I guess a blog is about letting your actual thoughts play out until you figure out what you are talking about. To what degree do you censor yourself? I like to censor myself through cryptic non-sequiturs and abstract ideas. But not here. Blogs are about anything you want them to be. I see all these, who has the best paleo blog or the best marketing slash life improvement blog. I don’t have a blog about “something.” I don’t sell something to make your life better. Let me try to articulate that more clearly. It seems that most people on the internet are in it these days for themselves. People are like if I listen to this guys podcast or read this guys blog or buy this guys audiobook will I be more famous/rich/successful/popular and so on? I don’t sell that kind of product. I’ve thought about it many times. And maybe one day I will. (sentence fragment, consider revising). No.
What do I sell. I sell t-shirts. The t-shirt business is interesting. I am just starting. And I realize I know nothing about the psychology of sales. Like literally everyone who looks at my shirts on killerbroccoli.com thinks they’re really cool really funny and says they’re great designs. And I’m pretty sure they’re not saying it to butter me up just because they’re my friends. Some of them have been strangers on the internet. But I have no idea how to turn those likers of my product into buyers of my product. To have them say yes, and click buy, and then own a shirt. Or a hundred shirts. It’s much better for me if you buy a hundred. So I sell entertainment I guess. If I’m not entertaining you then I am failing. Also in that category I sell live standup comedy, and on-camera acting. And I sell songs but since the advent of Spotify, monetizing songs has become stormy sailing for even the saltiest seadog. So I sell products and services.
Napoleon Hill says something to the effect of if you don’t weed the garden of your mind daily then weeds will grow in and take over the good plants. It’s paraphrased. But I have to do that. I have to say affirmations and intentions daily or I get grumpy. I’m not lifehacking or going to try to cleverly show you how to improve your life. I wanted to talk about ranting and complaining. I don’t want to rant and complain or be seen as a Negative Norman, or whoever, but I was saying in the beginning a blog is about letting your thoughts interplay until you figure it out. And if you’re convoluted and creative enough with your rants like Bob Lefsetz or the nematodes over at Vice then it becomes humor and the ranting and raving is appreciated as fanciful fermentation for merriment and the betterment of the of the bitter human soul. I’m allowed to call them nematodes because they awarded me Worst Album of The Month in June of 2010 in their magazine, an award that I treasure to this today. Never won an award before, never won one since.
I got interrupted. I was running in the park and I had all the ideas I wanted to write in the blog today and then I came in and someone was talking to me. This post would have been way better if I had grabbed it from the swirling ether of my mental circus when it was fresh and all the ideas were cumulonimbus-ing into word storms. Interruptions, as Tim Ferriss will tell you, are the worst.
From now on this blog will only be about underline fill in the blank.
Aaron still of Peta
10/02/2016