social situations with the kind of quiet confidence I find genuinely aspirational. Someone mentions their topic and they say something measured and interesting and then they stop. They just stop. On purpose. Like a person with functional brakes.

I have no brakes. I have never had brakes. My brakes left the building a long time ago and I have made my peace with this, mostly.

A COMPLETELY REAL RECONSTRUCTION OF WHAT HAPPENS WHEN SOMEONE ASKS ABOUT MY WRITING

THEM (INNOCENTLY, MAKING CONVERSATION)

So, do you write? What kind of stuff?

ME (INTERNALLY: BE COOL, BE COOL, BE COOL)

Yes! So I write about migration and parenting and identity and the way people lose themselves when everything changes and then slowly find a new version of themselves and I have two books out and one coming in June and I also have a coloring book series which is about cultural education for toddlers and

THEM (REGRETTING THE QUESTION SLIGHTLY)

Oh wow, that's —

ME (THE BRAKES ARE COMPLETELY GONE NOW)

— and the reason I started writing about this is because I moved abroad and had my daughter and suddenly felt like I had no idea who I was anymore which is actually the central thesis of Parenting Unpacked which comes out June 24th and is already going to be at a SiETAR congress in Valencia which I am still not over and also —

THEM

...can I get you some water?

WHAT I HAVE NOTICED ABOUT MYSELF

Writing is not something I am casual about. I have tried to be casual about it. I have stood in social situations and told myself: answer the question, stop, let them respond. This plan works for approximately four seconds and then something opens up inside me like a fire door and everything I have ever thought about storytelling, identity, migration, and the reason books exist comes out at once in one continuous sentence.

I become, in the words of nobody but it should be a phrase, a gigante mouth. Large. Enthusiastic. Full of things to say. Talking until ears fall off. Technically impressive. Socially a lot.

Ask me what I had for breakfast and I will give you a reasonable answer. Ask me about writing and I will still be talking when the restaurant closes.

The thing is, I have watched people who are brilliant at playing it cool about the things they love. Athletes who shrug when they win. Musicians who say "oh I just mess around a bit" when they have clearly spent ten thousand hours on their craft. Writers who say "it is just something I do" as if they have not been quietly obsessed with language since they were children.

I cannot do that. I have tried. The obsession is too close to the surface. If you ask me about writing, you are going to find out about the writing. All of it. In one go. With footnotes.

THE HONEST PART

I am absolutely obsessed with writing. And I have decided to stop being embarrassed about that.

The obsession is what produced the books. The inability to shut up about it is what built the readership. The gigante mouth, it turns out, has been doing useful work all along. I am not going to fix something that is working this well. I am just going to warn people first.

So. Are you the cool kind of passionate? The one who holds it lightly and lets people come to you? I genuinely respect that. I think it is a wonderful quality.

Or are you the other kind? The one who gets asked one question at a dinner party and is still answering it when they are putting the chairs on the tables? If so: hello. Pull up a chair. We have a lot to talk about. I will go first. Obviously.

Still talking, probably,

Jessica Gabrielzyk

✦ AUTHOR · ENTHUSIAST · KNOWN TO TALK UNTIL EARS FALL OFF · WORKING ON NOTHING ✦