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balance
12/10/2005 = 08:06 AM

For the past several years, my two main resolutions, which I have tried to keep day-to-day and not renew just once a year, with varied degrees of success, have been

1. Everybody knows you're a shit. Just try not to be so much of one.
2. Write, at least a little bit.

The first one is my own demon to bear.

A lot of people are shits, and they revel in it. And it's a bitch and a half to be "the bigger person," especially in a world where backing away from an argument has devolved from an act of dignity and maturity into a negative state perceived either as cowardice or passive aggression, thank you so much to the wonderful world of modern psychology.

My problem stems from meeting the pricks of the world on their level. Either I give them the reaction they wanted, which means they've won, or I best them intellectually, meaning I've won, but at what cost? My self-worth doesn't increase by way of defeating someone too dumb to know better than to piss me off.

Please, I'm working on it. If I've been a shit to you over the past year, and I didn't realize it or didn't own my mistake at the time I made it, take this as my apology right now.

On the other hand, if you did something rotten to me first, and now you expect me to apologize for reacting to the way you treated me, sorry, not happening. You apologize first. Pretend you're the one being "the bigger person." Modern psychology can suck my metaphorical dick.

On to the second one, the writing one.

I'm just as busy as I've ever been — even more so — plus I've got health issues and life stress that I didn't have ten years ago.

Yet, not only am I finding time to write, I'm finishing projects that I start and I'm more creative (I didn't say "better") than I've ever been. The words are coming, and the ideas are being conveyed.

And yes, you'd better believe I'm proud of myself for not letting myself be suckered in by that old cheesebag "I'd love to be a writer, but I haven't got time." I haven't got time, but I'm doing it, dammit.

So am I dropping this resolution as "resolved"? Hell, no. But it needs tweaking.

Here are the modifications I'm going for:

Podcasting is, apparently, the wave of the future and, even if I'm not going to be the Adam Curry of cowabunga, I still should at least learn to swim in its choppy waters and keep my head above the surface long enough to be picked up by the Coast Guard of Mediocrity.

Unfortunately, although podcasting claims itself to be about the podcaster's interests, the truth is that the successful podcasts are about the audience's interests.

My aim (not nearly lofty enough to be considered a "goal") is going to have to be trying to make my interests palatable to an audience. So easy to say, so hard to do. Sometimes, I just don't feel like being topical or entertaining.

If I'm going to be any good at this, I need to find a balance between what I want to talk about and how to keep people from being bored listening to me talking about it. So that'll be modification number one.

Modification number two is professional writing. I'm not talking about getting published; I'm published all over the place, if you know where to look. I'm talking about someone saying, "Thank you for writing that; we're printing it; and here's a check for having done the dirty work."

I need something different. It's never going to be something no one else is doing, but it's got to be more "me" than anything I've done before, or what's to stop the people with the wallets from saying, "I can get that online for free"?

That's not just daunting, it's downright scary.

It's not enough for me just to write towards an end-product that a consumer would be willing to spend money on. I would do that if I had no other means of support, but I'm still rocking my day job, because that's the chorus of the song in my head.

You write great
Gonna be rich and famous
Gonna sign books
Over at the Barnes and Noble

(Chorus)
But don't quit your day job anytime soon

This is fun, and I've already established that I'm not only willing to do it without pay, but I'm capable of it. I just need to get to the next level — finding out if I'm capable of doing it with pay without having it stop being fun.

It all comes down to balance. I need to balance my temper and I need to balance my creativity. I don't expect to strike this balance anytime soon, and I'm not going to beat myself up if I don't make it by the end of the year, like some people do about New Year's resolutions.

But I am going to aim toward it.

Starting now. Why should I wait till the beginning of next year? Next month? Next week, even?

I know what I need to do. I just have to do it.

P.S. A link to my Frappr Map is on the left. There's lots of blank space on it. Some of that blank space is your turf. Represent.

drinking: coffee
listening to: Sean Paul, We Be Burnin'
tonight: goblet of fire