Bullshit v.s. Ceremony

Everyone in the motivational space often talk about “calling people on their bullshit” or even more common “calling themselves out on their own bullshit”.

When I hear that, I always hear negativity.

Every person has bullshit, but sometimes the more negativity you attribute to yourself, the harder it is to change.

I like to frame it different.

My bullshit does not mean I’m bad, my bullshit means I have at times chosen things that put me further from what I want.

I can’t remember which Greek character was condemned to this, but his hell was standing in a river, but when he bent down to drink, the river dried up.

I see myself in that every day.  The thirst that can never be quenched.

Greek hell aside, that is how I see my own bullshit. 

Bullshit is every place in which I have stood firmly and consistenly where what I want most can’t happen, just by the law of the environment.

Every hell I’ve ever read about is a loop.  You can’t get water forever, you burn forever, you get your liver pecked out by a bird, then it grows back and then picked out again..you guessed it..forever.

That’s because being unable to change truly is hell.

To me, one thing I’ve found helpful lately when it comes to breaking the pattern of my own bullshit is formality.

I really love the image of Eminmen on the cover of 8 mile, where its just him scribbling rhymes on his hand because he is so obsessed that he can’t turn it off.

But I don’t think most people will ever be that way.

Knowing you can do a task any time is one of the best ways to never do it ever. 

What do I mean by formality?

I guess what I mean, is ceremony, a dedication of time and or space.  A reservation with yourself for some kind of purpose.

I think about me trying to do comedy. 

Comedy is fucking hard, and the more I examine my own writing, the harder I want to work.  Last week, I bombed at a mic, but for 26 seconds of the mic, I told one joke that crushed.

Better yet, it was a joke that I believe in, it wasn’t me just comedically grasping at straws to get approval.

That joke came from a process, and that process is sitting down, every god damn day and writing.

Most of what I write is so deeply unfunny, I want to walk out of the room. 

But I can’t, because I have dedicated myself to this time.

But there is also a danger that you must look out for, an even more insidious part to the bullshit loop.

One things I’ve noticed about dedication, is that it creates momentum, that momentum breeds small wins, those small wins breed dopamine, then that dopamine is the true turning point.  Heres why, once you feel good, something, or some one, will appear as if by black magic to distract you.

There is a voice in your head that will say “well I’ve worked pretty hard so I deserve a little break”.  That voice is, at least for me, almost always wrong. 

You need healthy balance, but chaos is a siren, and the more you listen, the more you want to listen.

When I think about all the amazing musicians and comics and general creatives I’ve ever met, I can say that most of them, without a doubt, have never truly weeded out the cause of their own distruction.  We are all born with this dark card, that shuffles in the deck of who we are.  And somehow, against all odds, it comes to the top when we are at the brink of change and breakthrough.

You can never lose that card, but you can with painful effort, learn to see it in the deck and control it.

So for me lately, the way to get closer to what I want, is to show some fucking respect for it.

Wanting someone with no respect is a violation, and I think its similar with our own ambitions.  If you really want what you talk about, you need to court it like the love of your life.

You don’t leave the love of your life on read for 3 days or 3 years, you don’t skip time with your love if you can avoid it, you make time.

You dedicate time, you formally recognize their value.

I hope you find a way to stop being so casual about what makes you so great and treat it like the jewel that it is