“80% of success is showing up”
and why I proved Woody Allen’s quote to be utter balderdash
Well I showed up last night.
Just as I have for 12 years before it.
And just like the 12 years and one more long night I awoke this morning to the expected reaction to my 4 (FOUR) insightful, thoughtful and hopefully entertaining articles — Nothing.
Let the freedom bell ring!
My four spoiler free film review articles received ONE genuine response on Medium and ONE genuine response on Substack.
Bit fucking shit that isn’t it?
But it was to be expected. You see, I wasn’t selling anyone fucking Bitcoin or palming off a boring ramble of words created by chatgpt or other humanity destroying AI nonsense. I wasn’t trying to sell a “service” to gain an “audience”, I hadn’t copied and pasted utter garbage I found on the internet as I’m too stupid to engage my own grey matter (that’s the brain for all you chatgpt enthusiasts) and I hadn’t written numbered articles such as “7 reasons why I can make you successful” or “You’re in a toxic relationship and I’m going to tell you why”. People (if indeed they are human) should be beaten on the kidneys with sticks by feral children until they piss blood for writing dog shit like this, but I digress.
No, I penned and published four spoiler free film reviews with my Youtube videos attached. They were all well created, crafted, punctuated correctly and presented in brief bursts of cinematic inspiration. All my own creations, my own words, thoughts and ideas. OK film and cinema appreciation may be a niche market but how do you account for the 12 years of despair and anonymity that came before last night?
It’s a rhetorical question and for the chatgpt enthusiasts among you, you may wish to look up what “rhetorical” means. If you’re not too busy squandering your human gift of writing to a fucking machine. Why don’t you just surrender to Elon Musk now and go and get a microchip implanted in your head?
That’s probably a rhetorical question too. Who the fuck knows in this strangest of all possible worlds?
So I showed up, again.
I was ignored.
Again.
I’ve been proving Woody Allen’s quote to be bullshit for a dozen years and I’ll do so until my dying day.
Lucky I’m not trying to sell any books I s’pose.
Thanks for reading. I hope this message in a bottle in The Matrix finds you well, prospering, and the right way up in an upside down world.
Stephen Blackford. I like your short essay. I have no idea if it’s accurate; but I found it entertaining and I didn’t notice the non-word “shined” at all.
“Let’s make all verbs weak.” Wonder which slavering, drooling tech-bro stumbled on that notion and believed he had found the holy grail of existence. Light shown down upon his balding head and he heard a choir of unseen voices singing “For He’s A Jolly Good Fellow.” Parsifal the tech bro.
See? Our lives could be worse, Stephen.
Steven thanks for showing up. I really enjoy reading your articles, especially ones like this. As long as you continue to show up, I will continue to read.