It’s so hard to be The Best. When the ground keeps shifting. When the temperature keeps changing. When the thoughts and acts and deeds of everyday people are unfathomable, unruly, and undone. It’s so hard to be The Best when the mere act of even trying yields a big fat goose egg of results.
*Takes a moment to reflect on if that goose egg is The Best goose egg ever. It is not. Moves on.*
What does it even mean to be The Best, anyway? The Best at what? Walking? Eating? Keeping the vehicle of life moving forward while the shifting plates of tastes and habits clatter and smash to the hard ground outside your window? Emphasis is frequently given to the power and the glory of The Best. The Best Film, The Best Friend, The Best Breakfast for Under $20. The Bestest Boi to be a Best in Show Doggo. And on and on.
It’s all about “the winning” with The Best. But don’t be fooled. It’s The Best at winning in someone else’s eyes, via someone else’s spreadsheet of rankings, according to some stranger’s checklist of bestables. It’s the Illuminati, of course. Part of their Best Great Grand Click Bait Plan to Destroy Society. Best 200 Thinkers About Oblongs. 30-under-30 Best Scarfers of Hot Dogs. The Best of the Best in Ironing Pornographer’s Trousers for World Domination. The Best Secret Society (Hint: it’s the Illuminati).
Blah Blah. That’s The Best Blah Blah I can do. Did it make your Top 5?
If you are a maker of things—a dreamer and plodder and twiddler of the fiddly knobs of creativity—the idea of The Best seems attractive and sexy. A thing to grab at and motivate. It is the flashy beacon shining brightly at the top of the Best Mountain, glinting, blinking, and warbling from on high.
*Fog horn sound*
“This is where The Best reside, come now all dreamers, sit by my side.”
*Fog horn sound*
Look to your right. Look to your left. Look all around your best-seeking body. Are these people better than you? Are these the ones you’re up against? Get out your binoculars. Who’s sitting up there with the beacon today? Can you push them off with a no-look shove? What do you think you’ll see when you get up there? Will you shout out: “Finally! I’m number one! I’m number one!” and do a little jig? Will it make you happy? How many people will take an elbow straight to the throat as you work your way to the top of Best Mountain?
Is throat elbowing something you want to be known for?
As a New Year invites itself to settle upon your sofa, the impulse to set fire to it with your awesomeness can be overwhelming. Instinct makes out with Ego at midnight, and drunk with ambition and longing births a new person into the party punch bowl. Rising from the Matrix-like goo, you bring yourself to full height and announce with slippery conviction:
“I’m gonna be The Best this year!”
*Shoots finger guns*
“Just you wait, arseholes. Just wait and see!”
This is all fine and good and I have no issue with the idea of feeling big-balled and brassy and hammering a goal-stake in the ground for the next 365 days. But hold on—I don’t think being The best at something is the right way to frame it when you’re making art or doing whatever the hell it is you think you’re doing here.
And let me just get this out of the way while I’m at it. I am fighting the urge to say “Be the best at being you!” and end it there, skipping off gaily to tra-la-la and do-de-do and get some green tea and chant a mantra. But that’s too frou-frou and not at all helpful.
*Closes eyes. Tries to slide blocks into a thought that makes sense.*
It’s fine to aspire to be The Best at something. But being The Best is not a forever thing. It cannot be sustained long-term. There will always be the next flavor of the month and the ever-continuing tilt of the culture wheel toward what’s fresh, what’s new, or what’s—to put it brutally—just not you.
The Best is just an opinion. The Best has no longevity. The Best ebbs and flows, following its own tidal charts and existing outside of your control. It is a crown bestowed upon your itchy head by the riff-raff and the hoi-polloi and is a hologram of pain.
The Best, the Best, the best.
*Sips green tea*
The best is to love yourself and keep going.
*Slurps. smacks lips*
The best is to put all of yourself into your art. Don’t hold back.
*Clinks teacup on saucer*
The best is to keep on getting up and going again, no matter where you are in the rankings.
*wise-eye squint with accompanying head nod*
Realize the empty and fill it with the best—it's the best that you can do.1
*Ugh. Ya filthy hippie.*
Your honor, I’d like to reposition the moon and hang it over here, a bit to the side to futz with the tide.
Do not go gently into that good night seeking to be The Best at something. The toppermost of the poppermost.2 The number one on some arbitrary list that everyone’s bound to disagree with (and should).3
Don’t be The Best.
Be Undeniable.
Let your work take the mic. It’s got a voicebox with its wiggling tissue and cartilage, expanding and contracting and vibrating its message, an intricate interplay between our dreaming and execution abilities. Continuing to do the work, whether it makes you The Best at it or not, is the thing. Should it be your best work? It should certainly aim to be so good that it cannot be denied, but sights stray and aim is fallible.
The point is not perfect aim, it’s perfect continuity. To produce work relentlessly and with such frequency and consistency that its presence—and through that, your existence—becomes undeniable.
You may never be The Best, but you’re putting yourself out there. You’re letting your work wander about in the brains and hearts and consciousness of a world filled with flawed and imperfect, but beautifully magnificent inhabitants. Maybe your work is incredible. Maybe it’s a car crash that folks can’t turn away from. Just know that there are plenty of other variables in between those two ends of the spectrum where you can still make it doing this thing you love.
I say don’t be The Best—be undeniable.
And don’t do it for just a year. Do it for the rest of your life.
Yours in tiny thought,
Janeen
This week’s amends…
For some reason, I find it kinda icky sharing stuff I write, but if I don’t do that, how will I ever be UNDENIABLE? Normally this section is reserved for other folk’s writing, but this week I’m posting the link to something I wrote about my cycling goal last year, which was to ride 100 centuries in 2022.
*toots own horn*
It’s a long read and it’s about cycling. And birds. And cycling birds (huh?). And you can read the full piece HERE.
Excerpt:
With the intensity of a job site foreman, the woodpecker tilts its jackhammer skull and struts toward the work face. The engineer, the specialist, the architect, and the laborer, it surveys the blueprints of its mind, laying out the perfect circle to appear shortly at the end of its stiff beak. This bird, this tool of industry, is eager to punch its clock to the beat of its toil.
Cocking its head back to pre-load the first strike, there is a momentary pause before release, followed by instant and urgent motion erupting at the edge. A religion of activity, the woodpecker taps a sermon into the mid-brain of the world, and we oooh and ahh at the pressing. It is the clack and thwack of nature’s most ardent composer, creating hardwood ostinatos to dazzle us all.
This is focused evolution made real, with a body assembled to withstand the shocks and savagery of its methodical efforts. Sound waves reverberate through the bones and organs and eyeballs, but it pays it no mind. It soaks up the advantage of a brain encased in the thickest of skulls, cradled by the foam of what can only be described as an avian hardhat.
Its beak takes a wrecking and keeps on pecking.
Plugging away at invisible blueprints, seeking no approvals and following no orders, the woodpecker continues its mission. There will be no headache on the horizon, no down tools to rest, and no concussions to interrupt proceedings. Just on and on until the job is done. Today, thinks the woodpecker, I will create a hole of circular splendor. Today I will achieve architectural nirvana.
Bang the drum, tap out the tune—this is the way of a rat-a-tat warrior.
Centuries. Centuries are for woodpeckers.- From “Centuries are for the birds” by moi.
I saw this reel recently from Tyler the Creator about not wanting to look thirsty (huge paraphrase) and it just reminded me about how its always a hustle. Promote your work. This is me doing just that.
On Rotation: “Chaise Longue” by Wet Leg
If you’re as old as me, you’ll remember how this video for this song blew your mind when it came out.
While this could easily go in the Eyes section, I feel any mashup belongs here, in the Ephemera. Or is that just my excuse to get this in this newsletter? You’ll never know. What I know is that I have not seen a lot of movies in this but the ones I have seen I loved.
Via Neatorama
Cues Arthur’s Theme
Tina Turner is number 55? Guys, come on. She was pretty clear about this.