Saturday, May 9, 2009
Get into it.
I need to be held accountable. Someone should have exposed me for being The Ultimate Time Waster long ago, but at least I can do it myself. By committing myself to a blog that documents progress of my various projects, I can lean on guilt to be a motivating force. Ugly, but it's a tactic that's worked in the past. Here we go!
Thursday, July 10, 2008
How to be an unconditionally transparent douchebag
I recently came across a website of someone I went to high school with. You really just need to see it for yourself: http://thomasorganization.com/mike.html
The title of this post was the first thing that came into my head. Even a cursory glance at the site repulsed me, but I was lost as to why. I'm not exaggerating when I say I dwelt on this for hours. I practically studied the guy. Ultimately, I came to a personally important conclusion. This individual and I are almost polar opposites in what we are trying to accomplish in life.
My distaste for him stems from the feeling I get that everything on that webpage is just a means to an end. Mr. Thomas seems to approach his projects and ambitions in an entirely self-serving way. They are there to stand on, to distinguish him as better, higher up then the rest of us. After all, he is "one of the most innovative minds" out there, shouldn't he be recognized as such?
Ultimately I realized that his goal is "success". Everything else is subservient to that goal. And this is where we differ so importantly. I'm not trying to stand out from the pack, defining myself as more successful, more wealthy, more important. I just do the best I can to lift MY WORK out of the fray, not MYSELF. I have never really been success-oriented, in a personal way. Success, to me, is defined by the satisfaction of working on a project until completed, to the absolute best of my ability. Browsing through Mr. Thomas's site, I see no attention to craft or detail in his endeavors. His record label, especially, seems more a disservice to it's clients. In my eyes, it's true function is not to support artists. It serves to justify one more business card, "Mike Thomas: Record Label Owner". It's nearly perverse to me.
I don't feel as if I am right, and he is wrong. It's not that simple, ever. But I'm grateful for the site; anything that teaches you a little more about yourself has to be pretty dang special. Also, S8N H8R. That's funnier than anything I could ever dream up.
The title of this post was the first thing that came into my head. Even a cursory glance at the site repulsed me, but I was lost as to why. I'm not exaggerating when I say I dwelt on this for hours. I practically studied the guy. Ultimately, I came to a personally important conclusion. This individual and I are almost polar opposites in what we are trying to accomplish in life.
My distaste for him stems from the feeling I get that everything on that webpage is just a means to an end. Mr. Thomas seems to approach his projects and ambitions in an entirely self-serving way. They are there to stand on, to distinguish him as better, higher up then the rest of us. After all, he is "one of the most innovative minds" out there, shouldn't he be recognized as such?
Ultimately I realized that his goal is "success". Everything else is subservient to that goal. And this is where we differ so importantly. I'm not trying to stand out from the pack, defining myself as more successful, more wealthy, more important. I just do the best I can to lift MY WORK out of the fray, not MYSELF. I have never really been success-oriented, in a personal way. Success, to me, is defined by the satisfaction of working on a project until completed, to the absolute best of my ability. Browsing through Mr. Thomas's site, I see no attention to craft or detail in his endeavors. His record label, especially, seems more a disservice to it's clients. In my eyes, it's true function is not to support artists. It serves to justify one more business card, "Mike Thomas: Record Label Owner". It's nearly perverse to me.
I don't feel as if I am right, and he is wrong. It's not that simple, ever. But I'm grateful for the site; anything that teaches you a little more about yourself has to be pretty dang special. Also, S8N H8R. That's funnier than anything I could ever dream up.
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