Marc Maron

I mean, the requirement was to be funny, and I've gone through a lot of stages of doing that.

But you could do whatever you wanted up there, and I really believed I would find myself through that.

So comedy brought me here.

The mics brought me here.

Being on a mic is how I live my life and how I've always lived my adult life.

All the searching, which was never spiritual per se, I was fortunate in that, that I was not a spiritual searcher looking for the great answers to why we live or to whether there's a God or not or to how to be spiritually sound and connected.

You know, I was in search of myself.

And I figured if I could get that, you know, undertaking completed, maybe I'd seek the bigger answers, right?

This is all in retrospect.

This is me reflecting.

But after years of talking on mics as a comic, you know, I began to do, I had an opportunity to do some radio.

And I realized like with these kind of mics, I can talk like I'm talking now.

I can talk in a way that didn't require me to be funny, that I could actually explore every aspect and emotion and creative impulse that I have through talking.

without being expected to be funny, expected to be anything but myself.

And that was the big breakthrough is to be able to sit here.

Again, I'm alone and I'm always alone in this room on the mic unless I have a guest with me.

You're hearing me find myself in the world in front of you.

And I don't think that's selfish.

And I think that's what we're all trying to do with some success or failure or doubt or pain.

But that's what I do.