My New Twitter Rules

I haven’t been on twitter.. much at all.. for eons… AND… now i’m coming back to it and Twitter has changed how it works…. like.. now I have to un-follow crap loads of people to follow new people… and thank you Jesus.. they’ve made it easier to manage who you follow and all of this…

Anyway.. so I’m not up on current thought of smart people on the subject.. or anything… but here’s my rules for following.

If #1 Someone I follow doesn’t follow me and #2 I’m not sure who the hell they are? I un-follow. It’s mostly that simple with a number of exceptions… but I mean thats it.

AND.. if you follow me I’ll follow back.. I’m old school like that.. till you’re Mr or Mrs Spammy

A good deal latter:

OMG this is painful.. going through and un following people. I was.. like #6, or some shit like that, for most followers from MA.. at one point… which.. is probably pretty bad ass.. still not sure how that happened… so I feel like.. once upon a time I was a somebody.. and no longer.. principally cause I can’t really get out to things… err…

[editors note: I had to un follow over 1000 people.. probably not even done yet.. but done for now]

IF you’re wondering who I am

So.. I’m in your steam and you’re like “who’s that guy” well.. I’m an old timer from way back when “social media was cool” and we didn’t even hate the word… and nobody new WTF Twitter was…

I’m sure if you give me a chance you’ll get to know me but I’ll give you a cheat sheet on my interest and agenda

I’m sorta “interested in everything.” Seriously.. that’s no exaggeration… Philosophy, psychology, political science, geopolitics, arts, music, design, film, cultural anthropology…. marketing..  all sorts of academic madness..

I’m sorta like trying to create my own school of thought and so I just get into all kinds of things and then synthesize them together.

I’m also VERY into technology.. technologist.. blah blah blah…

Ok.. Agenda

I’m living far below the poverty line.. on disability for a serious social phobia issue.. and I’m trying to get work.. .to get employed.. and so that’s a part of what I’m doing here…. cause I SERIOUSLY can’t hack this poverty thing sometimes…

So I am given to talking about mental health issues in an honest and open way sometimes that may be painful.. but just bare with me…

Areas of Professional Acumen

Oh.. and on the job front… err… I’m an artist designer.. kinda media artist… do everything from video production, animation, motion graphics, web design, interactive design… graphic design… umm… what else? I’m working on learning high end 3D graphics at the moment.. know a thing or two about visual effects… know a lot of about social / digital marketing.. been in the space forever…. very smart on the future of anything.. kinda topics umm… what else?

I wont even get into the music production subject

I don’t know.. here’s a link to my linked in.. if you can help thats groovy…. or if I can help you for that matter? It’s probably mostly true at least? 😉

Err.. .yeah.. so I’m working on this job search thing… which is kinda a big idea land um… hmm.. what else?

Well I’m hoping to make friends.. hope I can help people on there personal adventure… and blah blah blah.. but truly and sincerely.

Lastly.. not that.. .whatever.. but yeah.. I’ll be updating things here and there and wherever

Oh yeah.. and I should probably mention I tweet at @MattSearles

Mystic’s Approach to Job Search obsoletes Cool-aid, (unless a marry prankster procured it for you personally) fairy dust, and even reason

So I’m sitting around in a “computer resource room”… that’s filled with PCs… as my job coach / counselor works on this resume of mine.. that we did last week but couldn’t find today… for whatever reason.

I’m going after an internship at a local cable access station

I had thought getting into a cable access station… for purposes of equipment access.. would be rather important given the demise of my video camera.. which was kind of required for all the thought, and planning, and whatever… that I’ve been doing about how to get a job… so I must do something.

The idea of an internship sounds good.. I guess mainly because it would be an opportunity to upgrade certain key video related skills, add to the network… and just sorta get me in a particular sort of routine… and have more exposure to more people.. and it may just be interesting.

That and I can feel it in my bones, that a job will come out of taking this path… that there are maybe times when you can trust that jobs will come to you.. almost without you having to do anything….

Err… but I’m talking in a very intuitive and mystical way here…. and you might not be hearing what I’m REALLY saying because it COULD be mistaken for something other then what it is…

Fun with Mysticism

If you sorta re frame job search stuff… and look at in through the prism of a mystic, what do you see? Well… you might say that everything I’m doing has to do with a relationship to a certain God that.. apparently dishes out jobs… and the question is.. what’s this God going to do with me?

In that relationship… even me hanging out at home trying to work out how to build half mad synthesizers inside of Reaktor… or.. spending however much time on mind mapping, procrastinating on social network sites with the idea that maybe this will lead to increased connected-ness… and all manner of stuff like this… are all things this sorta God recognized…

Now… what’s the benefit of the mystic prism over the conventional prism?

In conventional ways of looking things you try and go from point A to point B… in direct a path as possible probably.. but there are all these things you could do, to try and get a job.. that would… sorta be things the God would like.. that wouldn’t be a part of the direct line between where you are and the job you so crave.

We know, I think, some of the limitations of how we normally look at things… How most careers ARE NOT a straight line… BUT… there’s lots of stuff you could do.. that you’ll choose not to… because it doesn’t look like it’ll take you to B… so you reject it because of how it doesn’t work with the model you are using.. where is in our mystic model… it would work.

I guess you could call me like “a pragmatic mystic.”

I’m very interested in how our conceptual frameworks help us to construct our experience of reality… you might say even manufacture reality… and I don’t think we really understand just how important these frameworks are. I have ALOT of friends that.. I think if I suggested that they try out my mystic glasses… we’d have this conversation about atheism and reason… related problems… And so these friends offer a special challenge…and what I’m trying to do in this paragraph is to say “look, the value of a framework is not to be found in its “truth-e-ness” but in it’s pragmatic value.. in helping you try and do whatever it is you are doing… so really… what does reason have to do with anything?

Well it looks like my meeting is over.. and I free… so I must make like a bird and see if there’s any money in my bank account… and… try not to spend that money on smokes… as that would be all I could buy… but the hope is that my next check is at least late at this point…. but I wouldn’t be all that surprised if it turned out to be a week away.

Job Search, Social Media, Social Phobia: Me No Likes the Proverbial Dark Valley

Well.. I’m in the computer resource center… post meeting.. a meeting that’s part of a program to help people with mental illness issues get work.. and be successful in the work we get…..

I’m using my time here to do stuff that I might more easily get distracted from if I where at home with my computer… SOO… I’m focusing on facebook, twitter, this blog, and emails… (Yes, I know most people try and push these things away to focus on whatever they want to focus on)…. but for me… I’m backwards.

I think the problem is that social phobia is a HUGE obstacle for me in social media..

The story goes that the internet provides a “de anxietized space”… and isn’t that great for.. folks with social anxiety, the shy, introverts of world, and blah blah blah… but I….. still struggle.. and in some ways I may even struggle more…

Part of it is I’ll read what I’ve written.. think it horrible.. and be embarrassed about it.. and there’s probably more then 20 rough drafts.. hanging out.. for every post I post.. just because of how difficult this barrier is for me.

SO.. my PR message of the day is

You should probably read the social cues and signals I give off differently then you would.. the “normal” person….

So, example… take “the shy person.” Basically the shy person is just shy.. it has nothing to do with you.. but very often shy people get read as snobs.. people think they’re better then everybody else.. they’re somehow aloof… etc.

Accept… none of this is normally true…..

Now.. there is a kind of.. spectrum..  that ranges from shy to social anxiety to social phobia…  In guitar / music terms.. shy is someone in a rock band playing and acoustic guitar… social anxiety.. is playing an electric guitar… with a good amount of distortion… playing rock and roll. Social Phobia is…well…

Slayer

Or you know… perhaps….

GWAR?

So yeah… moral of the story is that it’s very hard for me to live inside of a whole heck of a lot of social norms… and.. I don’t want you to think I’m… I don’t know.. looking down my nose on you and that’s why I’m not interacting more… I am working on that… and that’s sorta the hope… you know?

Back to my social media initiative business thing thang

I think maybe my full time job.. should be social media.. that I should endeavor to keep at least, like, a 30 hour work week that is nothing other then social media…

I have a kind of social media friend who was a single mom.. and couldn’t really get out of the house too much… sorta like me and my poverty.. not being able to get my car on the road.. mixed maybe.. with my social phobia… and you know what she did? She went and took on Twitter when twitter was still a really new thing… and she became like.. the twitter queen you might say… one of the authors to Twitter for Dummies… and you know.. went on to be a kind of social rock star…

ALOT of people… have found them selves unemployed, made blogging there full time preoccupation… and have gotten jobs or careers out of it….

THE KEY.. for me.. getting work… is getting out there.. and this may be the only way I CAN get out there.. at least for the moment.. and so… I’m thinking about that.

The only trouble is.. one way or another… I kinda have to balance this sorta thing.. with actual art and design and what not.. creation.. I mean after all.. if that’s what I’m going to be hired for.. I need to be good at all these things and have groovy work samples to share…

SOOooo… I’m thinking that maybe the social should be the thing that drives it all.. that whatever art / design / whatever I do.. should maybe be in support of the social.

What do you think?

On the me speak pretty one day subject

Yesterday I saw my job search coach and he helped me write some email rough drafts.. to reach out to people in my network… In this case close friends / intimates.. mostly.

I had been feeling like.. for God knows what reason.. I can’t seem to write an email.. even to friends. I think maybe it’s an effect of writing emails to friends who are PR people whom… just wouldn’t read my emails cause of the length.. and somehow this effected my sensitivity in such a way that.. it was like some kinda trauma or something.

What is sorta strange about this is that this happened years ago.. and I’ve been writing emails since then..  BUT..

Well there’s the issues of poverty on mental health and my social phobia and depression stuff. See, because of poverty I don’t have a car on the road, and as a result I have to walk 1.1 miles to get to a bus stop.. the buss only runs inside of a fairly short window of time.. and the schedule is such that.. you know.. it takes me 5 hours of commuting.. between bussing and walking.. to get to therapists appointments and the like, so that one of the effects of not having a car on the road is increased social isolation.

SOO.. my only social experiences are seeing my therapist, seeing my job coach.. and the support group for the job search stuff and the coaching for the work place stuff.. that’s a part of the program I’m in to help folks with mental health problems manage them and get work.

SOOOOoooooo

Out side of that it’s whenever my friend Joy decides to beep her car horn in the drive way… and we go out and have a walk some place or she goes shopping and I tag along, or whatever it is…..

But the thing is.. that this kind of social isolation increases depression… AND social anxiety… and and effect of that… is that writing emails is more difficult.

Anyway…. So my coach had me write out.. in kinda bullet points… 3 or 4 things I wanted to write in these emails… as home work, and then in our last meeting we wrote out whatever we were going to write.

It was very helpful and somewhat of a revelation… starting with the idea of starting with an outline… and then… sitting in his office writing stuff.

First of all.. it was kinda weird: the suggestions he’d give me for what to say… In part he had a kind of aptitude for knowing what to say about certain things… that sorta left be spell bound in a way… but then.. there was the other side of it.

A lot of his suggestions felt.. like horribly stilted writing to me.. or like the kinda thing.. I guess you’d expect it from a high school student or maybe even college.. where you write in such a way where it reads as if you are trying to sound intelligent.. or trying to sound.. formal… or respectable.. or something?

To my mind there’s no greater sin then trying to sound intelligent or formal or respectable…. or to sound like you’re trying to sound that way.. the stilt of it.. the kinda “I’m a slave stuck in corporate America and they’ll whip me if I don’t speak in this way” kinda feeling… In a way.. I think of the sorta challenges of communicating in that context… and my coach was clearly a master of dealing with those challenges effectively… but…

I suppose the great sin of it is my social anxiety / phobia.. that to sound like I’m trying to sound like something.. oh God that just makes me want to have a panic attack.

Now.. as it happens… I write for hours every day… blog posts that I never post… So.. at least in someways, it would seem that I’m pretty good at this writing business. In fact I had… I don’t know if I could call him a friend per say.. but lets just say someone who’s “kinda a big deal on the internet,” someone who’s a blogger.. and a top blogger.. say “wow, you can really write, do you know that?” That sent me over the moon for a long time…. cause I never thought of my self as terribly gifted at writing.. but then other people have said this too me to….

See… when I was a kid I was stuck in remedial reading and special ed classes… I was stuck in the lowest groups.. I couldn’t spell, still can’t… and it was like the system… well it was horribly damaging to me… and to my sense of self and my sense of my ability to write. In fact it really wasn’t till I was out of school that I really started to write a lot.

Now I think most of my writing is like someway of thinking things out… that was sorta the idea of this blog.. that I would just write shit and post it… and not really care if anyone read it.. or at least that was the theory… because it’s ether fear of what someone’s reaction to my writing… or.. something like that… someone not wanting to read all the words.. or my social phobia.. that had made it very difficult for me to actually publish blog posts.

When I started this blog it seemed like I was doing ok posting… but now… I probably have 20 drafts for every one post I’ve posted.. and I don’t know that I’m even keeping up to one post a week.

Anyway… so my coach tells me that what I’ve written is good.. and that and that he really enjoys my emails, and that I’m very articulate.. and a good writer… which felt really good.. and was sorta like news to me.. particularly with all the trauma I sorta feel surrounding the problem of writing.

I have fantasies about going back to school.. mostly I want to go into this PhD program in the Ivey league… but.. for one I don’t have an undergraduate degree.. and for another, I expect that they would expect, for an advanced degree like that, that you kinda could write… and I don’t really understand formal syntax and rules of writing.. I more like.. just write by ear.

Any kind of advanced degree program I can imagine myself getting into.. or would probably even want to do.. is probably in art, design, or music.. so being able to write isn’t really an important prerequisite… They’ll specifically say in the part about how to apply that written samples aren’t important.

I feel somewhat like I should write something.. because I think one of the things that shines about me is my ability to wield complex subjects.. to synthesize vast amounts of information and ideas… an ability think abstractly.. and all this kinda thing… and if I go and share my music with you, or some art and design I’ve done. .you’re not going to get that from the art and design so much.

ALSO… there’s deep aesthetic thinking going on behind my art and music and what not… and I think you sorta need to understand that deep aesthetic thinking to fully appreciate what I’m doing…

Anyway.. so I have to write out those emails… and give them a final go.. before I send them… but.. the ease at which they’ve been written… has me thinking about this “me speak pretty someday” business.

One of the things I’m thinking about… is what if when writing blog posts I started with an outline… “what are the key points I’d like to make on this subject” and then go from there… as a process. MAYBE I could even do competitive key phrase analysis and SEO.. and integrate that into my writing… and like.. look at all the blog strategy stuff and sorta blog right, so to speak… to sorta do it in a strategy way.. that would result in developing a readership and influence which would lead to employment possibilities….

But right now I feel like.. its more about.. just trying to write stuff that I can hit the publishing button on.

Err, so what topics should I write about in this blog.. or whatever blog I end up blogging on.

I think all things art, music, and design… from the process of creating the stuff.. to criticism of the stuff that’s out there / what’s gong on in the world… and then also to talk about social media and technology…. and then a whole lot of ideas…

I THINK… I should be thinking about who my audiences is.. or have objectives that are related to audience… that maybe there’s audiences I want to reach, or how I’d like to move forward.

So.. lets quickly talk about some goals I might have

I’m thinking, at least at the moment, that I might like to teach as a college professor…. (I’m told that I can maybe do this even without an undergraduate degree)… and so you can imagine how a blog could help with that…

Then there’s the business of wanting clients.. for whatever strategy / media and content creation type stuff.. .I can do…. and then there’s even the possibility of trying to get fans and…….

I don’t know.. I need to think this stuff out more deeply….

Err, I don’t think this post is entirely written well… but I think I ought to hit post anyway….