Start Here: Who Is Charlie Finch
Who am I, and why should you keep reading? Keep going and find out.
Hi. I’m Charlie Finch. It’s a pen name, but it feels lived in. If you want the story of why, this essay might be a good place to start:
The short version: I was a writer in a prior life who put creativity in a box on the closet shelf and didn’t take it down until after I recovered from cancer. My voice was with me a long time. For a while I thought it was unique. That maybe I was unique. Then I went from my college writing program to law school, law school to litigation, and on top of that marriage, fatherhood, partnership, and business ownership. The regular grind of adulthood.
Somewhere in there, my voice got misplaced.
Not lost exactly. More like set aside. Maybe lost in a closet. Shoved in the pocket of a pair of pants that no longer fit, or in a shoebox on the top shelf with old drawings and notebooks full of half-sketched ideas. Wherever it was, it sat there while I kept wondering whether it was worth going back for.
Then I got cancer. Then it got worse. Then I thought I was going to die.
But I didn’t.
After that, I promised myself I was going to take my voice down off the shelf and see if it still worked. See if it was still there. And so far, it is. In fits and starts, at least. And not only did I find my old voice, but I found a new one next to it. One that came with age, work, loss, and fatherhood. One that was built by years of struggle including falling through a pond and getting trapped under the ice, getting hit by a moving train, a suicide attempt, as well as depression, addiction, and recovery. Or sort of. Some of that is still a work in progress. I haven’t written about all of that, but I will. I think I have to. I’m not sure I can make sense of it unless I do.
And now I’m trying to figure out how to handle those voices: the analytic one I spent decades sharpening in my legal practice, and the emotional one that was dormant underneath but now wants to rear back and roar. I don’t know how much I have in me of either, but I’m going to find out.
So here I am. A lawyer writing about gender dynamics. A hockey player pounding out prose poems. A dad remembering rituals I built for my kids, and feeling the ache as I watch them outgrow the magic. And more. Or at least I hope. Sometimes people ask which one is the real me, and the honest answer is that they all are.
So, that’s the project. That’s me. I’m a guy interested in figuring out what life is doing to us, the ordinary people. How we find our way past pain and stumble into new joy and, to be honest, probably more pain. It’s life after all. Some of it’s heavy. Some of it’s a cocktail recipe. The range in our lives isn’t a bug. It’s the entire argument.
So, here are a few doors in to see if this is for you:
If you want to know whether I can break your heart, read this story about the hockey team I’ve been playing with for 20 years, and the guys only know how to say “I love you” by giving each other crap:
If you’re here for the technology writing, AI stuff, identity stuff, the questions underneath it all, try:
If you want culture commentary with depth and bite, I go deep into gender dynamics and the invisible language layers it lives through in essays like:
You want to read about parenting and childhood magic? Try:
And if you just want to know that you’re not alone when you struggle with your inner critic and demons, check out:
We’ll see if we can quiet the bastards down together.
That’s the place to start. Then, feel free to poke around the archive and see what clicks.
Just know though, that my hope is for this Substack to be more café than lecture hall. I want you to pull up a chair. Drop in the comments and tell me what landed. Tell me where I’m wrong. Send me links to something my essay reminded you of, or just something you’d recommend as a read. I read all of it. I want all of it.
Oh yeah, and I’m glad you’re here.
— Charlie
Loved learning a little bit more about you through this piece—the duality, complexity, and return to story.