Don't, Whatever You Do, Forget This

He looks at me with that quizzical expression on his face, cake pop in hand.

He knows I’m recording him with my phone again.

Toddlers get that sense of being watched.

“Look, dad!”, cries my oldest.

I swivel around without stopping, in time to see him cram his $4.95 cupcake into his already chubby-cherub 7-year-old face.

“Daaaah!”, squeals the other one.

I swivel back, aware of the happy munching going on now that the older one has had his 15 seconds of the spotlight.

As I stop, my younger boy puts the entire (also $4.95) cake pop in his mouth, creating a comical effect of making his entire head a cake pop.

He then proceeds to pull on the stick…

::POP::

The whole cake pop magically appears in front of him.

He grins.

::POP::, ::POP::, ::POP::

With each repetition, he revels in the funny noise the oversized lollipop-shaped baked good creates.

That last one, though, he bites down, revealing a mass of peanut butter beneath the chocolate exterior.

Back to the quizzical expression as he realizes there was something even better beneath the surface.

He chews thoughtfully.

Meanwhile, my older boy has devoured his cupcake (frosting and all) and is also contently observing his brother in his revelation.

I stop recording.

What was that?

Maybe you’ve guessed it now, but this is a parent’s life on a regular basis.

The power of modern recording technology dwarfs any in previous decades.

For my parents to pull this kind of thing off in the 80s, it would have taken a tripod, a huge video recorder the size of a boombox, and a steady hand, not to mention a sense of timing that isn’t innate.

It also would have been extremely intrusive and distracting in public.

Which brings me to my point…

When I started writing in 2022, I made $0 extra a day that year from writing.

In 2023, I made an extra $0.39 a day.

Last year, it was around $2.20.

This year, I’m aiming for $5.

In reality, it’s not about the money. It’s about the impact on your audience.

The monetary value is just a reference for it.

I was reminded today that shifting from impact to monetary value leads to disaster with this video:

I don’t expect you to watch it, of course, but Boeing is far from being the only example of what can happen when you shift focus to an external metric.

My family is the reason I’m here.

I want to leave a digital footprint that enables them to learn about why I’m half-crazed, distracted, and altogether obsessed with their well-being and future success in whatever they pursue and whoever they choose to become.

I’m far from the perfect parent, but it’s my focus.

The moment I focus on trying to make more money to that end, I will most likely destroy my bond with them in the long-term.

• This is why I completely stopped posting on TwiX and moved to BlueSky.

• This is why I stopped publishing on Medium for a few months.

• This is why I didn’t try to push monetizing my writing.

Until I found something that was worth offering that wouldn’t feel like I was shifting my focus to the money, I was reluctant.

Prismatic thinking and writing is what I want to teach them.

That’s what I want to show them someday, that it’s possible to cultivate a mindset that is resilient towards being hijacked as a means to an end that I’ve been watching take place over and over again, especially in politics and religion.

To do this requires a focus on health, self-awareness, and self-expression.

This is the core focus of my writing and is the name of my newsletter.

My “why” has always been clear. It was the “how” that eluded me for so long.

That’s the next step, and this is my answer.

I’ll explain more over the next few articles.

P. S.

If you’ve been here this long, then thanks for hanging on as I thrashed through mindmining, polymathic knowledge theory, and projecting presence.

Those are all included in prismatic thinking, so what you’re seeing now is the crystallization of those ideas into this concept.