My faithful readers: hello. How is this beautiful, wretched earth treating you today? I hope that you are well. Please, eat a roast beef and cheddar doused in horsey sauce in remembrance of me. Hold hands and remember the good times. Why do I say these things? I don't know. Because I'm weird and I'm obviously trying too hard to write . . . something? Anything! Dear Christ, it's as if the creative juices my head holds are always bubbling and burbling beneath the surface of my skull but they dribble out like the grease of a sad sad pimple. Gross! I'll stop there. I need a crowbar to pry my mind open and loose the hounds of my demented mind!
Uh, yeah, Nate? It's called, I dunno, a work ethic? Consistency? Dedication to a craft? Drive? Motivation? A will to succeed? Yeah, any of those.
Damn it, Jim (who's Jim?)! I know these things! Obviously, I lack them. I am the embodiment of an entitled society. I expect these great works of my gross mind-pimple and the trappings associated with their success to just come to me! You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one (thanks, John)!
What? No! I am most certainly not on LSD or any other drug right now, aside from caffeine. I want to have a job that is easy and doesn't require a lot of thought (and really, who doesn't?). But, I also want to be paid a shit-ton of money for it! Sadly, a reality TV show producer isn't knocking down my door so there will be no Keeping Up With the Johnsons on E! this summer. Shame!
So, long story short, I've been trying to blog more. If, you happen to actually be one of my faithful readers, you will have come across this sentiment from me before. No, I don't really think blogging a bit more regularly will automatically make me a success. That would be asinine! And yet, there's that insidious part of my mind that thinks this crap will just happen. Kind of like when I was a kid and my dad hid a present, out of the blue, on top of our bookcase and then surprised me with it. It wasn't for any special occasion, it was just a present. Leonardo, the Ninja Turtle! Awesome! But, you know what happened? After that, I ALWAYS checked that bookcase looking for a present. I expected some god damned thing for nothing! All the time! And there was never something up there again. Why should there have been? It was just some random thing, a nice gift my dad got me. Was I grateful? I suppose, I enjoyed my toy. But I expected something after that when I didn't before.
I don't know that this event shaped my awful expectation philosophy, it was probably already there. Why? I don't know. But it persists. I was told at some point that I was a good writer. Or I had a modicum of talent that I should take advantage of. Or I got good grades on high school papers without trying. Or a seemingly unhinged teacher of an unhinged class (Religion. Score one for parochial schools!) told me I was a wonderful poet/writer. God. Some teachers are just good at blowing hot air and bullshit up kids' asses.
I suppose events like these helped form this devil spawn of entitlement in me. Oh, I may have a microscopic smudge of talent somewhere in my demented soul? I can do well without trying? Then . . .
Come to me, world of wonders and wealth. Come. We shall drink of the wine of delusion and deceit, thinking highly of ourselves and scoffing at others while cinching the trenchcoat of superiority tighter around our throats and laughing maniacally at the poor workers. Those who just don't know. Those who find success not by just being, but by spit and sweat. By bitter tears of work and sacrifice. The real people.
Well, screw you, Nate. Screw you and your idiocy. You are dazzled by the falsehoods of celebrities. And you are stupid.
I'm not sure what this post means, really. It's mostly just dribblings from my gross mind-pimple. A mark of an amateur, I'm sure, is writing almost exclusively about himself. Narcissist much? What better topic is there than one you know so much about? Keep trying, genius.
I will say this: I've always cared about writing. Yes, I'm lazy. But actually churning something out, anything (and this is most definitely anything and not Something of any worth), makes me feel better than I think any job could ever do.
Showing posts with label success. Show all posts
Showing posts with label success. Show all posts
Friday, May 11, 2012
Friday, December 23, 2011
The Lazy Squirrel Gets Nothing...And Dies
Okay, so it's been a few days since my last post. This happens every damn time! I get all excited about blogging, do it for a couple days, and then leave it to rot for months and months. This is how my lazy mind seems to work:
1. Think about something interesting in that moment
2. Decide that I have thought enough to be able to write something
3. Decide that the rest of the world will find in interesting
4. Get really excited (well, not that excited. But excited enough to write about it)
5. Blog it
6. Share on Google+, Twitter...and possibly spam everybody I know on Facebook about it
7. Obsessively check my blog stats to see how many page views I've received
8. Obsessively check to see if anyone's clicked on the ads in my blog, which lead to a few cents of "earnings" for me (never happens and it makes me feel kind of dirty)
9. Find out that most people don't give a shit about what I write...
10. Because it's not that interesting...
And I have no volume. I don't produce. I'm lazy. Just like everything else in my life, I just keep expecting all of these gosh darn good things to happen to me just by thinking about how cool/great they are/would be. I'm not driven to succeed. I'm driven to think about being driven to succeed. I am a lazy shit who keeps expecting great things to happen to me because they just happen, right?
Wrong. Successful people work hard. Successful people don't stop at the daydream. They envision it and then they do whatever it takes to make it happen. And sometimes they fail but I bet (because, being a lazy shit, I don't really know what happens next) they chalk it up to experience and move on to something else. Being successful involves taking risks and sometimes you do fail. The beauty of daydreams is that you never fail. You can spend all of your time thinking about success and how awesome that would be and you never have to worry about the work, sacrifice, and disappointment that goes into even a modicum of success. That's right, you dumb fuck. You'll never do anything successfully if you never do anything. Huh. Seems simple.
Throughout my life in the educational system, I've been able to skate by on the decent pile of natural intelligence that I was blessed with. In my schooling I've never had to spend a lot of time studying. Don't get me wrong, I do the work, I pay attention in class, I study a little for my tests...but I've never really worked hard in my classes. I keep my grades up through attendance and homework and I cram for tests so that I can do well on them and promptly forget everything I memorized. Also, I think I owe my relative success in my first run-through of college (I got an English degree) to the fact that I didn't really take any hard classes. I took writing classes. Those classes weren't hard for me because I think I have at least a little natural ability in writing. But that doesn't mean that I'm good at writing. No, it means that I'm a good bullshitter. With writing classes you get writing tests. Sure, you have to memorize some things, but with a short-answer/essay test, if you bullshit enough you're eventually going to cover the right answer. This isn't the case with other types of classes.
I'm not sure where I wanted to go with all of that. I'm in school again and I'm studying computers and IT. Hopefully, I'll graduate and get a good job. I guess my point (if I even have one) is that I've never plunged into any of my interests. Sure, I might have some talent at writing but I've never tried to cultivate that. It was easy enough to wax poetically ad nauseum throughout my high school papers and get good grades. I was even able to do fairly well in my college writing courses. But I never pursued anything beyond that. To be a writer you have to be constantly honing your craft. You have to make it a craft in the first place! You can't just write some school papers and then decide that you're a writer and be done with it! And that's pretty much what I've done.
For the longest time I thought I'd be a novelist or poet (or both) when I grew up. Ha! Sure, I wrote a bunch of angsty teenage poetry and even burped up a few story ideas. But I never actually worked on anything. Bad poetry is easy. Good stories are much much much much harder. And how would I even know? I've never completed one in my life.
I am not a writer. I am a college graduate who went to work in a couple cubicle farm for a few years; decided I didn't like it (like everything else); went back to school. What happens when I graduate this time? Will I get a job and then decide after a few years I don't like it? That's my pattern. Most things I decide I don't like because they are hard. Or they're not "interesting enough" to me.
Life is tough. Life is unfair. Life is. Haven't I figured that out yet? Anyway, enough convoluted bitching about being lazy and unmotivated. Time to do nothing about it!
P.S. Will you look at that? ^^^
I just wrote something. Not that it's any good, but I wrote something! Here I was thinking that I couldn't think of anything to write about and I just poured out a good five minutes of life that some poor suckers won't get back if they read this! Yay, me!
1. Think about something interesting in that moment
2. Decide that I have thought enough to be able to write something
3. Decide that the rest of the world will find in interesting
4. Get really excited (well, not that excited. But excited enough to write about it)
5. Blog it
6. Share on Google+, Twitter...and possibly spam everybody I know on Facebook about it
7. Obsessively check my blog stats to see how many page views I've received
8. Obsessively check to see if anyone's clicked on the ads in my blog, which lead to a few cents of "earnings" for me (never happens and it makes me feel kind of dirty)
9. Find out that most people don't give a shit about what I write...
10. Because it's not that interesting...
And I have no volume. I don't produce. I'm lazy. Just like everything else in my life, I just keep expecting all of these gosh darn good things to happen to me just by thinking about how cool/great they are/would be. I'm not driven to succeed. I'm driven to think about being driven to succeed. I am a lazy shit who keeps expecting great things to happen to me because they just happen, right?
Wrong. Successful people work hard. Successful people don't stop at the daydream. They envision it and then they do whatever it takes to make it happen. And sometimes they fail but I bet (because, being a lazy shit, I don't really know what happens next) they chalk it up to experience and move on to something else. Being successful involves taking risks and sometimes you do fail. The beauty of daydreams is that you never fail. You can spend all of your time thinking about success and how awesome that would be and you never have to worry about the work, sacrifice, and disappointment that goes into even a modicum of success. That's right, you dumb fuck. You'll never do anything successfully if you never do anything. Huh. Seems simple.
Throughout my life in the educational system, I've been able to skate by on the decent pile of natural intelligence that I was blessed with. In my schooling I've never had to spend a lot of time studying. Don't get me wrong, I do the work, I pay attention in class, I study a little for my tests...but I've never really worked hard in my classes. I keep my grades up through attendance and homework and I cram for tests so that I can do well on them and promptly forget everything I memorized. Also, I think I owe my relative success in my first run-through of college (I got an English degree) to the fact that I didn't really take any hard classes. I took writing classes. Those classes weren't hard for me because I think I have at least a little natural ability in writing. But that doesn't mean that I'm good at writing. No, it means that I'm a good bullshitter. With writing classes you get writing tests. Sure, you have to memorize some things, but with a short-answer/essay test, if you bullshit enough you're eventually going to cover the right answer. This isn't the case with other types of classes.
I'm not sure where I wanted to go with all of that. I'm in school again and I'm studying computers and IT. Hopefully, I'll graduate and get a good job. I guess my point (if I even have one) is that I've never plunged into any of my interests. Sure, I might have some talent at writing but I've never tried to cultivate that. It was easy enough to wax poetically ad nauseum throughout my high school papers and get good grades. I was even able to do fairly well in my college writing courses. But I never pursued anything beyond that. To be a writer you have to be constantly honing your craft. You have to make it a craft in the first place! You can't just write some school papers and then decide that you're a writer and be done with it! And that's pretty much what I've done.
For the longest time I thought I'd be a novelist or poet (or both) when I grew up. Ha! Sure, I wrote a bunch of angsty teenage poetry and even burped up a few story ideas. But I never actually worked on anything. Bad poetry is easy. Good stories are much much much much harder. And how would I even know? I've never completed one in my life.
I am not a writer. I am a college graduate who went to work in a couple cubicle farm for a few years; decided I didn't like it (like everything else); went back to school. What happens when I graduate this time? Will I get a job and then decide after a few years I don't like it? That's my pattern. Most things I decide I don't like because they are hard. Or they're not "interesting enough" to me.
Life is tough. Life is unfair. Life is. Haven't I figured that out yet? Anyway, enough convoluted bitching about being lazy and unmotivated. Time to do nothing about it!
P.S. Will you look at that? ^^^
I just wrote something. Not that it's any good, but I wrote something! Here I was thinking that I couldn't think of anything to write about and I just poured out a good five minutes of life that some poor suckers won't get back if they read this! Yay, me!
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