Author: Derek Kessinger

I don’t want to face this world tonight. I don’t have the answers and each path seems laced with unknown failures.

I don’t want to face this world tonight. I’m unable to seem authentic or likable or interesting. Charisma seems false to me, but tempts those around me.

I don’t want to face this world tonight. People don’t take the time to understand me. They give me cheap pennies of advice. They dish out answers before waiting on the next table.

I don’t want to face this world tonight. It’s hard to listen to the problems around me and know what problems are out there. I can’t reconcile my place as a mere man on this Earth with my desire to make it better.

I don’t want to face this world tonight. I feel the unhappiness around me or perhaps it’s inside me. Does it cloud what’s around me? It hurts to see too much light or too much darkness, and I feel the weight of grief closing in.

I don’t want to face this world tonight. I don’t want to be someone who must rely on the kindness of strangers and the opinions of critics. I’m caught on the edge of a sword between being true to myself and compelling to an audience.

I don’t want to face this world tonight. I’ll have to admit that all these trends and fads are the truth and I am fooling myself. I don’t want to succumb to that version of the world. I don’t want to lose the hope I cling to in the city lights.

I don’t want to face this world tonight. I want to be someone else. I want to release myself from the tethers on my mind and spirit. I want to face the unknown with virtue.

I don’t want to face this world tonight. Knowing that I am not the man I pretend to be. I am not brave or virtuous or incorruptible. I’m afraid of my own shadow and where my footsteps will lead.

I don’t want to face this world tonight. I want my path to be true. I want it all to work out. Tonight, I can’t see that. I can’t release myself. I’m in a trance.

I don’t want to face this world tonight. Tonight, let me hide. Tomorrow, I’ll go out and face this world again.

It used to be a bookstore—one story and a balcony that looked into the main room. In the middle of the room was a dead chandelier dangling from the ceiling over the Collector’s head. He sat in the chair, illuminated only by moonlight coming from the windows and the glowing occupants of the shelves.

The shelves were filled with smoky lit orbs of different colors. A scan of the room showed shelves grouped with orbs of similar colors. There were lime green orbs closest to the Collector and then they spanned out around the room: orange, pink, blue, yellow and red. The whole balcony was filled of purple orbs.

If you watched an orb, you would see that the colors swirled slightly. The interesting ones were caught between two colors or changed tints quickly. Many of the orbs repeated a similar pattern of color changes—with cycles ranging from 20 seconds to several days.

The Collector sat staring at two orbs on a table in front of him. The orbs were floating on silver stands and the Collector focused intently, sometimes putting his hands on them. The textured orbs felt cool to his skin, but had to be carried carefully as they vibrated sporadically.

The two orbs in front of the Collector changed colors at the same speed. They were running through a pattern that cycled every 10 seconds—starting at white, to a yellow, and then they held on a red for several seconds before fading to purple. The Collector nervously looked every few seconds at a staff that stood in place next to the chair. It had an orb atop it that let off a faint blue hue. He then returned his gaze to the orbs on the table.

The Collector could see into these orbs beyond the colors and every few seconds he muttered, “Not again.” The colors were speeding up now and the Collector closed his eyes and placed a hand on both spheres. His head jerked and he had a hard time holding onto the two of them. Suddenly his whole body jolted and he withdrew his hands.

He panted for some seconds before finally opening his eyes and confirming that both orb’s lights were now out. He sighed and grabbed his own staff. The now pink color of the orb swirled with deep red tints.

The Collector was suddenly in danger, which meant this event was no accident. These two orbs’ stories had collided.

He looked up to the second floor; the orbs were no longer all purple, but began changing to other colors. He was going back out there, again. He had a job to do.

I’d like to create a new fitness monitor. Instead of measuring pulse or steps, it would measure laughter. I’m not even talking laughter throughout the day, but the first time each day that you laugh out loud.

I know there are sometimes streaks of days where I don’t laugh or think about laughing. In New York, I went and saw Billy Crystal. The first time I laughed it felt foreign for just a moment before relief swept over me. It had been four days since I laughed out loud.

I am someone who thrives on laughter. It’s why I have an encyclopedic knowledge of Seinfeld and a nostalgic fondness for Popsicle stick jokes (this is made up).

Tangent: Does anyone remember Stick Stickly, the former Nick in the Afternoon summer host in the 90’s? He was a popsicle stick, and his big gag was being dipped in an unknown substance with a blindfold on. One time they had a special where he found his long-lost brother, who could have been Chris Elliot, but turned out to be another Popsicle stick. They had a thing with oddly formed people between Hey Arnold and the giant Face that hosted Nick Jr…Okay, back to words on laughter.

The internet, it seems, has been created for the entire purpose of mining laughs. Most internet content (tweets, memes, YouTube videos) is garbage, but every now and then it causes you to laugh out loud in the office when you’re supposed to be working.

We could all live a little lighter if we knew where our next laugh was coming from. We would be happier if we addressed misunderstandings with shared humor instead of anger—if laughter were praise, apology, greeting, romance and encouragement.

I am pretty good at laughing with others. I try to laugh at myself, but then people who don’t understand self-deprecating humor think I’m down on myself. In my best times, I see life with a tinted with laughs, never taking it too seriously.

I would like to create a podcast and the entire goal is to make the listener laugh out loud in the first ten minutes of his or her day. I think it would be more powerful than meditation and coffee. However, laughter is hard to capture and even harder to execute.

Have any ideas on where I can get my next laugh-fix? I mean my LOL fix (first time I’ve ever typed that in a piece).

The oath for journalists should be plucked from the last lines of the Declaration of Independence. To defend the rights of the press and the people, “we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.” How many American journalists do you know that follow such a creed?

If the journalism of the past 100 years dies, it deserves to die. It is not dying because the public wants to hide from the truth and shun good reporting. It is dying because the mainstream media seeks advertising dollars through click bait, slow websites, scare tactics and poor reporting.

Journalism, as an institution, has often chased trends. Journalism would benefit from looking back on its own history and realizing that the public evolves. Catchy headlines have lost their effectiveness. Similarly, Walter Cronkite eventually moved beyond news shows with a puppet lion named Charlemagne, and the Hearst Newspapers left their days of yellow journalism for better practices, eventually.

How did journalism miss the fact that the public outgrows trends? The institution missed the decline of westerns, disco and Who Wants to be a Millionaire. What’s true yesterday will not be true tomorrow. Looking for shortcuts, instead of reconnecting with the audience, has run organizations off the rails.

Quality became a luxury rather than a necessity. The strategy failed. Journalism entities, tied to corporate interests, found the first pieces of plywood to stay afloat when the ship started to sink, and now they realize that the wood is rotting.

Journalists need to be the loudest advocates for the importance of free press. They must go into classrooms and seminars to educate the public. Journalists must connect with their neighbors and find ways to make stories relevant to people’s lives. Journalism insulated to an office in a high tower in New York is as effective as writing a doctoral thesis with Wikipedia. If a story doesn’t resonate with the public, a journalist must find out why.

Journalists need to connect with the public and find the stories that matter to everyone. If a piece is so important, journalists need to present it in a way that makes the audience care. Those who hold power and operate in the dark should fear journalists. Journalism must see past the headlines in front of them to uncover buried facts.

Journalists need to stop breaking stories into two fractured sides—left and right, black and white, and right and wrong. Stories with only two sides fit into a couple of paragraphs or a sound bite, but lack authenticity. Journalism is about the unification of ideals.

The journalist must be the most vulnerable person in the piece. They must be willing to let their hearts bleed on the page when they cover a murder and let tears flow on the air when they hear about a tragedy. They must uncover stories of joy that matter and outduel those who wish to control the media.

I know so many people committed to the practice of quality journalism. I am optimistic that they will all find a platform to help keep the public educated. Treat the news as it exists in life, ongoing and evolving. Leave the audience with questions and the need for further exploration.

The lessons learned from the past century can be used as a gateway into new avenues for quality reporting and storytelling. The media matters far beyond a profit amount. Journalism is not a product to sell on a square screen; it’s everything that happens beyond our field of vision.

Prince’s 1980s’ reign represented the last time that pop music and rock music were the same genre.

Until Prince, pop music stood for everything that wasn’t classical or jazz. After Prince, pop music basically took what Prince and Michael Jackson created and continued doing the same thing up through Taylor Swift’s 1989. Meanwhile, rock (including grunge and hard rock), hip-hop and country each spun off into its own sphere. They were kicked out from under the pop umbrella.

I’m not saying Prince broke pop music, but he may have ended its monopoly.

Prince is a deeply personal subject for me. I consider myself a rock music historian (or at least a snob) and he’s in a handful of artists that I listen to as if they were their own genre of music. Sometimes you don’t need jazz or rock—you just need Prince.

Recently, I joked that I was going to take a couple of months and keep going to Prince’s club in Minnesota until he showed up. The last time he came to Denver, I didn’t have $250 to spend on a ticket. Now I wish I had taken out a loan. From videos, live recordings and bootlegs, it’s clear there was nothing quite like a Prince show.

When I was in middle school, Prince was not cool. I remember listening to him frequently on my iPod. That was back when you had to buy tracks one at a time. I spent a lot of time listening to Raspberry Beret, 1999, Little Red Corvette and the dance version of Let’s Go Crazy, which features a longer guitar solo (more on this song in a minute).

When people asked what I was listening to they were taken aback when I answered “Prince” in a way they weren’t when my response was Marvin Gaye or the Clash. They would ask, “Is he still, ‘the artist formerly known as Prince’?” Or worse, “you really listen to him?”

To middle school students (even at an arts school), I think Prince was still too out there, too sexual and too complicated—which is why I think he made a comeback among my peers during the exploratory phase of high school. No one sits around and listens to Prince like they do with Zeppelin, he just becomes a part of your life.

There are very few moments in music that I place in as high esteem as the sermon at the beginning of Let’s Go Crazy, perhaps the interlude of Springsteen’s Jungleland, the piano fade down of Layla or the first notes of the Ronnette’s Be My Baby. Let’s Go Crazy feels like a life force, and it’s the only song that makes me understand why people like EDM so much.

I’ve never seen Purple Rain. I never followed much of the cultural stuff with Prince because I love his music so much, and that was fuel enough for me. If Prince wasn’t Prince, he’d be considered one of the greatest guitarists that ever lived. On Rolling Stone’s list he’s number 33, but he could definitely duel anyone out of contention, except for maybe Hendrix, if his live recordings are any evidence.

Prince was my David Bowie and Michael Jackson. His death hit me the way I would react to the murder of Bugs Bunny. My favorite graduation gift was a Prince Bootleg album. I once made my friend Rose listen to Prince for hours on a road trip from Austin to Denver because she said she’d never really heard him.

Thanks for keeping the world turning for me with all those revolutions, Prince.

Punch a higher floor.

Bright, infectious and wonderful—
The rhythm of New York is the drumbeat of the nation;
If America was to pledge allegiance to a higher ideal,
It would be to New York City:
It’s Settlers, Staples and Sightseers.

The Settlers arrive with the weight of the world.
From stitched up countries
And dying heartland towns,
They’re drawn to New York’s fresh starts.
Settlers toil to fuel for the city’s torch of hope.

Staples are trapped in the city’s maze.
They’re converted settlers with rough skin and narrow visions.
Staples feed on addictions to light and movement.
In moments of triumph and defeat, they dig into to this life.
They are New Yorkers, after all.

Everyone else is a Sightseer
Everyone hates the Sightseers.

To sightseers, this city is a movie set—
Sightseers treat landmarks like trading cards,
Oblivious to others, they collect each selfie with glee,

Sightseer’s slows everyone down.
They are the gridlock of this city.

And gridlock becomes New York’s great equalizer.
In gridlock, a limousine goes no faster than a gypsy cab
And both want to run you over.

This gridlock forces New Yorkers underground.
Each passenger a coin, inserted to turn the gears
of antiquated slot machines;
hoping to find air again on the other end of the subway.

It has to get easier.
The carousel of life keeps spinning
so fast that it’s always four in the morning
and life is just a mix of street performers
and sirens and sidewalk traffic.

The city’s a buzzing frequency.
Tune into this radio ride,
The only beat you’ll ever need
Is on the streets
Of the chaos city that never sleeps.

It’s too big to fail you.
It’s a city of second chances
That asks only that you chase something.
It wears its scars with defiance,
Never forgotten. Carrying onward
Through a maze of abundant twists.
Where wealth is distributed in small bills.
Cash only.

And you look for a handhold in its worst moments;
A lifeline each day to pull you through to the next.
Like the laughter of Children running through the neighborhood
As if every block was still Sesame Street
Amid the jungle gym city of hoops and ladders.

No one has a plan,
Everyone’s missing out;
Something’s about to happen;
New shops open and new friends appear—
You find a new place that will be yours forever,
But then your feet can no longer find it
In this ever changing landscape.

And just when you think you can’t take it anymore
You hear a saxophone in the distance.
It plays an unfamiliar song,
But it sounds like a harbor,
Just not on a block you’ve found before.
It has a new rhythm
Of promise and speed.
So you walk to that rhythm of
And you pledge yourself.

Welcome to the only thing brighter and louder than big bang itself.
Welcome to the Center of the Universe.

I once knew a man who thought too much about himself and too little of others. While he did very little with his life, he spent a lot of time considering his own importance. He would chase crazy leads and give up easily. Here are the decrees of that man:

I want to found a great company. I don’t care what the company does, just that I can sit at the table of giants who walked before me and be considered an equal or even better off than they were. I want journals and newspapers to write about my daring exploits in the business world. I want to sell my secret to success in a bottle after I sell the company off for millions.

I want strangers to think I’m important. I want to walk down crowded halls full of young, ambitious men looking to catch their big break, and have each one stare at me. I want them to point to their friends and say, “There goes an important man worth looking at right now.”

I want to put my name on a boat, a plane and a building. I want my success to be a tangible symbol that I can rub in other people’s faces. I want people without their names on things to look out and see my name and think, there’s a successful man; he got his name on a yacht.

I want to be a politician. I want to control the fates of other people’s lives. I want to show them that I have not only mastered my own life, but also can exact control over their lives. I want to be the politician that rises through the ranks, not tied down by the morals of the common man.

I want to write a memoir. I want people to read my thoughts, not just now, but in a thousand years like we do with the great philosophers. While I don’t want writing to be my craft, I have such interesting thoughts that other people must acknowledge their brilliance. When great civilizations of the future read my thoughts, they’ll all hope to one day think like me.

I want to live to be 200 years old or more. When my great great great grandchildren come to visit, I want them to gather around and hear of the many adventures in my life. I want my great great great grandchildren to look at me and be amazed because I am the master of death. I am immortal.

If I were given the choice between being a man and being a statue, I think that perhaps I should be a statue. In 80 years people will look up at me and say, “This man was someone they made into a statue.” If I were to be a man, in 80 years I would be simply a stone in the ground.

Ten Thoughts for your Tuesday…

1. Anyone have interesting apprenticeship opportunities for me this summer? I feel like I’ve looked almost everywhere else, maybe it’s time to look on my own site.

2. Ryan Holiday is writing a sequel to The Obstacle is the Way! My friend Jeni encompasses the big struggle of the book. The obstacle is that she’s refused to read the book, but I haven’t found a way to convince her. I’m still working on the premise of the stoicism book, but it’s worth the read.

3. The phone is now the number one defense against awkward moments. If you see something awkward, feel embarrassed, or find yourself lost, look at your phone and no one will know.

4. Hillary vs. Bernie just feels like class president elections. One of the candidates is promising free soda and everyone sitting at good tables at lunch instead of just the fifth graders. He can’t actually follow through, but the other candidate may make your life miserable if you don’t vote for her. I’m still paying for not voting for Annabel in 5th grade.

5. Sometimes I make up names. I’ve never known an Annabel in my life.

6. This may be the best assessment from anyone I’ve seen on the power of authentic media storytelling, like podcasting, by Note To Self’s Manoush Zomorodi. She had a great episode on the power of podcasting for female voices: “When I was Hard Core News girl there was always the right answer at the end. There was always like, here’s the story, there’s a beginning, middle and an end. And with podcasting, I can be like, we don’t know the answer, but exploring it is super important and I’m going to be vulnerable here and tell you, I’m not sure where I land on this because that’s life and life is messy.”

7. Online media companies are losing a lot of money through the online ads that reward clicks. While they blame advertisers, consumers are inevitably seeking out better products. There are only so many click bait headlines that people will click on before they get tired of it.

8. I’m trying to figure out how to monetize my writing. I may start auctioning off an interview a week to the highest bidder. I’m kind of afraid the highest bidder will make me pay them five dollars to do the interview.

9. Chicago is not a city where you’re rewarded for smiling at strangers on the train.

10. I think that everyone should try to laugh out loud early in the day. I don’t have a lot of funny friends who are morning people though.

It begins with me. My feelings of worth related to work, community and self all start with that moment I wake up in the morning.

That moment, for me, can sometimes be the worst part of the day. If the stress of the previous day did not melt off in my travels through sleep, then I have an uphill battle to climb.

I have an important decision to make in that first moment of the day. Can I put all of my effort into correcting the thoughts in my head, or is it better to perform the day as if I’m okay?

I’m lucky, I have people I can talk to about my struggles when necessary, but there are always moments I spend caught within the webs in my own head.

I need to remember to take the time to be my best self. At times in the last few months, I’ve tried to be someone else’s best self. Not only does this leave me in a vulnerable position, but also the other person almost never sees me how I would like them to see me.

The most authentic version of yourself that you can put forward is usually what the world needs. I need to stop feeling like I need to craft a version of myself to fit someone else’s vision.

How does Mary Poppins respond when you ask her to explain something?

“First of all, I would like to make one thing quite clear… I never explain anything”—Marry Poppins

That’s my latest blog post for Experience Institute:

http://expinstitute.com/2016/04/the-error-in-justifying-your-work/