No More Bore.

As I've written many times before, when you write a blog as assiduously as I write this one, it changes your life.

Anything you do as regularly as I write this blog changes your life. For good or bad. For me, I think, blogging has been good. It's helped me in many ways.

For one, it makes me a better writer. In the same way that swimming every day or running or practicing French would make you better at those pursuits. 

When I worked in an agency and I was "competing" with another team (though I worked, generally alone) I would find confidence based on the fact that I've written a couple million more words than everyone else. 

That's a lot of practice.

I've worked with words long enough to know how to make words work to solve a problem. That's why whenever there was a crisis in the agency and a lot had to be done in a little time, my cage was most-often rattled. I often felt like a wily pitcher. Not only do I have command of my "stuff," I've faced this circumstance before and amn't likely to get all hetted up because there are two-on and none out. I've worked my way out of jams before. 

Second, writing every day forces upon the writer an acuity you might not otherwise possess. It's like being an avid coin collector. You get in the habit of noticing things that gallop by most others. When you're always looking for the next thing to write, you have to be aware of your surroundings. You have to be like a detective looking for clues at a crime scene. You have to heighten your awareness and your <er> perspicacity. Otherwise, you'll soon run out of subject matter.

Third, you get in the habit not just of noticing things but of noticing that you're noticing. If you don't notice that you've noticed something, you'll forget what you noticed.  By the time you have to write something down there's nothing around to write. That's no good.

One of these noticings I've made a habit of noticing happened just an hour or so ago when I was driving to the grocery store. The song I pasted above came on the car stereo.

I listened and heard all the missed notes, and the double-hit notes. Ray Charles playing "Low Society" reminded me a bit of Thelonious when he played "Dinah, Take 2." It seems to my unmusically-trained ears that Charles and Monk miss as many notes as they hit. Neither do they give a hoot.

I pressed 'back' on my car stereo and listened to Low Society again. Yep. I heard right.

Stopped at a light, I violated the law and typed myself a note about the missed notes. I typed, "Genius means making the best mistakes."

Mistakes are what make the world go round. Change. Improve. Mistakes are what make laughter. Love. Discovery. More.  Mistakes are what make humans human. 

And as I wrote for IBM Watson, when I tried to give Watson voice, "humans are my favorite carbon-based life-form."

Mistakes--not hallucinations-- are what the technocrats and the dweebstocracy behind the $4,000,000,000,000 being spent annually on AI do not, will not and cannot understand.

Just like the space between the notes makes the notes better, the errors, the ers, ahems and likes between thoughts, the mis-hit keys, make the keys eventually hit with precision more loaded with impact.

Many things are funny only because they're stupid.

Same thing here.

Many of the most interesting things in the world happen by happenstance not planning. Yet people plan their lives away then wonder why they're sad, or bored.

There's no real point in any of this other than the world should maybe take a step backwards and lighten up a bit. We should stop trying to weigh every word, process every thought and calculate causality out the wazoo.

In doing that--mankind and machinekind--perfect themselves into absolute boredom.

And if genius, as I wrote to myself makes the best mistakes. Boredom is the worst.

And will be the end of us all.

My Version

Some say the world will end in fire.

Some say in ice.

I say it will end in boredom.

Which really won't be nice.

I'd rather be consumed by fire.

Or frozen in a block of ice.

But I'll probably die by reading shit like this.

Eighteen times, not just twice.