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Finish Line
Phew, I think I did it! I think I wrote and published 365 ridiculous blog posts in 2011. I successfully conquered the wordpress.com “post a day 2011” challenge. Woot!
Alas, it wasn’t really that hard; I never shut up, I’m a hopeless ruminator, and I’m so full of crap that the words and dorky pictures seem to flow effortlessly out of nowhere and onto the e-canvas.
So, since I’m sure that I’m the only one who accomplished this great feat of daring, where is my freakin’ ONE……….. MILLION……………….. DOLLARS?
As a note of thanks, I gotta give a huge-uh shout out to the brilliant and caring people at automattic who created and constantly innovate on the wordpress web site platform. It’s a joy to work with your product because it virtually disappears into the background when I’m concocting my dorky posts. I hope the profits are rollin’ in, and keep up the great work!
Have Uh Morrie Xmas!
From my best buddy, Morrie, to you:
If you come back here tomorrie, you’ll find another holiday treat waiting for you.
The Weltanschauung Filter
I love the word “weltanschauung“. Alas, there are two reasons why I don’t use it more often: 1) I can’t freakin’ pronounce it; 2) I have to freakin’ look up its spelling every time.
The BD00 Process
I believe that human beings love personal stories and direct experiential reports. Thus, even though it’s highly proprietary and super secret, I’m going to expose the somewhat repeatable “process” that I use for whipping up dumbass blog posts.
Here’s how BD00 does the dirty deed…
- Every morning, after going to bed between 8-9 PM, I wake up between 4-5 AM.
- I fire up a pot of coffee and then sit down at the computer.
- I navigate to the wordpress.com BD00 dashboard.
- I mine “fieldstone” writing ideas from: my “gym notes“, my quotes pages, an interesting interaction or tainted observation at work, random web surfing, my kindle highlights, a twitter post.
- I wait…..
- A freakin’ miracle occurs!
- I start writing words or drawing a picture, or both.
- I chaotically jump back and forth ‘tween writing and drawing – iteration city.
- Sometimes, I write some words, draw a picture, and then finish the words.
- Sometimes, I write all the words first and then re-scan them for drawing ideas.
- Sometimes, I draw a partial picture, write some words, and then I finish the pic.
- Sometimes, I draw a complete picture first and then I write the words that go with it.
- I iterate over the words + picture combo multiple times until…. I say “WTF, I’m done!“
Of course, even though the BD00 process is expressed as a nice and tidy bulleted list above, it’s not a procedure. To highlight the non-sequential nature of the process, here’s the UML state machine diagram model:
Note the numerous initial entry points and that every state has an iterative transition “to self“. That’s because I Am A Strange Loop.
Weirdos
On the top left, we have a recent Hugh MacCleod cartoon. On the top right, we have the cover of Seth Godin’s book, “We’re all Weird“. On the bottom center, we have the Zappos.com 10 core values. Do ya think these people are onto something?
Where are you on this scale?
12/05/11 UPDATE
One courageous reader sent me a pic with his position on the scale:
Any other takers?
Collage Of Influence
In a stream of (un)consciousness, I whipped together a collage of people who have greatly influenced my thinking over the years. The criteria for inclusion were: 1) they had to be alive today (with one exception), 2) no one in the entertainment or sports industries, 3) no politicians (that was easy), and 4) I’ve never met them face to face.
How many of my influencers do you recognize? What would your collage of influence look like?
Dejected, Frustrated, Infuriated
How often does this happen to you?
Never, right? Just in case you do experience feelings of dejection, frustration, and infuriation from time to time, how do you you handle those pesky little critters? Suppression? Expression?
Reckless Meritocracies
Being a staunch advocate of democratic meritocracy, when I stumbled across the title of this potentially UCB-loosening op-ed by Ross Douthat; “Our Reckless Meritocracy“, I dove right in. I was intrigued by the use of the word “reckless” in the title.
Ross commences his opinion piece by telling the rags-to-riches-to-rags story of Jon Corzine:
- Boy grows up in rural Illinois
- Boy’s grandfather was a farmer who lost everything in the great depression
- Boy graduates from Illinois state university
- Boy goes into Marine Corps
- Boy gets MBA
- Boy works for regional bank
- Boy works for Goldman Sachs
- Boy becomes Goldman Sachs CEO
- Boy serves in US senate
- Boy serves as governer of NJ
- Boy returns to Wall St. as CEO of MF Global
- MF Global files for bankruptcy after “mislaying” $600M
- Boy resigns in disgrace (but with plenty of dough in the bank)
Ross uses this lead-in to postulate that the US has “created what seems like the most capable, hardworking, high-I.Q. elite in all of human history – and we’ve watched this same elite lead us off a cliff“.
Ross then theorizes on how catastrophies are perpetrated by the rich and powerful in reckless meritocracies, hereditary aristocracies, and one-party states:
- Hereditary aristocracies: debacles caused by stupidity and pigheadedness
- One Party States: debacles caused by ideological mania
- Reckless Meritocracies: debacles caused by hubris
Relative to the other two forms of governance, at least scores of little people aren’t physically massacred in reckless meritocracies. They’re simply thrust into poverty. The real genius of reckless meritocracy is that when a meritocrat falls, he/she isn’t beheaded. At worst, he/she goes to jail. At best, he/she gets away with a huge bag of loot.
So, what’s a democratically run institution to do? Mr. Douthat rightly states that “it will do America no good to replace the arrogant with the ignorant, the overconfident with the incompetent“. (Didn’t you see the movie “Idiocracy“?)
We need intelligent leaders with a sense of their own limits, experienced people whose lives have taught them caution. We still need the best and brightest, but we need them to have somehow learned humility along the way. – Ross Douthat
If you made it thus far into this post, you may be wondering why BD00 is wasting your time by simply parroting Ross Douthat in yet another meta-blog post? It’s because BD00 wanted to display his fledgling UML skill again:
But wait! It may ironically be because of BD00’s own personal lack of humility and the fact that BD00 gets off on reading funny spammer comments like these:
Misconceptions And Truths
In the modern world the stupid (like BD00) are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt. – Bertrand Russell
Thanks to multi-fish-name dude, I was introduced to the hilariously serious work of David McRaney. In his terrific book, “You Are Not So Smart“, David starts off each chapter with a pair of misconception-truth assertions. He then proceeds to make his case by skillfully citing and summarizing a multitude of psychological studies.
Here’s a sampling of several misconception-truth pairs that I hope will get you to consider helping David out and buying his book:
Of course, being the self-smug, smarty-pants, know-it-all that he is, BD00 held none of the misconceptions and knew all of the truths before buying the book. Mr. McRaney’s work simply added another layer of concrete to the sarcophagus that holds the BD00 UCB comfortably in place.
Full disclosure and hidden agenda: The real reason I’m promoting Dave’s work is because he’s got the funniest web site marquee on the planet:
So what d’ya think? Should I ask for permission to change the “meh” banner on this blog from this boring and bland image…..
to this YANSS derivative….
Death Wish
Over the span of many years, a handful of people have told me that they admire (lol) my courage for “speaking truth” to power. But it’s not like that. First, I speak my version of the so-called “truth“. Second, I don’t “speak to“, I “write about” power. Third, there’s absolutely no courage involved. The only way I can describe this so-called talent is that it’s a weird “death wish” type of affliction.
The feelings that rush forth when I spew potentially hurtful (but maybe indirectly helpful?) ideas and assertions are excitement, exhilaration, and aliveness. But wait, that’s not all. Feelings of guilt, isolation, and mostly, fear, also weave themselves into the witches brew. D’oh! I hate when that happens.
Even though it’s (always) about me, enough about me. What about you, dear reader? What’s your story? Do you write, speak, to, about, power? What’s your style, and do you think it’s effective? What feelings emerge in real-time when you skirt the edge of the prevailing power culture’s “appropriateness” threshold?
In addition to fellow DICsters, I’m especially interested in those readers, if any, who are actually in positions of power in a hierarchy. In your particular case, does power speak truth to power? There’s gotta be a couple of you out there willing to share, no?
Why am I here?
WTF?
Meh!
D'oh!
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