[Life] You suck and you know it.
'No' is a four-letter word.
TRIGGER WARNINGS: Language in song, Not For Kids
I don’t like my birthday.
It reminds me time is passing.
Time is one of the few constants in life.
There are always 24 hours in every day, no matter where you live or what faith you observe.
Time cannot be paused, cannot be changed, cannot be thwarted, cannot be avoided.
Time is like God in that we have no control over it,
know how to manage it, or can even do anything “to it.”
- me
Entire fantasies have been written, discussed, built, and dreamed all in the name of speeding up or changing time in some way. “Back To The Future” (1985) is just one of the many blockbuster movie examples of humans and our fascination with manipulating time. “The Restaurant at the End of the Universe” (Douglas Adams, fp1980) has within it’s pages a hilarious and ironic look at space and time travel; it is also one of the most popular books for that brief span of time right after the movie came out. Y’all know which one. Martin Freeman made it beautiful.
The point, however, is that we as fleshy, useless, bags of human softness are obsessed with capturing time. I’m not saying time IS God, I’m trying to impress on all of us that we truly have no control of our lives no matter how much we may try. We all pass through time in the same way: we age, we die.
And before all the Christians come at me with the mentions of eternity: I’m not saying we don’t think about that part too or live for that as well; but God gave us a survival instinct in this time, for a reason. There’s a reason we have no control over time, because instead; we have to control ourselves. There’s a certain freedom to knowing that I’m going to grow old no matter how many reps I do or how much fruit I eat. It’s how I’m growing old that can be up to me.
The only way you can impact time is by changing yourself, seeing the change inside you and working towards a goal that you’ve set for yourself. God gave us free will and for a lot of people, that’s how the story ends. They’re living on pause, borrowing worry from tomorrow to prevent themselves from doing anything dangerous today. The “what-ifs” become the “should haves” until there’s no days left. The dusty bookshelf becomes dust itself. The crinkled recipe binders long faded inks are simply a memory of desires past. The sporting equipment now rusted and broken, years of disuse across the padding. Boxes unopened in the garage of hobbies dreamed, but never done.
Something that hits me at 11pm every night (as I’m suddenly overwhelmingly creative and astute when I should be going to bed): Every day is passing anyway, why not make the best use of those hours? Time is going to pass anyway. It drills itself into my head as I try to sleep, endless thoughts of movie scripts, story concepts, ideas for business, whatever may fly through my head at the time.
What do you gain by sitting there and wondering “if I should?” Don’t let the uncertainty or the unknown stop you from trying, from setting goals, from dreaming forward, from “falling forward” as Denzel Washington calls it.
Read my previous article on this if you’d like:
Ever heard the phrase ‘doing more with less?’
Comparison is the death of reason.
There are people out there accomplishing a lot more in their lives with a lot less than you have right now, and they’re winning because they’re failing.
Failing is trying.
Failing is doing.
Failing is the drive to put one foot ahead of the other even if the last step was the hardest.
Failing is expanding your boundaries.
Failure isn’t the end. It’s just the beginning of a new journey.
Every moment you spend comparing yourself to others is a moment wasted on your own dreams. I think that’s why I hate celebrity culture so much is that it’s like a zoo of people. People watching people. Even so, I’ve gotten sucked into a few reality tv shows even with that mindset. Rust Valley Restorers, anyone? After watching it, I’m convinced I could rebuild an old ‘67 Mustang if I had the time. (I’m sure we’ve all walked away from a show thinking something similar.)
I’ve been trying to examine exactly why I have the “ick” factor with most reality tv shows and I think it’s less about watching them and hits squarely on the fact that I’m simply watching. If you were to think about the core concept of a show like “The Kardashians” but removed from the digital landscape it’s made for; I think everyone would sound a little psychotic in the exchange:
Synopsis: A woman exposes her daughter’s sexual interactions to the world. The family then becomes famous. The family lives their extravagant, ridiculous, plastic lives, suffering through self-inflicted drama, while all these other people just stand around silently in their home staring at them doing it. The other people don’t interact with the family, they just know them intimately from every interaction the family has together.
Weird, right?
It feels a tinge dystopian to me, as if the family is trapped in this netherworld of their own creation that they cannot escape, surrounded by ghouls and demons and things of their own making that require them to sacrifice time and effort and energy to the cult of self-worship. All the while, others hopelessly watch and indulge their own fantasies by glorifying the lives of this family and these actions as if it’s a life to be achieved or desired in any way.
Weird, Riiiiight???
Don’t waste your time comparing yourself to others is all I’m trying to say. It gets to be too easy to fall into the trap of self-loathing and a disparity between what you know to be true of yourself, and what you expose yourself to externally. God made each of us uniquely different and that’s a beautiful freedom we should all be exercising.
Don’t believe the hype
social media sells.
I remember the days when we used to take photos of our food and post it with a few hashtags. Didn’t have to be perfect, nothing was. It was just your own contribution, somewhat unique with a filter or a comment. Now, everything is ‘for the gram’ and every moment is a carefully curated bright light in the poster’s life. Or so they would have you think.
Some call it “Faking it till you’re making it” but no one’s truly getting to the making it part of the arrangement. A huge part of hustle culture is about promoting the endless work cycle that now has taken over most social media platforms. Even Substack (yes, SS is social media even if you don’t want to admit it) has algorithmic programming running to show us the latest and greatest on our home feed. Even here, we’re subjected to the likes and re-stacks and the whole system of sharing socially.
Note: Social sharing is not inherently a bad thing, except that I don’t believe it’s entirely social. Does it take more than a flick of the thumb to like and re-stack? Not really.
For some, social media is their entire lives meaning they live and die by their likes and follower counts. I know because I worked with them on different marketing campaigns. They’re insufferably full of themselves for no reason. You have 100,000 followers? Who cares, did you contribute something valuable? That’s the question no one is asking.
I can save you some time: it’s not the finality that so many people live in and beat themselves up with; but it can certainly feel that way if you pay attention to the hype. Social media would have you believe that everyone lives in a perfect world that you’re not a part of. Every delicious meal shot perfectly in the right light, every friend group smiling brightly in clean clothes and trendy styles, that cute puppy with the red bow in slow-mo, the man proposing against a well-time sunset… it’s all a well-crafted lie.
Social media sells you a story, an image, an idea. For most, it’s not even on purpose. It’s just the latest in the hamster-wheel of following the trends. Why do we feel the urge to post the best of what represents us, instead of just posting the reality that we live with? It all comes down to peer pressure. Just like high school. I remember begging my mom for Girbaud jeans (shown below) and like the smart, intuitive woman she is; she taught me to look at full-price items like stupid overpriced jeans as unworthy of my time and attention. It stung but it was a lesson that stuck with me. I still wanted the jeans, but I was asking myself “Is all my hard-earned money worth these jeans?” I sold blow-pops in middle school and high school to make money (yeah, Green Apple is still my favorite) and it took time and effort to rack up a hundred dollars to spend, so it wasn’t an easy decision for me when it’s my own money.
The lesson stuck even harder on the day I found the same exact pair of Marithe Girbaud jeans at a thrift store, practically new, for less than $10. I bought them, feeling practically giddy at the idea of showing them off the next day at school.
You know what happened?
Literally nothing. Not one comment, not one person noticed. No one cared.
That’s what social media vs. real life can feel like: A drummed-up story that doesn’t deliver on real results. The people trying to sell something online want you to feel like you’re not ‘quite’ there, so you continue to chase the desire and the dream.
What’s the idea here? What’s the end goal?
The idea is that ‘you’re behind’, ‘you’re far behind the norm’, ‘you’re not making it like they are’, and ‘you’re not doing what you’re supposed to’.
‘No no no.’
‘Not enough. Not you.’
‘Oh that style was last season, try harder.’
‘Boring. Not doing it right.’
‘Nope.’
The ever-changing metrics with which people judge success online are designed to make you feel like you’re not doing enough, making enough, hustling enough. The goal posts change constantly because that’s the best way to keep everyone in the “hustle culture” confused and trying to keep up. The algorithm doesn’t have to hide your posts, but it does anyway. Think about that. Instagram could be linear but they choose to force algorithms. Why?
The very term Influencer is a social media moniker for someone just barely famous enough to push a paid-for agenda, no matter if it’s fake bloat teas or the latest dropship business concept (now with AI! *gasp*) or something even less important. But it seems these people are always yapping online, claiming they’ve ‘cracked the code’ of wealth and success. They haven’t, but they’re paid to make you think they have. That’s where the money is.
The message is there, repeated in every highlight reel and bright-white forced smile showcasing all the wealth and success they (don’t) have:
YOU SUCK AND YOU KNOW IT.
The follow-up message is a lot more subtle (not always), but it’s the overhanging echo that remains when you’re done doom-scrolling and dopamine-dumping:
“If you buy our stuff you might suck a little less.”
Everyone is just shouting at the top of their lungs.
Notice everything! Know, thus, nothing!
It’s easy to feel like everything I’m saying is true when you look at public news sources, legacy media like print newspapers, or your own Instagram app. Every other post feels like an advertisement or a gimmick of some kind. It’s no longer ‘social’ but rather ‘media’ that is created, curated, and controlled. Everyone is trying to sell themselves to everyone else.
Imagine a marketplace of a million people all shouting and waving their wares at each other, stall after stall, not selling much but repeating the same lines and same catch phrases over and over and over again.
It sounds exhausting, doesn’t it?
It’s designed that way.
I believe the end goal is human isolation in a digital landscape of nothing but commercialized, commoditized content. We’re called “Content Creators” instead of just creators or creatives. Why?
The human commodity is the biggest one and everyone wants to cash in on it. It’s the reason slavery is still legal in some countries (yes, look up Hershey’s and the chocolate trade, even today in 2025) and why the really famous movie celebs have “handlers” that run their lives. If you don’t believe me, just ask Britney Spears or Kanye West. Do they look like they have full autonomy of their own lives? Not one bit.
So what’s the answer? What’s the solution?
A lot of people will say, “quit social media,” but that’s a very short-sighted view of the greater problem. There will always be another social media platform, and eventually, one that will pique your interest once again.
The problem is about finding fulfillment.
We’ve been told since the early aughts when “TheFacebook” came out that sharing your life online was the way to maintain our social statuses, our lives, our well-beings, our connections. Here we are 21 years later and Meta is connected to everything much in the same way Google has successfully done. Did we win?
Do YOU feel fulfilled, connected, and satisfied in your online social life? Has “TheFacebook” generation that grew up with the platform a better handle on their family, friend, and work relationships?
NO. And I’ll fight you to the death if you insist they do.
The problem is about finding fulfillment. I’m saying it until someone gets it.
“Finding” fulfillment. Did you catch that? I really hope someone comments that they did. I can say it slower if I have to.
Make instead of find.
The truth is that nothing external is going to fulfill you. Ever.
Nothing in this world is designed to “be the answer” and that is by design. If we all had everything we wanted, we wouldn’t keep buying things to fill the void. And where does that void come from? Inside. It’s not going to be filled with another Amazon next-day package.
So the obvious answer is to look within. Seek God and DO THE THING you were meant to do. Whatever that is. DO IT. LIVE IT. DIE BY IT. Imagine if Jeremiah or Isaiah had just played it safe, and didn’t obey God’s direction. Imagine if Moses had stayed at the top of the mountain.
God has made every single one of us to create beauty in our own way. The human spectrum of possibility is a miracle I truly believe in.
That miracle happens when each person chooses to stop comparing, stop chasing, stop dreaming and starts DOING what they’ve felt in their bones since day one.
Tolkein wrote an entire series of auxiliary stories that is the foundation of the world in which The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings exist, it became known as The Silmarillion (fp1977) and is one of his best works.
Why is it one of his best? Oh gee, I don’t know:
One of the first examples of world-building in the modern age
HE CREATED WHOLE LANGUAGES BY HIMSELF
He uses this entire library of cultures and histories and races and references them in other works
It explains how Middle-Earth functions and why, something unheard of in fantasy writing in 1912
Chicken Attack: Takeo Ishii (Ischi)
There’s a Japanese yodeler that I absolutely love who lives in Germany and his life story is so fun. His name is Takeo Ishii and I learned about him as I’m sure a lot of us have with the silly song “Chicken Attack”.
I’ll have you enjoy the full song before we continue:
Now, naturally, the song is a viral hit because of the yodeling and lyrics so I had to dig into the story a little more. Talk about MAKING your unique life and shaping it to your dreams:
Mr. Ishii studied mechanical engineering in school to honor his father and follow in his footsteps. However, he found an interest in musical instruments in his spare time (free time) when he wasn’t studying engineering. Keep that in mind for later.
He learned the zither and hammered dulcimer and then TAUGHT HIMSELF yodeling from records of the famous yodeler Franzi Lang. This got him onto Japanese television where he performed.
He then went to Germany to continue his mechanical engineering studies for six months which lead him to Switzerland and ultimately singing and yodeling as a paid musician
This exposure led him to perform IN FRONT OF Franzi Lang HIMSELF
Franzi Lang became Mr. Ishii’s mentor
“Chicken Attack” releases January 25th, 2017 with over 29 million views on YouTube to this day
Takeo The Engineer
Do you think we would have heard of Takeo Ishii the Mechanical Engineer in this same way? Do you think Takeo Ishii would have been happy committing his life to the “safe/secure job” that he had grown up seeing his father do? I doubt it. He yodeled his proposal to his wife in 1983. Yodeling is IN THIS Man.
Jeremiah 1:4-9 The Call Of Jeremiah
The Call of Jeremiah
4 The word of the Lord came to me, saying,
5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew[a] you,
before you were born I set you apart;
I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”
6 “Alas, Sovereign Lord,” I said, “I do not know how to speak; I am too young.”
7 But the Lord said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am too young.’ You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. 8 Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you,” declares the Lord.
9 Then the Lord reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, “I have put my words in your mouth. 10 See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant.”
YOU have been appointed to do what you were called to do.
Whatever that may look like, it begins inside of you when you choose to look inward instead of outward.
Acknowledge that God has made you for a purpose and the rest begins to fall into place.
•••
Love,
R. Carnie Littlefield
Littlefield Log
March 29th, 2025
I can’t believe I wrote “dreamed” instead of dreamt