simpleman's blog

Its always good to be involved in the metamorphosis of a site.. :), to be there in its initial stages and see it grow, as is the case when you are involved with a small start-up firm.

I had initially hoped to post at least one entry a day (make that one sensible entry), its a bit difficult when most of the time i'm on the phone trying to get business in the real world,  once your'e out of the corporate world people just seem to forget you, some even see you as a betrayer, the one who went to the other side. All favours once done are null and void. Its like starting from scratch. ... It seems to be much easier in the web world to make contacts, even though they are of the faceless and at times ,  people seem to be a tad more approachable and times(dare i say) kinder even when you are soliciting for business. They are willing to give leads, a few even go out of the way to help you out, but ask for a lead in the physical world and suddenly people are on their guard....So now my so called business friends have suddenly forgotten me and refuse to take my calls. And these were the guys i was planning to spend the rest of my  working life with.... hmmm... Well i guess that's life..

The change in the server seems to have done a world of good for Fusepress, the site now downloads at a tremendous pace, the logging in is even faster and so is posting comments(which used to be tedious earlier) and now with Google giving a high page rank for Fusepress(click to read Todds post) this just great going for the site. I expect a lot more visitors to the site now. All i can say is excellent work Todd and lets get blogging.

Ever been attacked by thoughts...,it’s the opposite of having a writers' block, well that's what's been happening to me, and it’s not funny. Life before blogging was actually quite simple, people gave me a brief and I wrote according to it. There were strict guidelines, simpleman, do this, simpleman do that, be funny… no, no, no… one likes dark humour for gods' sake, use only 20 words okay that’s all the space we have…. the client hates long copy ads… , restrictions, shackles and guidelines be damned, I had no problem dishing out what people wanted, but now that I’ve started to free-write, its just amazing, I just cannot write.Its not due to lack of topics in fact its just the opposite, there are too many of them and they are knocking inside my head, like little thought gremlins, eager to get out and wreck havoc on the blogging world(not really, but you get the point). So that’s the reason I’ve not been writing as much as I should.I remember when i first started blogging, my first thought was, Oh God! what do I write about, little did i realize that the thought gremlins were laughing at me.... A few days back I just decided to write down the topics that I should write about in my blog, it was like opening the proverbial Pandora’s box and i nearly had a another panic attack. There were so many topics to choose from, they kept pouring out and each of them appealing to me to let them loose, pinching me, tormenting me, fighting with me, each more vociferous than the other. It was like running too many programs on the computer, eventually my system crashed too... So I stopped writing, went to the fridge, got a Bud, switched off the damn word processor and switched over to an RPG game. Goodbye thought gremlins!

Lethargy as described by any dictionary - is a state of sluggishness, drowsy dullness or apathy. But as with definitions the consequences are never listed, lethargy or inertia is probably the greatest silent killer of anyone who wants to achieve something worthwhile in their lives.

Working out of home and lethargy can be a dangerous combination, at times I have got sucked into it so badly that it’s like being on a slope with roller blades(and i'm a really bad skater), absolutely no control, and it’s a scary feeling. Many a times have I battled with it only to keep it away for a few days and then to have it creep back on me with a vengeance. As always I reached out to the net for help and it spewed out a few thousand things. I have tried a few of the methods that people have suggested that have helped me to a great extent; I have added a few of my own to those. So here goes... a few ways to overcome lethargy ver 2.1

When i quit my job and started out on my own a lot of friends and even relatives thought that i was crazy, some thought that i was having some kind of a nervous break down, "How can you quit a steady job?", "How are you planning to support your family?" and "Why do you want to do something like this at this stage in your life, you are settled in your job and you’re doing well". Some of my friends even went to the extreme of taking me out for a drink and then ambushing me into talking about my future and why at this stage was i rocking the boat, especially when things were going so right for me. Finally they accepted my explanation, or maybe it was the liquor. Then they got down to practicalities and the questions took a different tone, "So, what's the plan?, What business are you planning to start?". And a few drinks later he advice started flowing in, "You know i have this great plan, maybe you should....".

For a long time I would never take part in debates, simply because i could always see both sides of the story, so I was never fully convinced about any argument. I’d start thinking seriously about one line of thought and then when I started thinking about the flip side I’d see their point too. For a long time I kept quite simply because I was not convinced about either sides. The dictionary describes the word fence-sitter as One who takes a position of neutrality or indecision in a controversial matter. That’s who I was; a person who doesn’t take any sides, avoids confrontations, doesn’t like to ruffle any feathers.

It's sad that people cannot go through life without meeting the lowest forms of cretins, these are the creatures that call themselves intellectuals, who sit on their high thrones right absurd topics on inane things and then sit smugly and pass judgements on other people. Writing is a form of expression, good or bad, and if it hurts your senses or your sensibilities for that matter, you have a choice, don't read. It's bad enough that we meet people like this in the world, it's worse when such creatures inhabit the net and try to force their views upon the rest.

Much before I started out on my own, I remember having a conversation that probably led me on to the path I have chosen, I had just put in my papers in this big, well known advertising firm and was serving out my notice period, I had an exit interview with the top honcho and was looking forward to it. He is a nice old man, some might even call him a wise old man, to me he was always like “Gandalf the grey”. He knew that I had made up my mind so he wasn’t going to ask me questions like – What can we do to make you change your mind, all that had been done by my immediate superior and this was just a formality.We talked about the advertising scene, the company, sports and such things for a while and then he said, if you don’t mind I would like to ask you 2 very personal questions, magnanimously, I said “Sure, no problem, go right ahead”…He looked at me with those penetrating eyes and said “What is it that you want to do with your life?”, I though this was a fair question from his point, cause I was leaving a cushy job behind and was venturing out into a smaller firm, albeit at a higher position, I thought for a while and said “I want to make lots of money”; he smiled and asked “Why?” I gave him the usual crap about having a secure life, not worrying about anything and wanting to retire by 45. He nodded his old and wise head and as usual, annoyingly, didn’t say anything.

This is the 3rd site that i've signed up for to post my blogs, well now it's become a contest to see which site gets the most hits. It's just been a few weeks since i've started blogging and it's really exciting to keep checking out that adsense account. I'm officially a blog addict now. It's also sad in a way that instead of concentrating on writing better articles i have become more concerned about what keywords to use and how to get the most number of hits on to my site. And as someone wisely said, i have become a blog whore too...

How often do we give in to the urge of always looking for the better deal, wondering that there is something better out there. It's an awful thought, but it does creep into us eventually. At the start it's always rosy, we are so sure that this person is the right one for us, a few years pass and then those doubts start creeping in and eventually like our computers we start looking for that upgrade.Better still we try to mould that special someone who at one point we though was perfect. Why are we not content with what we have? Why is it that this perfect person is no longer perfect to us. Are we built with this defect that we are always looking for something more...