Written: 12-May-2023 | Fri 02:22

Time to Read: 15 minutes

Prologue
(or skip)

The following was written at 2 AM while I was working night shifts, fed up with my job, confused on where to go next, and generally impatient and frustrated with life. I was pissed off and needed to rant. With only distant coworkers around, I often turn to writing. It lets me vent.

One of my goals of all this is to capture the real. I hate the posers. I hate the fakers. I hate the people who pretend like life’s all great all the time. We put up this front and it’s all bullshit. After reading it the next day I felt much less inclined to post it. It was honestly a bit embarrassing. But fuck it.

So sharing only what I capture when I feel good makes me a hypocrite. Life isn’t all sunshine and rainbows… so with great hesitancy I share with you a vulnerable sneak-peek at my inner dialogue. It’s hard to post shit like this. But fuck it… here we go.

Let’s Rant

Frustrated dude. Been writing a lot. But don’t know what to do with it. I don’t have a good writing system yet. Obsidian is good, but I don’t have a system just yet. The 2nd brain is mad cluttered. Shit is scattered everywhere. I want to capture every idea that I have but I don’t have good places to store them.

The system feels broken. I feel disorganized. It feels like I’m constantly juggling gold but keep dropping it and watching it roll down the gutter grate with little I can do about it.

I want to help people but I don’t have a streamlined process. I don’t know how to help people. I don’t even know if they want my help.

When I read I have a lot of ideas but I feel like I can’t edit and publish them as fast as I can come up with them. When I initially write, all my ideas are like 40% formed and take a lot of work to turn into something usable for other people.

So I just dance around this cell of solitary confinement that I call my brain. The ideas constantly banging around trying to escape.

Nah, bitch. This is Alcatraz.

Frustrated

I’m trying to create this business… this ‘solopreneurial’ venture or whatever the fuck you want to call it, but everything’s so up in the air right now. I don’t know where I’m going. I don’t know how to get where I’m going. I don’t know how to find that out, either.

I don’t now how to make the process better. I feel so far away from where I want to be and I don’t even know where I ‘want to be’ even is. Like Alice in Wonderland but Wonderland is just a matrix of half-formed ideas with nothing tangible.

I want to have all my shit nice and neat but that’s just not how it works. I feel like Abraham Lincoln and his law partner – Just bouncing around ideas, good at what they do but disorganized into oblivion. Losing things left and right. Losing ideas left and right.

I need to figure out how to spend less time editing and more time creating and delivering goodies for people. But then on top of delivering goodies, I also have my laundry list of exclamations, frustrations, and contemplations.

Sometimes I have no suggestions. Sometimes I just don’t know. Scratch that, most of the time I just don’t know.

There’s no advice to give because I haven’t even figured it out myself. There’s no deliverable that I have for people. It’s like trying to sell a product that’s not yet built. Like selling an iPhone that’s ‘full of innovation’ but doesn’t even have a home screen… just a brick of goodness with no way to cross the bridge…. So it remains a brick.

Even if I’m writing with a designated audience or problem in mind… I wonder if I’m just pumping out straight dog shit. I’ve got no ‘niche’ just yet and I’ve got no clue how I’ll end up monetizing whatever the fuck it is that I’ll monetize. I know that I’ll need money to be able to distance myself from this bullshit existence we lie to ourselves and call a ‘job’. 8 hours of wasted time. But I’ll need money to live.

I know that I need to make money at some point and can’t just keep living off in wonderland reading books and thinking about them. Eventually, I’ll have to grow up and ‘get a real job‘… sooner rather than later, too because it’s literally 230 AM and I’m breathing in this corporate oxygen in a corporate fucking uniform in a room with a bunch of people that do the exact opposite of whatever ‘inspire creativity’ is. Let’s face it, you need money to live. Without it you can’t create. But as soon as you create for the money… well, basically you’re a piece of shit.

And yet I don’t want to take advantage of hardworking citizens and take their hard-earned dollars for something that can be learned 10x as fast and 10x as clearly from the OGs. Go read George Orwell. Dostoevsky. Socrates.

What the fuck could I ever offer you that they couldn’t? Preposterous.

I don’t know where I’m going. Ironically, I feel I’ve got a shit load of value to offer people. From ideas, questions, contemplations, memories, inspirations, connections, solutions… But I don’t know how the fuck to share them. I feel bottlenecked.

I solve my own problems and see other people experiencing the exact same ones. I already have the answers I just don’t know how to give them to people.

Financial problems. Building habits. Working out. Finding hobbies. Friendships. Sleep apnea. Anxiety. Inarticulation. Societal stray. Difficulty fitting in. Discovering worlds. Fulfillment. Misunderstandings. Miscommunication. Vulnerabilities. Insecurities. Finding your tribe. The human brain.

I think about these constantly and sometimes I come up with a thing or two that could be valuable to someone else. It pains me to see others fight the exact same demons.

Why the fuck aren’t we helping each other solve the exact same fucking problems?


“We all self-conscious I’m just the first to admit it”

Ay, thanks, Kanye

I see shit loads of musicians and comedians who are able to deliver material in a way that’s digestible.

Saints. All of them. It’s unbelievably impressive.

I could listen to a show or song that has 0 intrinsic value but just because it’s a fun song to listen to, it inherently has value. The message becomes secondary.

A comedian who can make you laugh can make you think. Louis CK. Bill Burr. Rick Gervais.

Writing doesn’t feel like that. We only read to ingest the ideas. We read for the value it provides. There’s no value aside from the value of the way a song makes you feel alive (even if you don’t know the lyrics) or a comedian makes you laugh (even if you don’t agree with what they’re saying).

Don’t Listen

To be honest I’m not sure that I’m able to offer that just yet. I don’t feel like I have the voice just yet or the rhythm or the entertainment value.

Any value to be provided feels like it slips right through the cracks. Worst of all though, I don’t feel like I have the credibility. I’m no Mark Twight. I’m no David Goggins. I’m no Courtney DeWalter.

Why the fuck should you listen to me? You shouldn’t.

I’ve got no credibility. No references. No accolades.

Just a 22-year-old dude with a keyboard plus some inspiration mixed with distress.

There’s no mentor in the equation, no editor, no guidance, no nothing. I just read books and type about what the fuck I’m thinking about and hope to Mama Jesus that it resonates with a single soul.

Do I be directive?
Do I be suggestive?
Do I be contemplative?

None of it makes sense.

Do I tell stories?
Do I share my frustrations?
Do I ask questions?

Great fucking question. Cuz I’ve got no idea.

I’ve got no clue about the angle I’m trying to hit. No clue who I’m trying to impact, or how I’m trying to impact them, but I listen to One Man Could Change the World by Big Sean and get inspired.

I read a Newsletter like Dan Koe’s and it offers great value. As someone who has already made it, it makes sense. But I don’t have that experience. I don’t have that knowledge. I don’t have that credibility. I haven’t got to the end and I’m trying to tell you how to get there. What the fuck kind of twisted logic is that?

5, 10, 20 years from now, will I have the credibility?? Or will I forever float in this purgatory of hardworking and anonymity like all the people who ‘haven’t made it out’. It takes more than just hard work.

I listen to Really Scared and relate so fucking hard. Committing 100% to something that you’ve got no clue how it’ll materialize, or worse if it’ll ever materialize.

Doomed to anonymity? Maybe. That’s the scariest thought of them all.

Doomed for anonymity and destined for mediocrity.

That’s not a thought I want to become Reality.

Some Fears

It’s like my ‘photography’ account on Insta… if you can even call it that.

I wanna share cool photos. I think it’d be cool to sell prints. By I don’t stack up to any of these badass accounts. Brian Peterson. Chris Burkard. The list is endless.

All of them producing inconceivably beautiful photos and here I am struggling to come up with a way to edit photos I took on my phone from 2 years ago. No system. No process. No way to capture the true emotions I was feeling when I was looking at the otherworldly beauty that nature has to offer.

I wanna inspire. But I’m really just shoving it on a glass screen down people’s throats sitting on their couches.

They’re still sitting on the couch. What the fuck good do my photos do?

I try to communicate, in a feverish attempt, to convey just a fraction of what I was feeling with words and pictures, and ideas. But that doesn’t quite seem to cut it.

Yayyyyyyyy.

That’s the sound of applause as Instagram pats me on the back, congratulating me for being yet another drop in the bucket. A Lowly Sim shouting into the vacuum… into the crowded room full of other people all shouting at each other that we call Social Media.

Like a bunch of NPCs all shouting, demanding the respect they don’t deserve. Fuck, man.

I listen to David Choe on the Joe Rogan Experience and he talks about how he’s perpetually limited by language, limited to express how he feels. So he turns to artistic representations – painting to be exact… Inching closer and closer, but still held back by this wall of misunderstanding that we call the Human Experience.

The inability to articulate it all.

We all just want a ‘That’s right’. A ‘Yes, bro’ if you will. We all just wanna know that the other person knows. A hit of oxytocin, thanks, Chris. God damn. It feels so good.

More Fears

I’m terrified of not doing enough. I hate the present reality I’m living. A TACLANE? I mean, yeah, it’s some cool ass equipment, but to be honest I’ve got bigger fish to fry. I really couldn’t care less. I always clocked out but I never clocked in.

I want to be in the future already. But if I had a time machine in front of me right now and I smashed the ‘5 Years’ button fear I’d be sitting in some dusty fill corporate office full of people who have accepted the status quo just because nothing else was available.

I’m terrified that that’s my future and terrified that I’m not doing enough. But I don’t even know what enough is.

There’s nothing certain I’m working towards. Like a 3D-cubed game of chess against 5 other players and nobody knows what the end goal is.

Every Day Just a Little Better

I try to improve, but the increments are so gradual it just feels like I’m standing still (James Clear). Immensely frustrating when you crave progress. Just one step at a time, but that’s tough when you don’t even know what improvement looks like.

Am I just pumping out subpar work like every other half-assed, attention-sponge saturator that exists just to sell you a product?

Luckily Bukowsksi keeps me in check. That’s someone that gets it. If every fiber of your fucking being isn’t feeling it then why the fuck are you even writing, right?

But then I go flop back in my mind as I follow Tim Ferriss’ link and read the letters by Earnest Hemingway to Scott F Fitzgerald noting how you can’t write a masterpiece but setting out to write a masterpiece. It comes passively. The result of a shitload of time invested.

100 pages and hope to hell that just 1 will be good.

You have to be bad if you want to get good.

Vagabonding taught me that. I see all these lessons coming into play but they overwhelm the brain. The constant swirl of ideas makes it impossible to sort through them all.

I know, Naval, I’m trying. It’s just impossible to sort something when the library doesn’t exist. It’s just a tornado of ideas with no end in sight. Keep writing. Keep synthesizing. Keep editing. But it’s impossible to keep up.

The quality of your thoughts dictates the quality of your life.

But what about when the quantity of your thoughts feels like it’s going to suck the quality into a vortex of saturation.

The world isn’t an orderly place. Our minds aren’t orderly… that’s for damn sure. Einstein knew something about that. It’s a shit show all the time. It’s Cloud 9 with rainbows one day then goddamn lightning and storm clouds the next.

Doesn’t exactly make the whole objectivity (Emotional Intelligence) thing all that easy.

There is no objectivity. Always at the mercy of whatever emotion the brain decided to load onto the software that hour.

Sleep! Yeah, that’d be a dream come true. Feels like a goddamn roll of the dice every time my head hits the pillow.

How the fuck am I gonna feel tomorrow?
Not a clue, but wouldn’t it be hilarious if we kept you up for the next 45 minutes playing re-runs of the most awkward interaction you had with your High School crush?

Brain won’t chill the fuck out for 5 fucking minutes just to fall asleep. We lay awake for another 30 just to be shocked awake by the unexpected nightly sweats or midnight erection. Thanks, DNA. Could’ve done without that one.

Can I just live my fucking life? Do I really have to take care of all this bullshit? I’m trying to get some sleep so tomorrow I don’t feel like a zombie in emotional distress but No! Gotta get up and piss like a horse because you woke yourself up snoring.

Oh, you’re awake? Great, I’ve been meaning to have a 30-minute conference call with you about the intonation of that remark you made toward your roommate 2 weeks ago. Dwell is our middle name.

A couple of minutes later and fuckin’ finally… we can drift off and let the brain finally go into low power mode for just a couple…

BOOM! Electrocuted awake by the blare of our bullshit alarm.

Rise and shine mother fucker, it’s time for your 9-5, you corporate fuck. You’re no better than those mindless zombies. You say you despise the 9-5 job and won’t work one in the future… look at you. Pitiful. Living the same exact life after college that everyone else is.

Congrats, you’ve joined the herd. You won’t escape the gravitational pull of the herd of the Excellent Sheep that you were born a part of. That’s the path you were born on. That’s the path you’ll take.

Am I truly just average?

shudders visibly

That’s the scary thing. I think I’m better than those at average… the trouble is… everyone thinks they’re better than average.

Ever heard of the Dunning-Kreuger Effect?

You. Are. Not. Special.

You are not different. Ever seen Blade Runner? Yeah, we thought they were the main character too. Open your eyes. Look around.

God damn it, dude.

“Happy, free, confused, and lonely at the same time” right, Taylor? Emphasis on confused.

Lemme just put ’em out there. Lemme just vomit my thoughts on the internet… shove my opinions and ideas in front of you like every other creator out there. Fuck me, man.

These thoughts are for me, anyway. Maybe 35-year-old me will look back and chuckle. Maybe I’ll have it figured out by then.

Doubt it.

“Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm”

• Winston Churchill

If this feels jarring, well it’s fucking supposed to. This is how I think. A jumbled mess all the time. Chaos at all times. Just trying to make sense of it all. Feeling fractals of Code Red.

Welp. I guess it’s time to work now.

Signing off.

Colin