According to Sam and Jim Commenting on things that irk us off, make us laugh out loud or just seem too weird too believe According to Sam and Jim: Do You Feel Totally Irrelevant and Sliding Toward Oblivion?

Friday, August 23, 2013

Do You Feel Totally Irrelevant and Sliding Toward Oblivion?

Don’t you sometimes feel totally irrelevant? Like, you’re having drinks with friends after work and they’re all yakking about things that absolutely do not interest you, and they don’t seem to be clued in to your thoughts when you speak up? At least they asked you to join them for drinks. Or did they? Did you just tag along uninvited? Are your ideas at work or in your friendship circles usually passed over or kind of sneered at? Do you often feel like you’re swimming upstream against an overwhelming tide of people who simply have no interest in you or who you are, what you do or what you care about? Do people neglect to reply to your social network postings?!

Geez! You really have a problem!

Okay. Sam and I are teasing, but unfortunately, many people do feel irrelevant. In the Dilbert comic strip this week, Dilbert asked Dogbert, “What’s my motivation today?” Dogbert replied, “You’re a temporary arrangement of matter sliding toward oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe.”

Dilbert says, “That’s it?” Dogbert replies, “Did I say needy?”

Do you feel like a temporary arrangement of matter sliding toward oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe? I know I sometimes do. When I first starting writing my books I was hopeful that a lot of people would read them, but that hasn’t happened. That makes me feel irrelevant, like I’m not tuned in to the rest of the world. I’ve spent thousands of dollars attempting to market my books, but the sad truth is, if you’ve self published like I have, you aren’t relevant to the big booksellers. You need a big publisher backing you to get any attention.

Then too, I apparently don’t write about things that a lot of people are interested in reading. I don’t write Harry Potter stories or Hunger Games or Fifty Shades of Grey. My stories are about regular people in real, everyday-type situations. That doesn’t seem to click with many readers. I was reminded of my irrelevance again at the recent county fair, where I sold and signed my books alongside a couple other Indie authors. They were selling their books about the paranormal and the occult ten to one over my simple action adventure and murder mystery stories.

These days it seems like all readers (and movie goers) are interested in are magic, ghosts, zippy-doo-dah dance moves, kung foo and claymation or cartoon characters. Those things aren’t my shtick man.

I feel a lot like Phoebe Buffay on Friends. In one episode she was booted off the microphone at Central Perk coffee shop because her music (Smelly Cats, etc.) made the owner want to “shove a finger through his eye and into his brain;” he hired and paid a real musician to sing real songs. Phoebe was relegated to singing on the sidewalk out in front of Central Perk.

Okay. I know I’m whining. And I don’t know if you can relate to all this, but feeling irrelevant is a lot like being totally pooped on. Sam! Hold up a minute!

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