Stop Being Positive -- You're Good

In 2017 and 2018, I was mostly stuck. I had a million ideas; I tried a few of my best -- they all failed. I couldn’t and can’t explain it. I took a hard look at myself and thought “you GOTTA be dumber than most people!” If not dumber, then at the very least, lazier. Lol. I don’t want to hear any silly quotes here about “be positive” or “think better of yourself.” We need negative thoughts. How else can we find inner strength except by way of embarrassment, being constantly humbled and serial losing. Yes, losing on a consistent basis – a serial fucking loser. Let that sink in.

I know that Instagram is full of platitudes that tell you to “fail faster.” But it’s not like you're throwing spaghetti at a wall and seeing what sticks. Your whole identity is tied to these failures in a very real way, because you’re actually and truly IN THE GAME. In the Chinese calendar it’s the beginning of a New Year today, the Year of the Pig, well how timely. It reminds me of that old saying: to get the egg, the chicken is involved, but to get the bacon, the Pig is fucking committed to death! I say that because I’m not advocating that people fail faster. I’m asking people to commit to failure fully. Something has to die for you to get to the place where you want to be. You have to feel the lows of failure so deeply that you get to the place where you realize the results don’t actually matter, not in the grand scheme of things.  Humans will never control all outcomes. We’d like to think that we can, but we can’t. Whatever you wish you could do or want to do -- you just gotta give it a shot. And when you inevitably fall flat on your face, you're entitled to roll around in the mud, feel bad for yourself, and cry about it. But at some point you have to get up and do it again. You just have to…there’s no other way.

When we are kids our parents tell us, go ahead and fall off the bike so you can learn to ride. But when you become an adult, social media tells you go ahead and pretend like you can ride a bike. No one will know the difference anyway. This world is fucked. A lot of people are pretending, calling themselves experts, and claiming that their life is just one big fucking rainbow. Its not. And I call bullshit, everyday. You should too.

I’ve failed. I hope Daemon doesn’t fail, but if it does, by all means enjoy watching my spectacular belly-flop and I hope you’ll be one of the real ones that says: Yo Steve…Try it again! I’ll appreciate the support from the bottom of my heart and I’ll never forget your good word, but if it doesn’t come, if the external encouragement never makes an appearance. I’m still getting up. I’ve been down before and it taught me. Failure is a faithful and abiding teacher. And where I stand today, I want to say I love her. I love her because she taught me that being at the bottom is a blessing and so is being on top. None of it matters; all that matters is that I found an inner core of strength and it ain’t going nowhere.