Thread by @SethAbramson

Anyone else here watch comedian Marc Maron's live Instagram recordings on a semi-daily basis? I have complicated feelings, maybe because I "know" him now—of course not, but you know what I mean—largely through these, as I've only listened to maybe two episodes of his WTF podcast.

I just think he's an interesting figure—funny and smart as hell—and I also feel like the way he is processing grief and meeting his audience in the midst of their own (largely pandemic-enabled) grief is really fascinating in a way I hope one day someone writes about meaningfully.

I happen to be grieving a death myself, so I've been thinking about how grief sends us into an exploration of all our own extremes and subtleties. Maron presents as earnest, angry, arrogant, knowing, funny, obsessive, smart, impulsive, guarded. So many lovely self-contradictions.

I also know he's a man permanently inflected by the work—the years of *work*—that got him where he is, a concept in the broadest terms I feel deeply without having more than the most laughably non-analogous understanding of a life as someone semi-recently come to the public eye.

But mostly I like—admire; want to emulate in the broadest terms and believe I do, often to my detriment—that he's someone who wears his flaws on his sleeve because he regards (I imagine) being opaque as significantly more damaging to the spirit than being dangerously transparent.