Ruchador

What I’ve come to realize about all of this “Web 2.0” bullshit is that it is squarely aimed at serving one key principle: to exploit our own human desire to be heard. Our subconscious reaction, of course, is to exploit these very systems, in order to step over our fellow people and be heard the most: first by those who showed up to get attention themselves, then by all of the lurkers who watch us all clamor on, hoping to get noticed.

The mercenary methods that power this obscene engine of exploitation are a vile, inefficient fuel source; the by-product of which pollute the entire Internet. Unfortunately, everybody is so concerned with imaginary dangers online, nobody stops to think about quality of content. There aren’t any effective mechanisms in place to filter content based on quality. Why not? Because there are two different kinds of ranking systems: those based on computers, and those chosen by humans. Computerized rankings all consider the “best” content to be that which is the most popular; therefore, it’s easy for spammers and scammers to hack their way to the top. Ranked lists of “best content” based on human input and intervention are almost immediately subject to cronyism, ass-kissing, nepotism and any other method we can think of to inflate the egos of the decision-makers in exchange for a popularity boost. Google, of course, is both; which is why they’re the #1 ranked list resource.

The reason why this is important to me in any way at all is because I’m in a sort of transition period; I’m a guy who creates sites and content online, but wants to create content offline. I’ve spent a few weeks in a fugue state; letting it slip my mind completely that the reason why the Internet works this way is because “IRL” works this way. There’s something about this species that rejects the efforts of those individuals who just want to be heard, while getting taken in by huge, dominant corporations who churn out content for purpose of netting pure profit.

No matter the medium, no matter how “real” a network of individuals may be, you can’t make it on talent alone; not when there are so many people trying to get what you’re after, and so many others out there hating - trying to make sure you never get heard. Problem is, I don’t know what it takes - how to get that sort of attention I’m working towards, without turning into some sort of annoying, obsequious mega-spammer who ends up popular in all the wrong places; Tila Tequila, I’m looking at you. Any ideas, people?

So, this is my week, so far:

1. Sunday: I read the treatment, the notes, everything.
2. Tuesday: After two days away from the notes, I thought about what I had written, and realized that it just… wasn’t very good.
3. Thursday: I have a brief conversation with the person I spoke of in this entry; the muse, for lack of a better term. That’s when I realized what was wrong with my treatment.

Just because someone makes you want to write something down, it doesn’t make them a muse; that is, it doesn’t mean they’re your inspiration. So, I tossed all of what I’d written, and stopped looking to her for inspiration. This is my story; it takes place in my world, between my characters. It should be coming from me. That’s probably a good thing anyway; I’m not going to be talking to her much for a while anyway. At least the timing’s copacetic.

I thought, at first, that tearing up my film treatment (figuratively; it’s a digital file, after all) was a maniacal act, with no real basis inrational thought or activity. But then, on Wednesday, I spoke briefly with my dear friend Liz, who—as per usual—made me realize that being a little bit of a maniac is not only something that helps make me a decent writer, it’s something that makes me who I am.

Putting things in further perspective, I had another conversation today that reminded me of how finite life is. Some days I don’t really know what the fuck I’m doing, I’ll confess; and if I go a few days in a row like this, I am confronted with the concept of death. It sounds like that happens a great deal in my life, but to be fair, I know a lot of people. And the thing about a lot of people is that they tend to do a lot of dying, on a long enough timeline. But that’s how we all are—we’re here, and then we aren’t, and then that’s it. As morbid as this paragraph is shaping up to be, it does serve to jump-start my engines to be reminded that this isn’t a dress rehearsal.

The understanding of my temporal insignificance is the active ingredient in why I had to toss that treatment. I only really get one shot at life, as do we all. And since life doesn’t seem to last a great deal of time, it’s in my best interest to tell each story the right way. If the right way to write requires one to find and employ their own “voice,” then I shouldn’t attempt to represent myself with whispered impersonations.

E-40 said it best: go hard, or go home. And anyone who has read this blog before already knows that I’m all out of home, like so much bubble gum.

My birth name is Devon Ashman Clarke. I am a human being, who was given that name at birth. Because that’s what humans do. They are born. You know what isn’t born?

A Brand.

I know this, because own a company. I built it myself, and I went about things in the worst possible way ever since. 

Until today, I tried to breathe life into my brand - I thought it was more important than my very life. It was my life. But that’s not the way this works. I’ve spent a couple of years treating my company as if it were my baby, when it wasn’t. I tried to give my brand life, which I couldn’t. I overprotected my brand, because I thought that, in the longrun, it would do the same for me; where it won’t.

My reticence to pull the trigger on many a deal came from a hyperbolic sense of import and value that I attached to my business. There are reasons for this, but even I, even here, can’t get into all of that. Point is, I broke the cardinal rule of business: I gave a fuck. I turned business into art: I brought people close to me in on the operation, I made allowances where I shouldn’t have, and… I fucked up. More to the point, I failed. I haven’t failed mathematically - that is, there’s still a business here - but I can’t help but to look back at the previous twenty-nine months with a level of disgust and embarrassment I previously reserved for Buck Angel and black licorice. I never thought I’d fuck up so hard that I’d have to put myself (or, at least, my own actions) into that same category. 

But, here we are.

I know I implied this in the post prior, but when someone’s afraid of something, they usually close their eyes, and protect their face with their arms. In the case of failure, that initial fear response is the opening failure looks for. If you know somebody who’s never been punched in the face before, fake a quick jab to their nose, and watch what they do. If you, personally, have never taken a punch to the face either, let me explain to you what would happen next in a real fight: with your eyelids shut, your teeth clenched and your arms raised, you’d catch a strong right uppercut to the stomach, followed by a left hook to your liver. Your body would shut down: the air would escape your body instantly, your other organs would panic and your muscle control would temporarily suspend. This is known as a “body knockout.” That’s how failure attacks. Me declaring that I would toss myself into failure’s fray (fraillure?) was an oath to lower my hands, open my eyes, and keep my chin to my chest. 

Caring about your brand (or any brand, for that matter) is that first gut-punch. I know what’s coming next, and I have a very limited amount of time to come through like Little Mac: dodge the next punch, then counter-punch. Given the circumstances, I firmly believe I still have a shot to win this one, so long as I keep my eyes open. 

I have come to realize, with eyes open, that it’s not about the brand, the label, the site, the names; it’s all me. I’m the guy churning out the content, the one walking miles and miles in dress shoes from meeting to meeting, because I have no car, the man who spent three years of sleepless nights compiling a body of work that he’s too tired to truly appreciate. And none of this fills me with any sense of disappointment or injury; I’ve simply come to realize: I’m not a businessman; I’m a business, man.

Inspiration is easy for me. That is to say, for me, it’s easy to come by; there are many wells from which to draw in my world. But Edison was right—success is only 10% inspiration, and 90% perspiration—and even though I can sweat it out with the best of them, I’ve been having the worst of times figuring out how to motivate myself every day.

That is, until now.

I spoke a couple of posts ago about embracing failure in order to gain clarity on what caused it. And for the most part, it’s starting to make my problem clear: I’ve been looking for motivation in all the wrong places.

My biggest error was looking for motivation (amongst other things) within the people and ideas that inspire me—huge, backwards-ass mistake on my part. I have a profound affection for these people, places and things, but looking for something deeper where there probably isn’t any further depth is unfair to everybody involved; myself especially, since I’m the only one aware of it. There is a person whom I secretly consider my muse—nearly every conversation we have, I’m inspired to the point where I feel the word inspiration is insufficient—but every time she leaves me feeling full of fresh new concepts to express to the world, my mind naturally synthesizes an additional desire to draw motivation from her, instead of from myself.

I’ve come to realize as of late that this pattern is dangerous; not just because it’s an exercise in futility in terms of drawing motivation, but because associating a desire to receive something as powerful and vital as motivation from a person is risky at best, self-destructive at worst. The slope of this precipice can be either steep or gentle. I base the calculation of that angle entirely upon whether or not those impulses are mutual: if they are, a beautiful renaissance is born—the creative equivalent of two gym buddies, constantly pushing one another to improve. If they aren’t, however, the unrequited runs the dire risk of overestimating the rapport—a scenario more akin to Sun worship than a healthy friendship. I don’t know the slope of my situation, and I’ve come to realize that ultimately, it doesn’t matter—I don’t particularly want either; at least, not at this point in my life.

To stick with the previous analogy a bit longer, having a gym buddy only really works if you’re a “gym rat” at heart. I’m not saying I don’t love working out, but I don’t have the gym rat personality. Among other things (obviously), I’m a fighter at heart. I don’t get stronger for the typical reasons—I’m not doing it out of vanity, recreation or even to improve my health. None of those things really figure prominently in my psyche—I get stronger because I believe in the axiom first spoken by Malcolm X:

“Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery.”

Growing up, plenty of people wanted to put their hands on me, and I resolved early on to give any man who made that attempt an express ticket to a hospital bed.

Peace is in my mind at all times—I don’t believe there’s ever a good reason to haul off and physically attack someone—at the same time, like I said: fighting is in my heart. I believe that there’s a time and place for everything, including fighting. And when it comes to protecting oneself, fighting is an important chapter of the playbook. The reason why this is pertinent to the topic of motivation is simple: my need to create exists in the same part of my heart and soul as my desire to rebel and my will to fight. And in my quest for motivation, I’ve come to understand that I need to harness those three elements of my being simultaneously. In doing so, I’ve found—lacking a better noun—my mojo.

So where’s the fight?

Well, I started this company of mine for one reason: escape. I spent years as a corporate minstrel: a caricature of myself, my image (and with it, my personal sense of identity) warped in the fun-house mirror of the system’s demands and expectations. It’s an uncomfortable allegory to conjure, but corporate culture dictates that I must become the 21st Century House Negro; without that metamorphosis, I would never be deemed as “safe” enough to permit access. I sampled that lifestyle, and decided that I couldn’t live with myself. My reaction was to rebel against that, and so I started this business.

Since my business’ inception, I took on projects under my company’s flag, and struggled to complete each one. I’ve had slight OCD all my life, so as a child, a by-product of my disorder was that I began to personalize objects, concepts, letters, numbers—you name it. Part of my adulthood manifestation of this condition is that I tend to personalize my projects, in order to put them into perspective. I looked upon each with affection, with love—I tormented over each detail, finding it nigh impossible to abandon the project in order to declare it completed. As time wore on, every relationship I developed with each project became more and more toxic: the deadlines seemed less plausible with each new project, the demands of the clients less realistic, and my own in-house initiatives felt less practical.

Monday morning, April 20th, I woke up with a shot—my dreams were abruptly halted, hijacked and prematurely cancelled by a stark revelation: these projects are not my friends at all. Those relationships turned toxic because I was coalescing with my enemies—each and every single project that I take on represents an opponent. These opponents want me to obsess, they need me to never finish them, so that they themselves will never be abandoned.

With their goals so diametrically opposed to mine, each project’s desire is to bring me closer and closer to the corporate lifestyle I consider a fate worse than death. I shouldn’t labor over these projects because I need to give them the affection and attention they thrive on; I must complete them, for in completion lies their defeat. The aim of my projects is to put their hands on me; therefore, my motivation lies in my requirement to send them all to the cemetery.

I will say this - most of my life is falling to shambles around me, but I feel like I’m getting really good at what I do. Perhaps this is the way it works out for me.

I’ve had this strange feeling all my life that the only route to success was to dive face-first into failure. The more I play shit safe, the more I divert attention away from the goal and end up feeling like I’ve wasted time, money, patience… you name it.

But I’m starting to learn from my mistakes; my main mistake being that I keep trying to stop myself from making mistakes. I’ve feared failure for my entire life - after all, I grew up Jamaican immigrant-style: get good grades, or you get that belt (or whatever else is within arm’s reach). Actually, combine that with parochial school until the sixth grade, and I was getting corporal punishment laid down upon me for pretty much every little fuckup. It’s taken me years, but I’m finally giving that fear up.

When I was a kid, I was pretty weird, to say the least. I won’t get into the nuts and bolts of my childhood, but let’s just say I had a tough time fitting in, and, because I saw it as an asset, I was ardent in my weirdness. Being a boy in Brooklyn and all, what follows is that I got into a lot of fights. Learning how to fight was important, and the most important part of learning how to fight is to lose. Anybody who tells you they’ve gotten into fights but they never lost doesn’t know how to fight. Same thing is true for math, sports, love - pretty much anything; fact is, failure is necessary sometimes. It’s how we learn. I know that sounds batshit insane, but if I wasn’t so certain of that, I probably wouldn’t be writing a movie about failure.

What it boils down to is that I’ve learned the following: to be afraid of failure is to be a slave to failure. These past couple of years, fear has caused me to pretty much run myself into what has now become a Category-5 shitstorm, and I’ve decided to stop running. If I’m going to learn anything about life, I’m going to have to finally take my shots head-on, instead of getting ambushed while sprinting for cover. The good news is that as good as I am at what I do now, I can only get better, if the pattern holds. The bad news: my path to heaven, it seems, goes straight through hell.

[Insert battlecry here. Thx.]