"get the money out of the way now, so that you can get to what really matters."

note to self: do what really matters. if it is valuable to others, they might pay for it.

regardless, "getting money out of the way" is another way of making it easy to get lost running down detours... why wait for the midlife crisis? sitting in an expensive car, next to an expensive spouse, in front of an expensive house, the only thing missing is time. and by then, it's gone, spent in pursuit of "what-comes-before-happiness".

amazing to see so many people racing toward retirement, as if that's when their lives begin... as if the future were somehow real, or predictable, anywhere other than in their own minds.

a most amusing aspect of fiction parallels that of interface design: the more completely the writer generates a fictional world (the interface) as it encounters/envelops the reader's sense of reality, the less likely the reader (user) recognizes that the familiar world has been transformed. the transformation is seamless, natural and goes largely unnoticed. reality becomes story -- that is when fiction can attain impact as a transformative journey taken by both character(s) and reader.

concept: living for the moment x egotism x talent = stardom

miss any of those parts, and stardom will probably remain elusive.

a person who lives for the moment tends to focus on what matters most, not deferring pleasure or those things that are most personally meaningful.

a successful egoist in the world is the opposite of what most people think. the "jerk" is very highly aware of the opinions of others -- in regard to him or herself. this makes the jerk a good communicator of what he or she wants... which is quite often the opposite of what a "nice" person would communicate. self-sacrifice runs counter to the successful jerk's purpose, which is self-advancement. no king crowns himself (or keeps his head for long) unless he can keep a group of people happy. the group can be the members of his court, or the subjects in his kingdom. the jerk knows how to use his or her network as a springboard and stable platform for keeping power central to him or herself.

talent, and oftentimes, early success, are crucial to attain stardom. every now and then a person outworks everyone in their field. the problem there is that a talented newcomer who works hard will win when competing against an ordinary try-hard. the only reliable way for an ordinary person to attain breakaway success is to start out doing something different from everyone else. the challenge there is that the herd may not follow, even if the idea is good. success as an iconoclast is as much a matter of timing and luck as it is on the value of the idea itself. so most successful people use talent as a shortcut in order to enter an existing field and overtake the competition.

a person without one or more of these traits may not find high levels of success.

someone who constantly defers to the needs of others will often find him or herself trapped in the cycle of a "nice" person. that cycle is characterized by a person who is liked for being "selfless" or always donating their time and energy to someone else's needs and desires. the real downside is that if the person ever stops giving their time and energy away, they are often viewed as "selfish" by their former friends. the feared outcome of self-assertion is to be deserted by everyone who currently gives love and approval in exchange for submissive behavior. it's a literally self-defeating mentality, because life is short. more money can be made; time never returns. humans tend to overestimate their own worth and understimate the value of others. most people are not naturally prone to fits of spontaneous gratitude. these factors combine to create a picture unfavorable for success in the case of the "Nice" person. the word 'nice' here is used in a specific way, since in personal experience, most people who self-describe using that word seem to fall into the cycle described here. they maintain just enough ego to mount a self-righteous defense against any who point out their less-than-useful patterns of behavior. self-justification and social reinforcement (described below) are highly effective ways to keep from changing in practically any area of life, particularly in relation to self-perception.

lack of egotism can also be the opposite of what it seems. a person who lacks egotism can often care less about what others think than the egoist would. it's a strange paradox that self-acceptance can lead to positive change, or it can lead a person to stay where they are, comfortable and therefore not terribly motivated to adapt to the outside world. a massive ego provides fuel to always need, seek and demand approval from others -- if only to stay on top and dictate one's own terms. lack of ego removes the catalytic need for dominance of others that creates the drive toward ever-greater heights of self-glorification.

talent is a difficult and elusive attribute. it may not show for years; it may exist in a different discipline than the one that a person would assume based on "personality type". many people stereotype both themselves and others, thereby obscuring and suppressing any contradictory or unexpected traits. those traits, by their unexpected, unpredictable and thereby unique nature, may lead to success. the less traveled road is by nature wide open for those few who travel it. a person who stays within a typical comfort zone will quite likely miss out on his or her potential for the discovery of individual talent through creative randomness. undiscovered talent quite happily stays hidden until a change of perspective makes it apparent.

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it seems that society thrives on (or preys on) the fundamental human (and animal) fear of death -- intrapersonal, interpersonal, and within the larger field of existence. a person wants to feel good and in control; he/she wants the love and approval of others; as we all wake up after sleeping each night, so we come to expect this ad infinitum. the concept of non-existence is ungraspable for a mind that knows only its own illusion of continual personhood.

strange, then, to realize that so many "philosophies" peddled by the popular culture actually exist to maintain the status quo. "live in the moment", "become more conscious" (of your 'self'), "attain your special greatness in ten easy steps"...

what if survival itself were not actually virtuous? knowing that all things do end, perhaps the formula above leads to zero on both sides, regardless of the numbers entered.

what then?


audio: se7en . digital bounce

gerard reyes (insidemyhead), will santos (randominity), teresa (girlsareweird), ernie (littleyellowdifferent), cami chan (igotlasereyes), dan (mister danio's neighborhood), rabi (wockerjabby), carrie ellis, jaycine, jason oh, josh (josh's swank condo), eliza ootsuka (aimless bitchin in the soul kitchen), ms. kitten roar.

i remember... and appreciate...

In the midst of a year-plus whirling in creative worlds of an entirely imaginary sort, the trade is in disconnection from external memories of past selves. Slowly the recollections return from their resting places, sand through the sieve of conscious awareness, sometimes rude, never polite, always real, often raw...

...the cues can be so subtle as to graze over them and miss the bright flash of color or sound of a word -- not even the form that the letters make -- that resonates into a blossoming inward toward that deeper region of how it was, then.

An entire year of the child condensed into ten seconds, impressions decompressing into a maze of dimensions through which all feelings soak, and hold, and penetrate. The child is felt, seen, heard, transformed in reverse to find whatever the reversion portends for the one who is brought back.

In the present time, eyes turn outward again, seeing empty walls and wondering where the child is, now. Knowing that having been is not so different from being. The stream simply flows down an unknown path, and is never the same twice.