A post about not posting

Here lies a preview of 56 drafts. This is the most current that have gone through edits.

I haven’t published them, not because I’m editing them to perfection, but because I haven’t quite figured out what I want to say. I’m struggling with each because in the process of writing I find I sometimes contradict myself. Or maybe I find that I want to say more. Maybe I want to say less. All I can say for sure is there’s something missing.

Here’s what’s currently missing for each.

And then I turned on the TV and realized I want to be a clown.

The actual title is cutoff for some reason, likely because it was recently edited and Substack forgot to auto-save. Yes, that does fill me with some anxiety but I’ll ignore the desire to quickly hit the backspace and check.

This post focuses on how our career goals and future lifestyle aspirations are influenced by the television we watch, or any of the various forms of media we consume. It’s based on a (likely misremembered) comment by Craig Ferguson on growing up in Glasgow and discovering there’s more to life than his father’s civil service job in the postal office.

I can’t find a natural end but suffice to say, I once considered having a career as a clown. I liked to make people laugh. They stopped hurting me when I did.

Substack sucks sometimes.

We’ve seen the various posts about Substack and Enshittification. We should already know it’s coming, if not already here.

Circle of software (one variant of many)

And yet despite everything, we still find ourselves using this. Why? Because it’s not the product but the community we’ve found.

I didn’t care about racism until it affected me.

This is a tough one. I don’t know where I’m going with this but I do wonder why this year I’ve grown to become more attuned to racial commentary. Don’t get me wrong, as a brown man, I’ve faced my fair share from many different groups. Whether it’s the Americans that laughed at me for eating Roti in the school cafeteria, Māori that told me to go back to India or the Fijians that hurled insults after the 2000 coup d'état.

But why then did I look the other way when seeing it happen to others, to other groups, and other friends? I know the reason and maybe I’m just trying to intellectualize it rather than accepting my own bias.

It was better back then. We had less brown people.

Not much to say here. I just had a short poem I was working on about the nostalgic phrase and how it wasn’t necessarily better for all. But we didn’t have Instagram and Facebook so maybe it kinda was?

I can probably post this one but it’s rather angry and I don’t personally like it.

AI doesn’t create slop, you created slop because it sells.

Slop existed pre-AI. The algorithm and the incessant desire to commercialize every aspect of our lives turned art into a paid side hustle and open source software into paid Software as a Service. AI is just making it easier.

I find legitimate uses for AI. Use it very day to structure verbose text into something my dyslexia can understand. I use it for internet research and it’s great for it, so long as I actually verify each source.

I can’t end this piece because I don’t quite believe it and I don’t know why?

The minority tax of educating the ignorant because we’re told to.

Most DEIB programs are a burden on the very people they hope to help. There’s an expectation that you should somehow educate those around you of your “plight” or the reason for the program’s existence. I presume this is similar to how many women feel like they shouldn’t have to educate men on their bias.

Either way, I don’t quite have a strong statement here. I’m just lamenting on being tired.

The Interstitials Part II.

If you don’t know, it’s about to be Christmas. I wanted to add another layer to an older post about the people that fall between the cracks of family, friend or colleague.

I just don’t think I have more to day that wasn’t said before and the only reason or this is because I genuinely don’t like what I previously wrote.

The interstitials

I’m a man and I hate myself enough.

I see a lot of posts that deride men and, considering the many rich and powerful men that currently exist, rightfully so. But at the risk of pulling a #notallmen I do want to share how I feel about its potential impact on a generation of would be men. Sometimes it feels less educating and more alienating.

I just don’t know where I’m going with this.

Maybe you do?

If you have ideas on each draft, reach out. But for now, here’s my post on the many posts I have yet to post.