I was prolific today. I cranked out six designs. Not bad. If I were a novelist, I'd probably have knocked off several chapters.
But I'm not. It's bad enough to blog relatively unread for 20 years and then resort to trying to hawk t-shirts with bad puns on them. Writing novels that no one reads seems worse. And then you'd have to convince someone to publish one and watch it sit idle on Amazon. Or I could spam people who sign up for "How to be clever without really trying" ideas on my website with pleas for them to buy my book.
I'm not naming names, but there is this guy who wrote a book about how to come up with clever t-shirt ideas and he spams me daily about buying his book. All I really wanted from him was how to market the frigging things (t-shirts). Irony is, his profit from selling the book is probably about the same as selling a t-shirt.
Which leads me to believe the best way to make money is by scamming on people who are trying to make money. Thing is, I'm not really trying to make money (though I'll take it). I'm just looking for validation (and not for a parking ticket).
Though in the scheme of things, selling a few t-shirts doesn't really mean anything.
I might as well be writing greeting cards for Hallmark. And I tell you I pretty much refuse to buy a greeting card anymore. They are for the most part just stupid. I make my own these days (much to my children's chagrin). Though if there is money in the card, they pretty much tolerate the puns and dad jokes.
But back to validation. I used to be pretty adamant that once people discovered how clever I was I would have it made. I was able to delude myself with this premise for years. My blog wasn't being read because it just wasn't get the exposure it needed to branch out. So what if YouTubers were getting millions of followers for just playing video games and talking.
I felt this way at work for years too. If people could just see how clever my Photoshop art was or my puns, they'd appreciate my talent. That staff meeting where I made the mistake of showing a slide show of my clever life and its dismal failure shattered that belief.
For the most part people don't give a rip how clever I am or think I am. No one marvels at my jokes or Photoshop creations (especially since most had my face on them).
And while I play my guitars at home for myself I also fantasized that I could play for the people I work with and they would marvel at my musical talent. Now I know no one wants to hear me play my guitar and no one especially wants to hear me sing.
These are important realizations. I am not the center of anyone's universe (except maybe my own). And I can blather on about these realizations here with pretty much certainty that no one will read about them. And tomorrow I will post more of my designs, puns and dad jokes and act like people are just out there waiting to hear them.
Then this post will slide below the bottom of the screen and be a perfect example of "out of sight, out of mind."
Until then, here's one more design:
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