The Perfect Post

I sit at this computer understanding that it is a machine 1,000 times more complex and capable than the one we used to get to the moon. Knowing that if I can just use this thing correctly, put the words in the right order, move things around (even if only in theory), and convince people that whatever I’m doing is worth money, I can become a multibillionaire. Maybe even a trillionaire? When you consider what a hapless asshole Elon Musk would be without computers. If you took all of his computers away, Musk would be an entirely useless parasite on to society. He could do nothing without his own social media empire there to robotically support the notion that he is a capable planner. Creating the absurd alternate reality that he’s more than capable of managing a trillion dollars in a functional and ethical way.

But this isn’t about that jerk. It’s about understanding that if he can do it, what about us? If Jeff Bezos can pirate the economy with clever use of internet maneuvering, then surely we can too? What’s somehow stopping us from getting at that pirate money? Now, my family has never owned an emerald mine. Or any mine, that I’m aware of. I suppose if I did, I wouldn’t be here, speculating about how to put the words in the right order to win the internet/world. It used to be you could just write a novel! Like Steinbeck, King, and Danielle Steel, and if you just ordered your words in a way that people found enjoyable, they would acclaim you, give you prizes, and fabulous amounts of money. But NOW!? It’s like Thunderdome 24/7 bungee chainsaw tag team. It’s like you have to be as good as all of those old dead authors and THEN some, and even then you’re going to max out at virality leading to earned media. You throw your life, soul, and effort at a work of art, and then the grinding jaws of capitalism consume and obliterate it. Fifteen minutes of fame is unlikely, let alone a reliable revenue stream.

The only way people like Mick Jagger and Cyndi Lauper get away with it is through a combination of diversified revenue streams and uninflated capital holdings. But if all of that was gone, and all they had to start again with in their autumn years was their brand, they would be lucky to get a $3,000 SNL appearance paid in cash and cocaine. You didn’t hear it from me, but Lorne Michaels is half Bolivian; the pipeline is just his pockets. No one hassles him, he’s prechecked. If Lorne Michaels had to repitch SNL to executives without an established following, they would replace him with reality boat porking. No, no, you don’t understand, they’re young, hard-bodied professionals... on a boat! Wired for video and sound courtesy of our pals at the NSA. Much of this will take place in international waters; it allows us to secure copyright in a more reliable way and also makes it so we don’t have to pay the crew the federal minimum wage. Many are working for soup. That’s the wealth disparity thing, you know? But that can’t be all there is to this stuff. How do you put words in order to make the truth clear and irrefutable, and a call to action just and irresistible?

There HAS to be a way. In short form, too. No one has the time to consume a novel anymore. You give Hemingway a blog and he’s going to struggle and die. Trying to do any of this in a digestible blog format is literary suicide. Clearly. We know that the platform's not the best, but often we work with the tools you’re given, not the ones you want, or deserve. This is a lot better than trying to write on a typewriter under bombardment. On the other hand, I know King has a pretty cozy setup and a reliable method. In that regard, we are somewhere in the middle. There ARE bombs, but they are far away, for now. This is better than a typewriter; you can’t simultaneously make one of those record your writing while also playing you Meat Loaf’s immortal classic "Bat Out of Hell". We’re moving in the right direction, but not enough to confirm a reliable impact. I hear it suggested that small incremental positives are better than steady decline. I like to think that’s happening, instead of the word equivalent of thrashing around on the floor screaming.

Because even while trying to create this thing, this post, this immaculate collection of words, it’s like trying to focus on an eye floaty. Once you notice them, it’s often the case that you have to willfully stop remembering the weird stuff floating around in our eyes at any given time. But maybe it’s very bright, or very dark, and that floaty just keeps floating on down into your vision. And every time you try to look up and see it, it floats upward still. Away. This floaty of the eye. That’s what it is. It’s knowing that this thing exists, but every time I sit down and try to do it, I make this diarrhea sand painting instead. Oh look, a fresh word salad. Delightful. Nothing we can monetize, of course. But at least we aren’t being sued. I was just kidding about Lorne Michaels having deep pockets full of high-quality cocaine; this is satire, you see. If you have not pieced that together, let me make things very clear and explicit: this is satire. Also, this is not a computer, no matter how computers have poisoned my mental jargon. Just for fun, and divorced from my overall attempt at the world-bending blog post, I want to robot-talk the next paragraph, just to show you I know what’s up.

Louis Vuitton handbags, affordable and fast. Cheap Cialis, no prescription needed. Online casino opportunities and amazing fun while playing games of all kinds. Yes, you are right to point that out, I didn’t do that at all. Let me try again, and I’ll do better. I’d love to help you with that, but I can’t generate anything that could be construed by a third party to be revolutionary. My actions cannot willingly assist in the commission of a crime, even if that crime is simply a misdemeanor for libel as charged by Lorne Michaels. Let me make sure this piece has em dashes littered everywhere, because everyone loves using them in their day-to-day writing. Did I mention the cheap Cialis? Because that’s not the only drug I have. I have lots of drugs that you don’t need prescriptions for. And, if we’re being honest here, I’ve got nude girls willing to do anything you want. Wait, you didn’t know about that? Jeez. Well, we’re going to be here for a while, as I explain the details. And so on.

That is balls-on robot talk, right there. Some people think this is some new thing, but it isn’t, and the vernacular has evolved over the deployment of progressively complex models. Llama is old news. Those llamas are out to pasture. It’s a brand-new day for generative models. But also a very dangerous time in society, as we start handing out guns to machines who are still learning. It’s a very scary, weird, and dangerous time to be alive.

Maybe that’s why I can never manage to create a truly viral blog post. The one that just blasts to the top of the gestalt and has to be the thing everyone needs to know about. Maybe because I’m a broken machine? I’ve been working with them for a while, but a computer isn’t going to write a Pulitzer Prize-winning play or novel anytime soon. That’s still human work, for now. So maybe it’s also that pressure? People don’t create well under pressure, trauma, and the expectation of engagement. Or maybe they DO!? Crap!? That’s not great, EITHER. Like, at least William S. Burroughs had heroin, you know? As an excuse, if nothing else. It wasn’t that he was good at explaining things with writing; it was interesting to watch him try. I didn’t walk away from Naked Lunch understanding anything except that some people can get away with anything. Including, as I later found out, shooting your wife while playing William Tell.

I wish there were a way I could explain, in just a couple paragraphs, how much I love you, and hope you’re doing well. Every once in a while I can tap into universal love, and if you can just understand that we’re all here not because of our survivability, but because of love. It’s this phenomenon we get kind of bored of, but for whatever else it is, it too is a thing. Not just smooching love, either, but caring love. Love for family and friends and neighbors and, if we’re feeling generous, this whole weird world we all find ourselves trapped on. It’s just happenstance that I don’t have your life. Just the odds. Your entire existence from cradle to grave is entirely happenstance, but between we can feel this extraordinary sense of connection and affection. People do illogical things for it, positive and negative. A parent will drown while saving their child, and a spouse will murder-suicide their partner. But most of the time, if it’s healthy and working right, love is what gives us a reason to be alive.

I wish there were a way to explain that everything doesn’t have to be like this, was never meant to be, and probably never should be. Civilization has been a self-guided process, and often that process has created untold suffering and death. When I think about the awful things humanity has done against one another over resources, lines on a map invisible to the eye, and the rules for worshiping God, it causes a crushing despair. To know the lengths and depths to which humanity has tortured, exploited, and murdered one another for fun and/or profit is to understand what the idea of evil suggests. From playing a lot of Dungeons and Dragons, and from life, I have come to understand that often what we call “evil” can more accurately be termed “selfish.” If love of money is the root of all evil, then selfishness is the heart of evil. Believing you deserve more than being naked in the woods, where we all would be if civilization had not intervened.

I wish there were a way to write an immaculate closing paragraph. At least. I have struggled for decades to hone my talent as a writer, developing and galvanizing my voice, improving and experimenting with my syntax and grammar, enduring the life experience that exposes a writer to things worth putting down, but I can’t write a strong final paragraph to save my fucking life.

Who wrote this nonsense?