Day 1498

I'm perpetually tired these days. I follow the generally accepted practice of compensating for today's declining rates by increasing my work load. Economies of scale don't really work for me unfortunately, since I have nobody to delegate things to. There is only me. The more business I get, the faster I have to work, and the less fun everything becomes. If I didn't detest working with others so much, I would hire a bunch of young, low paid work slaves and delegate everything. This seems to work for some people. I prefer to live under the illusion that I'm an artist, working alone, and doing whatever I want. I'm not really an artist, of course. I just grind out a bunch of crap that other people don't want to bother with themselves.

I identify with what a lot of millennials are going through. They don't want to grow up and become chemical engineers and mathematicians. They'd rather do what I do instead. Hey guys, I don't think there's much future in being me. I've played around at being a documentary filmmaker, an architect, a fashion photographer, and a writer. I never wanted to have a real job, and still don't. I only manage to live pretty well because I got lucky in the 1980's. It remains to be seen whether luck will come my way again. My advice to millennials comes with a note of caution. The world just doesn't need many Peter Pans. If you don't want to compromise and collaborate, be prepared to live in your parent's basement forever.

If you are determined to pursue the creative life when the world is crying out for medical administrators and petroleum engineers, I wish you luck. I would encourage you to leave your parents immediately and learn to fend for yourself. That's what I did. I failed again and again, but learned that failure is no big deal. If one thing didn't work, I would just try something else. If something actually did work, I would run with it until I got bored. I learned that if you are supremely confident, you will survive no matter what you do. I guess I'm still surviving after a fashion, although I feel a bit like Alice after she'd gone down the rabbit hole. The world is a very strange place these days.

I'm glad I enjoy the company of dogs. Dogs keep me humble and dogs keep me honest. When I'm not writing, I'm a faithful butler, attending to the needs of Dot and Dash. Today, we walked, we ate, and we napped a bit. I took Dash to the vet for his antigen shot. I helped Dot up when she stumbled a bit on her morning walk. The dogs tolerate the long hours I spend writing and I tolerate some equally strange habits of theirs. I'm still tired though. There's no getting around that.

Molly is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 900

I could tell you about my blood test this morning. I could tell you about all the vacuuming I did this afternoon. I suspect you've heard all that before. Maybe I'll try to give you a little advice instead. After 899 days of telling you what I do, it might be time to tell you what I think. I don't give advice very often. Why should I? Absolutely nobody listens. Humor me though. It's Day 900 and it's time for  something different. My advice to you...

1: Quit spending money you don’t have.

So many of today’s problems are caused by a national desire for instant gratification. High school kids think they need a car. College kids expect a high paying job when they graduate. Young couples get a $300,000 mortgage on a “starter home. Our entire country spends more than it takes in. It wasn’t always this way. Our grandparents didn’t live like this. They managed to raise families in modest homes with a single bathroom. Instead of using credit cards with reckless abandon, they typically paid using cash, while occasionally putting something special away on layaway. Ironically, our grandparents were probably happier than we are. Rich is a relative term. If you always spend a little less than you make, you’re eventually be rich.

2: It’s not a secret if you tell anybody.

I grow weary of people telling me that something is confidential. I’m bemused when I see someone who still believes that privacy even exists. Privacy left the building long ago. Do you ever watch MI-5 on the BBC channel? In this show, top British spies continually solve puzzling crimes and mysteries by snooping on people’s activities using the country’s burgeoning CCTV network. This is where we are headed. If the IRS doesn’t already know everything about you, Google and the credit bureaus can certainly fill in the blanks. It’s just a matter of time before Google creates a global panic by revealing that it has compiled a database with the personal porn preferences of over a billion men worldwide. Hey, if you really want to keep something a secret, don’t tell anyone. Ever.

3: Learn to compromise.

It’s not all about you. Everyone thinks they’re special these days. They were brought up that way. Parents told them they were special. Teachers told them they were special. A cult of individuality was born and several generations of very self-centered children entered the adult world thinking, “It’s all about me.” These spoiled children expected to get exactly what they wanted in the workforce and in their relationships. That’s what they had been taught. When everyone was going for the gold, the bronze had no value. Slowly, the art of compromise was lost. Our politicians became deadlocked. Our relationships increasingly ended in divorce. Our employers got disgusted and began looking for a more agreeable workforce in China. Hey, it’s not all about you. It never was.

4: Believing in something doesn’t necessarily make it true.

Christians. Jews. Obama supporters. Global Warming. The Tea Party. The Taliban. Isn’t it all a bit confusing? If anyone actually had the answer to anything, why would there consistently be so many conflicting points of view? It’s comforting to believe in something, especially if others believe the same thing. Belief isn’t the same as truth however. Belief is just another manifestation of mind over matter. At least religious people understand that their beliefs are nothing more than blind faith. The worst believers are the secular humanists, who have somehow managed to get faith, religion, science, objectivity and prejudice muddled together in an unholy stew. Believe in yourself! Don’t get a big head about it though. It’s still not all about you.

5: Don’t aspire to be happy. Just choose to be happy.

A lot of people think they’d be happier if they had more money. Others want to be thinner, more popular, or in a better relationship. We are an aspirational society, but sometimes our aspirations can be counterproductive. I’ve known multi-millionaires who were catatonically depressed. I’ve known people with one leg who seemed much happier than I was. I think the happy people around me just chose to be happy. We can’t really select the cards we are dealt in life. We can fight and struggle and attempt to swim upstream, but eventually the current always wins and we are swept out to sea. Happy people just enjoy the journey.

6: Success doesn’t mean much if you have never experienced failure.

Is success learning to read road signs in French, or discovering that E=MC2? I think any successful person will tell you that success is entirely relative. Without a few setbacks along the way, you probably won’t even be able to recognize success when it finds you. Success can be large, or it can be small, but it you are afraid to fall, you probably won’t experience success at all.

7: Don’t wait too long to do the things you want to do most.

My Dad was a zoologist. He always wanted to travel to Africa and see giraffes and elephants. When he died and I was settling his estate, I cleaned out his safe deposit box and discovered an expired passport and visas to all the countries he wanted to visit. Dad knew where he wanted to go. He just kept putting off the journey. There were books to write. There were kids to put through college. The passport got dusty and Dad got Parkinson's disease. He waited too long. Don’t wait too long to do the things you want. Your time on this earth is limited.

Abby is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 702

I went to a seminar today outlining the advantages of upgrading to the new Avid Media Composer 6.0 software. I probably should have stayed at the office and continued to work my way through the growing stack of website updates, but I needed to get away for a while. By going to the seminar, I could imagine for a little while that I was a real filmmaker again. I've made my own films before, but these days I mostly occupy myself doing what other people want. A lot of this stuff isn't important, or even necessary, but I get paid to do it. Every time I see one of those posters that says It's better to fail at something you love than succeed at something you hate, I think it's all a lot of BS. If I followed my heart, or followed my passion, or whatever you're supposed to do these days, I wouldn't make any money at all.

I'm so self absorbed as it is, that following my own drummer would probably just lead to early insanity. Truthfully, doing mildly disagreeable things is what keeps me connected to the world. I may not understand why these things are important, but learning how to do them on time and within budget does give me an understanding of what other people value.

When I walk the dogs everyday, I realize that they'd be a lot happier running free. They love their walks, but I'm sure they both think that things would be even better without the leash. Maybe so, at least in theory anyway. The reality is that a big city is no place for a dog to be off leash. In Dallas, dogs like Dot and Dash would be run over by a car within five minutes. Maybe I'm on a leash too. I'm certainty not running free, but then I'm not causing any harm or doing damage either. Life is a trade off, for dogs and for people.

On the way home I stopped by the storage warehouse and picked up the things I'll need for tomorrow's photo shoot. Somehow, everything seemed heavier than the last time I used it. Once upon a time, I photographed fashion models, but times have changed. As long as the dogs don't bite me, or pee on my set, I'll be fine.

Puppies are our Dalmatians of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 577

I finally bit the bullet and got my Google+ profile set up today. Jeez, just what I need...one more chunk of social media real estate to watch over. My friend Larry Brauner convinced me that Google+ was important for bloggers though, and Becky Kopprasch had a neat tutorial on her blog showing how to conveniently move all your Facebook friends over to Google+ without a whole lot of pain. Two hours later I was good to go. The whole process was a bit more difficult than I expected. Before you can even sign up for Google+ you have to be invited. Then, you have to figure out how to attract friends. This is probably the hard part, because the last thing most people need is a second Facebook. Before I got my account properly configured, I found myself setting set a Yahoo account and a G-mail account as well. Somewhere along the line, I added Klout and Spotify accounts too. Maybe it's worth the effort though, because Google+ is totally integrated with Google search and participation will probably increase your Google ranking. Basically I've got a Google+ account now for exactly the same reason that my blog is hosted on Blogger: Google owns the Internet and I'm just along for the ride.

The rest of the day was pretty normal. I answered client's questions. I wrote some articles. I made a few website updates. I finished up the day by going to the bank and picking up something for dinner at Central Market. This is what I do every Friday. I'm supposed to write something on the topic of celebration for my writers group this month. My mind is a blank. I think the whole concept of celebration has become a bit fuzzy to me. Life isn't bad, but I'm certainly not giddy with excitement.

Maybe I should just quit watching television. Is anyone else sick of listening to politicians argue about the debt ceiling? That's all that seems to be on television these days. I'm tired of all the posturing on both sides. Jeez guys, just shake hands, make some sort of deal and move on. That's what most of us want you to do. I've had to make plenty of compromises in my life. I expect the people I've elected to do the same thing.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day