An edgy essay by Robert Whyte
By success, I mean outstanding success, not run-of-the-mill, modest, expected achievements. I mean the sort of success that gets you noticed on the world stage, like winning Wimbledon (Serena Williams) or being a cult-leader-serial-killer (Charles Manson, Ted Bundy). By outstanding, I mean unexpected and not definitely not boring. Barack Obama and Bill Gates are arguably successful by most standards, but they are boring, so they’re outa here. Sorry guys. Write your own essay.
This definition of outstanding success will no doubt produce different lists in different places and age-groups. For example, who in Darwin’s name is Adam Sandler, and what rock did he crawl out from under? Donald Trump was boring before he was born and only went downhill from there, so he’s a no show. Who gets paid the most playing baseball, basketball or soccer doesn’t count either. I don’t know anyone in those categories.
David Bowie was mega-successful, not just because he was a fabulously popular singer who couldn’t sing very well, but because he started his career as a street mime. Bob Dylan and Mick Jagger are others in the “can’t sing for shit” category. They weren’t mimes, though. They don’t have to be. It’s not essential, but it helps.
There’s another rule too. You are definitely not outstandingly successful if your name comes up as spelling error in your word processor, underlined in squiggly red. Therefore, Wanda Landowska doesn’t cut it either, even though she could play the harpsichord like her pubic hair was on fire.
Tiger Woods gets a guernsey, just because of his name. What sort of dysfunctional dad names his son “Tiger”? Elton John too, because for one thing he married a woman (really!) on Valentine’s Day 1984, but more because his middle name is Hercules.
Elon Musk is another winner in the stupid name category, even better because it’s his real name. Did you know he was born in South Africa? I’m tempted to include Jennifer Aniston because she appears to be completely devoid of any redeeming qualities, but I won’t. Madonna arguably fits the same bill, but she gave the one-name thing a big kick-along, so she makes the list. Julian Assange? Notable, but outstandingly successful? Maybe if failure is a category. But just look at the guy. Boring, boring, boring. He gets billed as an “Australian computer programmer.” Spare me!
Are you getting the idea? Yeah? This is fun, isn’t it?
Unfortunately, this essay is not about celebrity shockers, as much as everyone would like it to be, this is about how not to be successful, which is the opposite. But while we are here, let me add just a few more that don’t make it because I have no idea who the fuck they really are, what they look like, or what they do. Lady Gaga, Joe Biden, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lopez, Zac Efron, Boris Johnson, Adam Sandler again, Justin Bieber, Eminem, Theresa May, Kanye West, Gordon Ramsay, Snoop Dogg, Benedict Cumberbatch and Bernie Sanders are all familiar names, but I haven’t got a clue who they really are. Don’t tell me, they’re sure to be incredibly boring. The insides of my eyelids are probably more fun.
On the other hand, O. J. Simpson, Arnold Schwarzenegger, George Clooney and Jason Statham make it, because they either (a) went above and beyond with stellar multiple careers, or (b) simply beggar belief that they made it at all. I mean, Jason Statham?
Alexander the Great. Anyone with “the Great” in their name is a shoo-in. Julius Caesar? Does anyone remember him? Napoleon Bonaparte? I know Napoleon was famous, but who’s Bonaparte? Joseph Stalin is a must because he’s ranked number one on the list of the all-time worst people in history, just edging out Adolf Hitler whose real name was a hoot. But for pure evil it doesn’t get much better than Josef Mengele. Ivan the Terrible and Vlad the Impaler are also favourites, for obvious reasons.
Here’s where we have to stop the fun stuff and lose ninety-nine per cent of our audience, leaving only a boy scout with measles, because he’s got no choice.
So correspondingly, here are two axiomatic truths of human nature and society: first, no good deed goes unpunished; and second, to those who have much, more is given.
Therefore, the sad fact is that you are never going to succeed at anything if you are
(i) honest,
(ii) conscientious,
(iii) sincere,
(iv) virtuous,
(v) ethical,
(vi) considerate,
(vii) compassionate, or
(viii) unselfish.
If you ticked any of those boxes, or even worse, more than one, you’re done for. You can say goodbye to the A list, which is reserved for celebrities.
To be a celebrity, you have to have a bit of the mongrel about you, or even better, junkyard dog.
The truth is that there is good and bad in everyone, but the badder the better. You think you’re a saint? Spare me! Who among you has never kept an over-payment in change? Who has never pirated a TV show? Who has never passed up a lucky break, instead of looking around for someone more worthy?
Yeah, yeah, most people are basically good but that’s no way to get ahead. If you want to make it in this this world you have to realise what’s popular and work it into your schtick. Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative. What have you got to work with? Scandal is tops, then lists of celebrities, nudity, subsets of nudity notably Kim Kardashian’s butt (it’s huge!), kittens, a blue boat-house in Perth, stupid animal names like Alien Butt Spider, more kittens, kissing bunnies, and most of all, what everyone else is interested in. Success breeds more success.
So to begin with, are you outstandingly successful already? No? Then forget it, you’re going nowhere.
The basis of getting to the top and staying there is obviously a kitten with Kim Kardashian’s butt and a stupid name. Can you beat that? If you could, would you debase yourself and do it? Anything to get noticed. No? Then forget it.
A bit of supernatural oogly boogly does wonders for the attention seeker. Get God on your side. A divine leg-up might be less than honourable, but why look a gift horse in the mouth?, unless you’re a Trojan, of course. For me, hocus pocus puts a spanner the works, and the terms like “His Holiness” irk me, but I am unusually insensitive to coercive collusion of delusion.
The truth is, and I’ll say it again, that there is good and bad in everyone. The relative percentages are of course as wide as the widest bell curve. Some people are mostly good, like Abraham Lincoln and Mother Theresa, others are mostly bad, like Trump and Kim Kardashian.
In terms of success, bad is good. To be successful, be bad. You might think people don’t want to be bad, but bad people have no idea they are evil, because of the Dunning-Kruger effect when applied to morality.
The standard Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias by which people mistakenly assess their cognitive ability as greater than it really is. A Dunning-Kruger effect applied to morality is the inability for bad people to realise they are bad. Naturally, they go on being bad with a clear conscience. Good people don’t have this problem, they have the opposite. They admit to the possibility of being bad (see above, there is good and bad in everyone) and suffer doubt and guilt. That’s not going to get you to the top of the queue. Sharking the queue, because you think you are a massively entitled fuck will, but you are too obedient for that.
Is there really nothing that works, other than celebrity kittens with big nude arses? What about news?
Yes, there’s plenty of that. But you don’t qualify.
You don’t satisfy the category of newsworthiness, which includes natural or human disasters, mass shootings, more nudity, sports results, more kittens, and the normal fodder of the interaction between the shit generators, like the potus, and the shit funnels of the mainstream media which require shit from the shit generators. Mainstream media has invested a lot of time and money in setting up the shit funnels for that purpose and come hell or high water, they’ll deliver whatever comes through the funnels even if it is only journalists talking among themselves.
Oh, come on! Is there no other way to be outstandingly successful?
Only one. Start off rich and famous, and go on from there to the highest heights. It’s your best shot. You can’t get there if you’re not even at the starting blocks.
That’s not fair. I really want to be successful so I can do good things.
This is clearly what’s known in philosophy as “the leprechaun-rainbow-gold fallacy.” It consists in thinking that success is like finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, placed there by your own personal-assistant leprechaun, because you’re a good person and work hard.
Wrong, barnacle-breath. If you do actually want to succeed at anything the easiest way to do it is cheat, lie, exploit and con your way into the relevant stratum of hell, and step on any fingers and toes on your way up. There are some tricks to do it less dishonestly than some others, like having journalistic and public relations skills, but it’s lipstick on a pig at the best of times, since this is their game, not yours.
You still want to try? What are you, a hedgehog? Okay, here’s a couple of practical tips to improve your chance of outstanding success:
- have a young front person (who if they are any good will take all the credit and rob you blind)
- succeed overseas (overseas success is more newsworthy than home-grown, not a lot, but some)
- merge (if this is successful the other entity will take all the credit and rob you blind)
- do everything you hate including becoming a vacuous nitwit, commenting gushily about scandal, and especially celebrating celebrity, fads, kittens with big nude arses, natural or human disasters, mass shootings, more nudity, sports results and the normal fodder of the interaction between the shit generators and the shit funnels
- get private funding from philanthropists (subject to the conditions above, so it’s impossible to achieve unless you actually don’t need it).
If you finally admit you are never going to be successful, and the one thing you are really, really good at is constantly failing–then you can relax, get used it, affirm your failure, and always aim at that lowest of all low bars.
Looked at that way, it’s actually not so bad; and what is most paradoxical yet true, one fine day you’ll discover that you’re happy.
AGAINST PROFESSIONAL PHILOSOPHY REDUX 306
Mr Nemo, W, X, Y, & Z, Thursday 1 August 2019
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