This video made the rounds some six months ago, and I’m here to annoy you with it once again. I do this because I think it’s important, for two reasons:
1. Jim Carrey is not making a funny face, proof that it is indeed possible. While he is donning some ridiculous commencement garb, as seems to be a requirement for graduation speakers, he appears to be completely serious in demeanor and delivery. Rarely do we get to see Carrey in this form, like a snow leopard in pursuit.
2. He has a point. So often we are tempted to take the “safe” path, and Jim reminds us here that there are no guarantees in anything in life, including the things we aren’t passionate about. But he says it much better. It’s worth 61 seconds:
Think about what you want in 2015. And think about what you don’t want. No matter which path you choose, you might fail. But what happens if you succeed?
Due to an overwhelmingly sympathetic response to part one of this list (and the fact that I was going to do this anyway), we are back with more do’s and don’t’s of social media. To the list!
Do: Follow the accepted practices of each platform.
Twitter limits its tweets to 140 characters. This is so you’ll keep your ideas short and concise, and find a way to fit them within that parameter. It is NOT so you’ll take your, long, rambling diatribe and spread it out over 9 tweets, each ending with a fraction to tell us which part in the series it is (e.g. “4/9” = Part 4 of 9 in Sam’s scathing response to President Barack “Hussein” Obama’s anti-American views on immigration. This is only part 4, so stay tuned for more half-baked thoughts and run-on sentences!)
Tweets are supposed to be short for a reason. Nobody wants to read your manifesto there. If you need to push your long form ideas on the rest of the world, get a blog. Like I did.
Don’t: Overdo it.
“Hashtags! My nephew’s roommate Braden – a bona fide “social media expert,” btw – said something about hashtags once. I’m on twitter now, trying to promote something. I must use hashtags! I must use them, now, always, and forever! It’s what Braden would do!”
This seems to be the line of thinking for many a social media user (hashtags extend to Facebook and Instagram now, and probably other stuff, too), especially those promoting products or managing their company’s page. I applaud the effort, but we end up with updates that look like this:
#Tech junkies: did you know some of your favorite #brands are #closingthegap on #integrated media? Check out our detailed #analysis on market #trends: http://www.shortenedlink.com #brands #techjunkies #marketexplosion
I won’t get in to the actual point behind hashtags here, but bottom line: those are helping no one. Nobody is searching twitter for “#integrated.” Plus, it looks unappealing. One or two strategic or funny hashtags are great, but like everything else here, less is more.
Do: Work out.
Going to the gym: I support it!
Don’t: Tell everyone every time you work out.
Sharing photos/statuses of you at the gym: I do not support it! And neither does anyone else in the world!
You’re working out. We’re happy for you. Guess what though? If you don’t post about it on social media, the workout still counts. Your body will still accept it. Hooray for health!
Do: Share old photos of you and your loved ones.
That stuff’s great, especially if it’s more than 15 years old. It’s fun to see you as a shaggy teen, before the rigors of life turned you into a straight-laced, no nonsense regional manager. Keep it coming.
Do: Remember to live first, post second.
We’re ending with a back to back “do” here, because that’s how the Lodge rolls. Bottom line: remember to just do the fun things in life, without having to always prove to everyone that you did them. I get you want to share the cool things on social media. I do it. We all do. But maybe not all of them, always. Maybe it’s okay to just do that cool thing, and share it with the people who were there, and not the whole world.
Some of my best times in life have been during quiet times on social media; a weekend in the mountains with my lady, or a thursday night jam session with the boys. Sure, maybe I’ll post a single pic or a random thought to Twitter, but the rest of the time, it’s radio silence. And not forcing myself to photograph and share every little piece of it with the world allows me to be present in the moment, and focus on enjoying the things that are happening, rather than documenting them.
I’ve pried my latest book from the icy grip of Amazon exclusivity and spewed it across the world wide web. And by “pried,” I mean Amazon willingly went along with my request, then went back to counting its trillions. Anywho, Emails from Heaven is available on a bunch of different sites now, so if you have a non-Kindle e-reader, hate Amazon, or are just more of a Nile person, you can get it elsewhere. Here’s a list of the links:
All of those sites are totally legit. P.S. Did you know the book currently has a 4.7 star average on Amazon? And most of those reviews are from people I don’t even know. If you were on the fence about this book before, please, surrender to pack mentality and feel the love.
The social media scene is such a two-faced animal; great for keeping up with old friends, sharing your thoughts and ideas, and learning new things about people you know, and terrible for those exact same reasons. We all get annoyed from time to time by the things we see on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ Instagram, yet we keep coming back. Its hold on us is unrelenting.
But let’s face it: some people are more annoying than others in the social department of the ‘ol world wide web. We all have at least one friend who makes us cringe every time they post another annoying photo/video/political status. And if you can’t identify that friend, chances are, it’s you.
But there’s good news! The Otter Lodge is here with a few helpful tips to ensure you’re not that guy (or gal). We’ll call them do’s and don’t’s of social media, and as always, they’re brought to you with a pure heart and the best intentions. So:
Do: Share important moments in your life.
Get engaged? A promotion? Run the table in a beer pong tournament? We want to hear about it! Sharing important life events like these are what social media are all about. Post a photo or status and let the likes roll in.
Don’t: Share every moment in your life.
As with drinking and recreational drug use, it’s easy to take a good thing and go overboard. If you find yourself posting many times a day, writing meaningless run-on sentences, or just using the term “LOL” a lot, please, step away from the keyboard and cleanse yourself in the nearest body of water. Like many things in life, social media are more enjoyable when you use them sparingly. How many times have you said to yourself, “man, it’s annoying how little (Person X) posts on Facebook”? Probably never. When in doubt, it’s better to say nothing.
Here’s a good test: take whatever it is you’re about to post, and assume everyone else will find it exactly half as interesting as you. (They generally do.) If this level of interesting will still add value to others’ lives, you’re good to go. If not, move it along.
Do: Have (at least a small amount of) respect for punctuation and grammar.
I understand. This is the internet. It’s not the Harvard Law Review. The rules are more relaxed. We’re not looking for perfection here. But please, write in a way that if a person had to answer whether or not you’d completed the third grade, they would at least consider checking “yes.”
Don’t: Communicate with your significant other through Facebook.
Chances are, you read this one and thought to yourself, “well, duh.” Congratulations! You are a sane adult. But believe it or not, there’s a fringe group that will actually do their couple communication through public Facebook wall posts. Such as:
“Hey babe. Just wanted to say I love you and you make me SOOOOOO happy!!!”
Terrific that you feel this way! May I suggest actually telling your “babe” this, and not the entire internet, which is what you’re doing when you post it to Facebook.
“I’ll be home around 7, can’t wait to see you ;)”
I’m confident he/she can’t wait, either, but are either of you equipped with a device that would send a text message, email, or make a phone call? Perhaps the very device you used for this post?
Do: Share photos of your kid.
Fact: you love your kid. Your parents love your kid. Your siblings love your kid. Hell, your friends might even love your kid. They want to see pictures and check up on the little bugger’s growth. A great way to do this efficiently is a social media post.
Don’t: Unrelentingly share photos of your kid.
You already posted a kid pic this week? Great! You’re set on that front at least until next week. Heck, why not give yourself the rest of the month off? Spend some time with that kid without photographing and uploading it. You’ve earned it.
What now? You’re uploading 8 more photos? Right now? I’m not sure that’s necessary. We just saw a few of him/her this morning. Our daily craving for pictures of your kid is satisfied. And wait…those are all basically the same photo. The pose is hardly even different. The kid…the kid is making the same face he/she made last week, too. That’s not a new face. We’ve seen that face. No, wait! That doesn’t mean I’m asking for more! Wait! No!
The truth is gang, when we see your little bundle of joy on our feeds every damn day, we start to grow immune to his/her charms. Maybe even sour a little. And we definitely don’t want to sour on your kid due to overexposure. I know, for you, it could never be too many pictures. After all, it’s YOUR kid. It came from YOUR body. You love it more than life itself. Understandable. Just remember, for the rest of us, there’s a limit.
I’ve been polluting the internet and the pages of books with my misguided rants and ruminations for the better part of six years now. The bad news: I don’t plan on stopping. However! There is good news: I think I’ve pinpointed where it all started. A few days ago, I ran an internet search for randomly stumbled upon this gem: The Foul Play Blog.
Foul Play is, from what I can tell, my first attempt at writing in a public forum. It’s the blog I set up before going to Alaska, and, looking back on it, the early groundwork for what would eventually become Memoirs of a Gas Station. The posts are attributed to “Sam and Jim,” because of some Marxist idea I had that we’d both contribute equally and on a regular basis to form a levelheaded blog utopia, but in reality Jim didn’t end up posting more than once, probably due to his swift and legitimate desire to distance himself from me and my idiotic rambles. Understandable. So…it was mostly just me.
Browsing through the limited number of posts, there are many questions. For example: is this what the internet looked like in 2008? Why is the writing so odd and disjointed? What’s the deal with that belt I’m wearing in the picture? Why is this blog, after lying dormant for six years, still even active?
A good lesson on the permanence of the internet, perhaps. Or maybe just what a finger looks like after being smashed in a door.
Today I bring you Random Acts of Otter, in which the Lodge upholds its civic duty by disseminating crucial information YouTube videos about the otter community. This particular video was brought to my attention by friend of the Lodge Tracy Hindman on Facebook, and if you haven’t seen it yet, it’s a must-watch.
The story goes: This baby otter pup was found marooned in the wild by a rescue team who nursed it to health and now attempts to teach it how to swim. In case anyone is wondering, yes, I will accept a baby sea otter for Christmas.
Far as I can remember, it started on a family vacation to Hawaii when I was a freshman in college. I borrowed my mom’s point-and-shoot Nikon, turned it to macro mode, and took a closeup picture of an orange flower. It turned out well, and this gave me the first indication that “normal” people like me could make good pictures, not just glitzy New York professional photographers. It also made we want to do it again – I was hooked. Through stops in Dallas, Alaska, and now, Colorado, I gradually began taking more and more pictures, and committing to the idea of photography. I started with landscapes and wildlife, then moved to portraits, sports, and headshots. I moved from a simple point-and-shoot camera to my first entry level DSLR, then added a few aftermarket lenses, and eventually ended up with the professional setup I have now, with multiple camera bodies, strobes, light modifiers, radio triggers…the whole bit. Somewhere along the line, people started paying me to take photos, and only then did I start to call myself a photographer.
I share with you this long paragraph of establishing text for one reason: to prove that I enjoy taking photographs. Love it, actually. Wake up before sunrise just to do it sometimes. Occasionally walk out on to frozen lakes in January in Minnesota in sub-zero temperatures to take pictures in the dark. And so on and so forth.
I love photography and am drawn to its charms. Borderline addicted to the continuing challenge of learning more about it and making better images. It gets me going.
So, we good on that? Good. Because I have a suggestion:
Put the damn camera down.
Yes, a photographer asking you to stop taking so many pictures. To get out from behind the camera (phone). Not always. But sometimes. And on a regular basis. WAY more than you do now.
A week or two ago I mentioned something about the Minimalists, a blog/book I’d been reading about using less shit. Then in the last few days, I stumbled upon an old post by them about a concept I’d been thinking about for a while. It hit a chord and reminded me why I’ve been taking my camera along to fewer and fewer leisure activities lately.
“Aren’t you going to take a picture?” someone will ask, probably used to me setting up a tripod or running around hitting the shutter, or at least holding up my iPhone. Recently I’ve been telling them “no.”
“Why?”
Because I’m looking at it.
Whatever it is – a sunset, a mountain, a concert, a herd of wild boars – I realized that often times by focusing on getting the perfect shot, I was actually missing the scene itself. Even if I did end up with a good picture, I’d missed the live event. I was looking down at my camera, instead of appreciating the moment. Being present. Living. The aforementioned blog post sums it up well:
My desire to capture the moment actually ruins the moment. It makes it less beautiful, less real, and in many ways less photo-worthy.
Second, the “result” is artificial. Time doesn’t happen in this kind of take-and-retake way. We don’t get to re-do the experiences of our lives. And yet we take our pictures as if we can “get it just right.” It gives us a false sense of security, a sense that we can not only change the moment, but somehow save only its best parts.
It’s not going to stop taking pictures. Hell, I’m being paid to do it. BUT NO, seriously, it’s not about that. I’ll always take pictures for my own enjoyment – that’s how this photography thing started, and that’s the most important part of any art form or hobby; the stuff you do just because you love it, when you aren’t being paid. That’s when it’s the most real. And that won’t ever change for me. But I will be more deliberate about when I’m using my camera. Sometimes I’ll be the photographer, and sometimes I’ll just be an observer, and I think that’s a good balance.
So, give it a shot. BOOM, pun. Anyway, see if you like it. Leave your camera at home one day of the vacation. Leave your phone at home (GASP!) next time you go hiking. Or if that’s too crazy for you, just leave it in your pocket. You can do it; I believe in you. And where you’d usually put that sucker on panorama mode and shove your brother out of the way so he doesn’t ruin the shot, just…do nothing. Stand there and take it in. Be present. Make a memory instead of trying to manufacture one.
I think the smartphone thing has played a big role in creating the always-need-to-digitally-capture-anything-remotely-interesting world in which we’ve found ourselves. Now, we all have cameras in our pockets, virtually all the time. The barriers are removed, so we take pictures of everything, all the time, because of some idea that the moment is somehow less real or meaningful if we don’t have a 10 megapixel image to show people who weren’t there. But that’s the thing: sometimes, trying to “preserve” the moment is actually getting in the way of the moment. If I’m not making sense, maybe Louis CK will:
(Louie is, as always, NSFW/home/life, and wonderful.)
Hi. As you may know, November is National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo for short, obviously). As such, I am being graced with the honor of serving on an “author panel” at the Chisago Lakes, MN, public library on November 18. Yes, taking it back to the homeland under the guise of being a real, credible author who actually knows things. It seems I’ve fooled them as well.
Seriously, Chisago City is my hometown and I think it will be a blast to talk and answer questions alongside two other authors and see how many people will actually show up. To that end, if you live near the area (this includes the Minneapolis/St Paul metro and surrounding regions), you should come by and be with me. It would be fun to see you there and have you ask a question or two mock me in a public forum. There will be drinks at my parents’ house after. (I just decided this but I’m sure they’re fine with me inviting people over to drink on a Tuesday.)
I’ve been unemployed self-employed for just about 6 months now, an arbitrary amount of time to do the here’s-how-it’s-going-so-far thing. I’m consistently busy and not yet totally broke, so I’d say, overall, net win. But I wanted to share a few other things I’ve learned in these first 6ish months.
1. There’s a lot to be done.
There’s this old adage among freelancers and solopreneurs (which, the Otter Lodge has learned, is a thing), that goes, “not only are you the president and CEO, you’re also the marketing department, accountant, and janitor! Yowza!” Or something like that. But it’s true: I’m responsible for chasing the work, bidding on the work, invoicing, following up, scheduling, and trying to keep track of all the finances. Not to mention squeezing in time to actually do the work.
It’s a lot, but it’s worth it to be in charge of your own destiny. I find myself working consistently more hours than I did back in the real world, but this is balanced out by:
– Actually enjoying the work I do. When you like your job, it doesn’t matter how many hours you work.
– Getting time back by cutting out things like a commute (glory!), meetings (GLORY!), and other frivolous company functions.
2. I don’t mind being by myself all day.
I’ve heard this is a tough one for many, when going from an office to full-time self-employment; they miss the coworker interaction and camaraderie. I don’t, at least not yet. It’s not that I’m antisocial, I just don’t miss the obligatory how-was-your-weekend conversations. Guess I’m an introvert. Who knew.
3. I don’t think about time the way I used to.
I no longer dread Monday morning or yearn for 5 p.m. Often times, I’m hustling to finish my work before nighttime or weekend obligations. It’s a different way of looking at things – racing against the clock instead of wishing it would move faster.
4. I’m not sure people actually think I work.
“Oh come on, what do you have going on?”
A familiar refrain, when I inform someone I’m busy at any given time. People seem mystified by the fact that I actually do work, instead of just sitting around in my boxers waiting for the phone to ring every day. (I mean, that was ONE time.) In reality, work is more important now than ever – if I don’t work, I don’t pay rent, and I end up on the streets again. This cannot happen. Speaking of rent…
5. My roommates keep asking for extra rent.
Probably because I’m at home a lot more than I used to be, and they’re mean. JUST kidding, they’re usually nice. If you want to get to know them better, watch the donut eating contest.
6. I keep spilling things.
For example, I just spilled an entire bowl of cereal all over the kitchen floor. This is unrelated to work or self-employment.
7. It’s not that scary.
My first week on my own, I sat down for lunch with my friend and fellow business owner Shawn, and about lost it. I was having one of those, “what the shit did I just do?” moments, and was petrified by the prospect of having to make my own paycheck every month. Thankfully, Shawny talked me off the ledge, and things have gone well since then. The lesson I learned: self-employment isn’t this mythical, unattainable unicorn princess. If you have a tangible, marketable skill, and work hard to sharpen that skill and find customers, you probably will. You won’t make much money at first, but who gives a damn?
P.S. Thanks to every one of you who have provided me leads or helped out in any way. I HAVE THE BEST FAMILY AND FRIENDS IN THE WORLD!!!!!
I mean, I, uh…whoops. Sorry, you caught me in a weak moment of teenage girl on Facebook. But seriously, thanks. I am indebted.
I leave you with this song, simply because it’s one of my favorites. One of those I’ve listened to hundreds of times, yet each time find something new I like about it. I feel like it’s a Thursday song. Enjoy Ray.
No, not mine this time. Something you may actually be interested in. Something of value.
Wiseblood Books is a North Dakotan publisher, and also the literary home of my editor, Charles Schmitt. Charles made Emails from Heaven about 10 times better, and I’m not embellishing. Anywho, Wiseblood is trying to grow their social media presence, so right now anyone who likes their Facebook page will be entered in a drawing for a free book. They put out a good product and won’t clog your feed with annoying statuses, so I suggest you do it:
