Welcome to post 60 of 100. I can’t believe I’m 60% of the way through already. It will feel strange when I’m writing the 100th and possibly final post, that is for sure.
Here’s a quote by Charles Bukowski which I’m sure most people reading this blog will have seen at some time in their lives. It’s a quote that has always stuck with me:
“If you’re going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don’t even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery–isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you’ll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you’re going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It’s the only good fight there is.”
It’s a magnum opus of a quote.
The essence of it is that if you pursue a passion, you must do so completely. It’s the only way to reject a life of mediocrity, even if there’s a price to pay. In the case of starving artists, that’s often one step away from insanity, but I’m not that good with a paintbrush anyway 😉
Not that you have to be great if you have belief and conviction. I watched a documentary once about an artist whose entire “work” was painting horizontal and vertical lines. I’ve never seen such a lot of crap sell for so much. It sold because he believed in the finished product and it was universal. My mind said it was shit, but all these Chinese people thought it was fabulous. It turns out vertical and horizontal lines cross all language barriers in commercial terms. That still blows my mind.
This artist developed an illness which meant he felt dizzy when he painted the vertical lines, so all he could do was horizontal. Those more simplified paintings sold for even more. This even surprised the artist himself, so rip up the script when it comes to thinking you know what people want because the market will ultimately always tell you.
I happen to believe we are at a unique time in history, which is aligning itself with the ability to learn new things at a much faster rate, making them a much more rewarding endeavour for the time invested. Pretty much whatever you want to do can be done more easily now, but it still requires work and there’s no getting around that fact.
There’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time and now the time is right, so I am prioritising where I place my focus. Some of these things aren’t really “sacrifices” as such, because they don’t capture me in the same way the average person seems to subscribe to them. Social media, for example, in the most part is really just a lot of noise. It’s easy for me to largely switch off to things like that as I think most of it is garbage anyway 🙂
Noise is fine, but when you need to focus, it’s the last thing a person needs. Whether a person realises it or not, on social media they are just the fodder serving publishers ad campaigns, outside of the odd meaningful interaction that somehow still manages to make it through their algorithms.
Creating so many connections and becoming the “go to” is what keeps people on it. You can jump over to Telegram or Skool, but it’s no good jumping ship getting your own groovy party going if the masses have already been brainwashed into staying on the book of faces.
Being a hipster in the 1% is what appeals to me. I’d rather be on the excellent thing, whatever that happens to be. Most things that gets adopted by the masses is a turn off for me in the same way I switch off mentally to Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran. I’d rather be dunked in a barrel full of custard than listen to a whole album by either 🙂
Social media as it exists in 2026 has one purpose and that is to keep you on there serving you ads. That’s why it prioritises content that makes people ‘feel’ something without any meaningful human outlet, because feelings that have nowhere else to go means people spend more time on there venting in the comments section (lol). Engagement is critical for social media so it’s engineered that way to keep it ‘sticky’.
Only a few weeks ago I noticed someone on X (formerly Twitter) who had 3000 followers and posted regularly, capitulated on using the site because out of those 3000 she only ever talked to a handful and the platform itself was somehow making her feel depressed. It’s very sad to think someone is connected to 3000 people and those connections end up making a person feel less human because of how it’s all orchestrated/assembled.
Followers does not equal happiness (no Shit Sherlock).
Platform consolidation over time takes all the fun away from being on them. This is why I prefer the more innocent times when free websites such as Love@Lycos existed (when you could message someone without having to subscribe to something monthly or pay for a super like lol) and when MSN Messenger/MySpace was all the rage. There’s a reason I now write my thoughts down on this blog in journal form instead of on FaceBook.
I’ve decided to go down the rabbit hole of focus while I’m learning. I’ve been mostly offline since the weekend, at least as far as anything social goes, and I’m only one decision away from deleting apps like WhatsApp. The only thing I really like about it is audio messages and it being an easy way to send photos, but otherwise, it’s just more noise and it’s always on 24/7 which should definitely be illegal 🙂
Side Note: A mobile phone number is the highest level of access you can have to someone and what do most of us do? We give the number away like Smarties in a sweet shop and hook it up to an app that automatically let everyone with our number know we are on there, which is absolute madness. If you block someone on WhatsApp they know you’ve done it as well, so that makes it the shittest app in history. I know a guy that charges $10,000 for one hour of his time on the phone because he knows the value of that level of access. One person even paid it!
All of this has freed my brain up to focus on the technical aspects of what I’m going to be doing. There’s a learning curve and I’m diving into the unknown to a large extent, so I know there are going to be peaks and troughs ahead. I’m already prepared for this mentally, so it’s just a case of learning, executing, and adapting as I go along. One thing I do possess is the stamina to see things through to the end, even if I say so myself.
A friend of mine recently did a career U-turn and has become a sci-fi writer. He’s already written 4 books in the last year.
On that note, I’d better get back to it all.
Thanks for reading. See you in the next one.
Let’s play this one out with Eye of The Tiger…