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The Best Brand There Is
October 11, 2013 3 Comments

The Best Brand There Is

It’s a pretty common story that goes something like this:

Once upon a time there were a bunch of people with blogs that were like most blogs: read by friends, family, and a few strangers. One day — after their blogs sat untouched for a long time — these people announced, “I am rebranding myself!”

Blogs were redesigned and, after a few new updates announcing the rebranding, the blogs went back to gathering digital dust.

The end…

THE ALIGHTY BRAND!

Anybody promoting something online has probably seen the advice:

“It’s all about the brand!”
“My brand is…”
“The brand is everything!”
“BE YOUR BRAND!!!”

I can only think of a handful of people who are their brand; most others are a boring copy of something they will never become. If “who you are” is all about copying others in attempt to repeat their success, that’s not a brand — that’s desperation.

There’s nothing wrong with being inspired by others
. Hell, there’s really nothing wrong with trying to copy the success of others instead of following who you really are and finding success (or at least happiness) on your own. Just don’t shove it down the throats of others with a wooden spoon and call it a “brand worth following.”

The Best Brand There Is

It’s a sad thought, a person saying, “I need to rebrand myself.” It indicates that they were either not honest about who they are from the start, or that they are unhappy with who they are and trying to be somebody else. I’m not sure one can fake being something they are not. Maybe some people can, but it takes a certain skill and effort that seems so tiring. (At least a skill and effort that seems better spent on being themselves.)

It seems simple, really: be yourself. Create your own content from the heart, even if mimicking the work of others and making noise will bring more attention. Eventually, most people tire from noise and look for something genuine. I’m not saying volume and preying on those wanting to be loud in their own right can’t work — you might even make money along the way with that plan — but the best brand out there is yourself.

No one else is you, and that makes all the difference.

Filed Under: Social Media
In Quiet Hours
October 8, 2013 3 Comments

In Quiet Hours

It’s quiet right now…

Dark.

Just the way I like it…

Early.

The world is still asleep. Everything is still, and the day is full of potential.

A Matter of Time

This time matters. Eyes are opening — some dreading the day that’s ahead; others welcoming it. Some just want to go back to sleep — if smart phones have done nothing else, it makes calling or emailing the boss from bed to tell them you’re “sick” a convenience. Roll back over while everything is still warm and settled to your shape and see if you can get back to that dream where everything was all right
.

For others: “Just ten more minutes of sleep…” The smell of coffee creeping beneath doors, telling some that it’s okay to rise. Cups raised, resting on chins; savor the smell of morning. The sounds of closing car doors and engines…wheels on pavement and the squeal of bus brakes. Just like that, the world is alive, a humming thing in the darkness of nothing.

It’s Time

It’s time to get moving. Close the Word file and finish this entry. Drag out the work computer and swap places with my own laptop. Log on and jump into the workday, wishing I had just ten more minutes to do my own thing, to keep this moment of silence alive.

If I do nothing else today, I will have at least written this.

Sometimes we spend so much time thinking about the legacy we will leave behind when we’re dead and gone that we don’t think about what we’ll leave behind at the end of the day.

Filed Under: Life, writing Tagged:
The Wisdom of the Dead
September 29, 2013 3 Comments

The Wisdom of the Dead

This blog entry written by Jay Lake is…remarkable. (Sad, but remarkable.)

I’m not sure I’ve seen someone put into words what it’s like to stare death in the face as well as Lake.

The Instant Sage

It’s weird being around a dying person. Many people seem to think the dying have the answers to all that ails the living. Maybe it’s because many people like easy answers, or at least inspiration — even at the expense of one on their way out for good. Get a disease that marks you as dead and, the closer you get to the end, the more “wise” some people may see you.

All it takes is a life-threatening illness to be seen as someone with the big insight!

The Enlightened One

I cared for my sister when she was dying from cancer. At clinics and hospitals, I noticed people around us who weren’t dying looking at my sister with a weird mix of pity and sadness…but also like she had answers. People who worked up the courage to talk to her treated her as though she could give them an answer that would make their lives better while her life continued to decay. It’s as if people believe once one knows they are dying, suddenly a flood of wisdom falls into their heads (tucked in between all the tumors in my sister’s case) just waiting to be dispensed.

If I tell a person, “It’s important to appreciate the little things in life,” they might nod and say, “Yep!” But coming from my sister during the years she had cancer, the very same phrase carried weight to those who spoke with her. They might not change a thing about their lives, but in that moment as they nodded and swore they’d take that to heart, it was clear they were sincere if nothing else.

A Matter of Perspective

The dying aren’t necessarily wise — at least no more or less than anyone else. My father also died from cancer. In the time leading up to his death, he partied harder than ever and ran himself more ragged than the disease that consumed him. There was no wisdom to dispense because he knew what was coming and he did what he could to have some wild memories before his memories were no more.

If you didn’t read the Jay Lake post I linked to above, here’s what he has to say about dying and wisdom:

It doesn’t grant me any special wisdom or insight, but it does give me perspective.

In dying, I’d dare say Jay Lake is living more than most people I know. He’s traveling, seeing people he loves, and doing what he can to keep going until he can go no more. I’m sure perspective factors into that, but from what I can see, he’s continuing with the life he’s always lived. Call it wisdom, perspective, or something else — but most of the people I’ve seen marked for death continued their lives mostly the way they lived them. In whatever perspective comes to them, they see that the wild notions of skydiving, climbing mountains, and finally mastering the street luge isn’t going to happen with a body pumped full of Cisplatin.

And yet, people still rush about and stress and find it hard to relax, even though the dying ones tell us to take it easy. Don’t work so much overtime
. Spend time with people you love. Do some things you enjoy that you can repeat. Challenge yourself with something bigger now and then, but more than not, sustain a happy life before it’s too late.

That’s what the dying tell us.

And so many — including those who seek whatever perspective the dying have — nod in the moment and then go back to their hurried pace before encountering another dying seer.

The Wisdom of the Dead

When my sister died, many of her friends read this poem she wrote:

I am a tapestry of all the people
Who have touched my life.
Good or bad, they’ve given me something
And I hope that I’ve given in return.

Rainbow people, in pastel hues,
Lend me their calm tranquility,
Their love of all things that the sun
Kisses with golden hand.
People of vibrant purples and reds
Offer passion and conviction in their beliefs and causes.

So many different colored threads to be woven,
Day by day and warp by warp.
I hope when my work is finally over
And I can show the end result,
That I have done justice to you all
And the wonderful gifts you’ve given me.

The poem seems to indicate that maybe there is a flood of wisdom reserved for the dying, an uncanny ability to know what the living need to hear. Clearly my sister is saying thank you to those who helped her and hoping she gave something to those who knew her in return. (She is.) The funny thing about his poem? It was written in 1989, long before my sister was sick.

We don’t need to talk to the dying for the answers we already carry with us; we all know what we need to do. The tragedy comes when we choose to act when it’s too late…

Filed Under: Life Tagged: ,
On Happiness
September 23, 2013 2 Comments

On Happiness

Carl Sandburg wrote a poem about happiness. It goes like this:

Happiness
I asked the professors who teach the meaning of life to tell me what is happiness.
And I went to famous executives who boss the work of thousands of men
.
They all shook their heads and gave me a smile as though I was trying to fool with them
And then one Sunday afternoon I wandered out along the Desplaines river
And I saw a crowd of Hungarians under the trees with their women and children and a keg of beer and an accordion.

A Happy Weekend

The weekend that was saw this:

  • A visit with my mom and uncle.
  • A couple simple, but nice, breakfasts.
  • Recording podcasts with a friend.
  • A good evening nap on the couch.
  • A couple beers while chatting with my wife.
  • A Facebook challenge to a friend to post a photo of him wearing a tiara. (Yes, there exists a photo of me in a tiara in an attempt to get him to post a photo.)
  • The longest walk (on a vaguely cool evening) since my wife sprained her ankle.
  • A nice, long drive with the windows down to suck up a bit more of the cool evening.
  • Waking up early Sunday to step outside into cool weather on the first day of fall.
  • Watching a movie with my wife.

A Happy Week

This week: I’m sure there will be walks, writing, and time to read and relax. A dinner with a friend is already scheduled for Wednesday. Cooler weather in the mornings I go into the office; darker mornings and a little extra sleep if needed on the days I work from home. Unknown things that will just happen and be cool. A lot of simple, repeatable things.

Carl Sandburg was right: there’s no real secret to being happy — it’s as easy as finding things you like that you can do every day. The rare bad day at work doesn’t win because when it’s done, I can let that fall to the side and go for a walk and talk with my wife about other things. I can write, sit on the couch and enjoy the sound of the dishwasher, or meet up with a friend.

When happiness is found in everyday things, it’s pretty easy to be happy every day.

Filed Under: Life
A Writer Is Always Working
September 17, 2013 6 Comments

A Writer Is Always Working

Writing can be a complex or simple thing. It’s not so much how you look at it, but how you work with it. There are writers with skill I admire who maintain that writing is a difficult act, despite their many years in a chair producing
. Others seem to rattle it off with no effort — some, with the zeal of youth because they are prepared.

It’s not about inspiration; it’s all about letting something complex bubble in their heads, to finally crack open and spill out when ready. There’s work in that act so many don’t see: long walks at night, crunching scenes while shopping for groceries, or talking out loud while driving on back roads and highways…pitting characters against each other and seeing a myriad endings to so many conflicts.

They are the people who can find solace even in a crowded room full of chittering people, the droning of it all becoming its own white noise perfect for thinking. They are the people who sometimes slip from one-on-one conversations, when something said by a friend fills that gap in their head that’s waited days to be filled. Their eyes closed, they might not be napping — just focusing more than usual on which way to take a scene.

They might appear lazy, lying prone on a couch and staring at the ceiling, but be sure of this: a writer is always working!

 

Filed Under: writing
The Places Where I’ve Read
September 12, 2013 1 Comment

The Places Where I’ve Read

Sometimes when I write, I feel a connection to the front room on 1422 Dunleer. In those moments, I’m 12 years old again, trapped in that horrid couch made sometime in the 70s. I say trapped because the couch was tilted back and set low to the ground; so low that when my mother and step father had friends over and wine was had, any adults sitting on that couch either required help freeing themselves from its grasp or had to wait for sobriety to return so they could roll off the couch and onto the floor, where they had better odds of standing
.

That front room on Dunleer was a magical place…it’s where I read Stephen King’s Different Seasons and John Irving’s The World According to Garp. Before that, in our den with the shag carpet and sunken area around a free-standing fireplace, I came to know the short stories of John Cheever while watching the fire reflected in the glass sliding door on the other side of the room, the only thing between me and snow and 50 degrees below zero with wind chill.

But there was a house before Dunleer…

Grove Street

134 E. Grove, where I learned to read. My older sister’s bedroom was littered with books; it was like someone tipped over a small library on her floor. Part of the fun, there, was in the discovery…finding The Gold Bug and Other Tales, a collection of Edgar Allan Poe stories, buried at the bottom of it all. “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” fascinated me while also terrifying me. At night before falling to sleep, I was convinced any sound that didn’t belong was an orangutan with a straight razor coming for me in the dark.

On stormy nights, it was going to my mother’s room, climbing between cool sheets, and having her read from Carl Sandburg’s Rootabaga Stories. To this day, I do not tire from reading “The Dollar Watch and the Five Jackrabbits.”

There were winter afternoons in the living room, flooded with light from a huge picture window to the backyard. I could lie there all day with the warmth of shag carpet on my stomach after staying in place long enough to become its symbiont. Why not read Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine again in the middle of a Chicagoland winter?

Other Houses

  • 527 S. Chestnut, where I consumed Jack London’s works in 6th grade. It was my Kansas year — a year of living with my father. To this day, that book is one of my all-time favorite Christmas gifts.
  • 2735 Raintree Drive, where the bands Rush and Iron Maiden led me to discover the Romantic poets, which gave way to the discovery of the Transcendentalists.
  • The apartment on Grayson Drive, where I fell in love with my childhood all over again after rereading Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time.
  • 521 E. Worth, where I started writing with purpose and discovered my favorite book, Robert Olmstead’s A Trail of Heart’s Blood Wherever We Go.
  • Denton I — The house on the access road of Interstate 35, where I got back into comic books.
  • Denton II — The apartment in the middle of Cement City, where I think all I read were comic books!
  • 1670 Choteau Circle, where reading helped me get through being a primary caretaker for my sister as she stopped reading for good.
  • The apartment where I’m writing this blog entry, where I discovered Jim Lynch’s The Highest Tide, Border Songs, and Truth Like the Sun.

Future Houses

I don’t know where the future will find me, but I do know one thing if the past is any indication of the present: I will always continue reading books that I will carry with me until the day comes that I can read no more…

Filed Under: Books Tagged:
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