I tried to paint a mourning that didn’t hurt, dipping my brush into the brightest yellow I could find— the color of survival, once the color of son, the color of I am okay.
I laid it thick across the clear sheet of today, trying not to cover the past but to bring it with me into the next scene.
But you know the physics of this book now— the pages are glass, not paper.
And deep beneath my layer of yellow sunlight lies the permanent midnight blue, sometimes black, of losing you. The indigo of a silence that started at nineteen.
I thought the darkness would spoil the light. I thought the blue would swallow the gold.
I tried to outsmart grief— it already knew my name.
But as the layers settled, something impossible happened.
The yellow of my living sank into the blue of your absence, and the world didn’t turn grey.
It turned green.
That wild, impossible emerald green. The color of the fields you loved. The color of the heritage you wore like armor, the family crest tattooed over my heart that reads jackiemac4ever beneath it.
I see it now.
Every time I let a little light in, it doesn’t push you away. It just mixes with the memory of you to paint the whole world in your color.
The Zig Zag Irony of Being Remarkable: An Exploration of Creativity and Innovation. (PS. This is not for everyone)
In a world teeming with incessant zigs of conformity and predictable patterns, the act of zagging – deviating from the norm – becomes not just an act of rebellion, but a necessity for those seeking the mantle of remarkability. Let’s delve into the intricate dance of the ‘zig’ and ‘zag,’ unraveling the irony that to be truly remarkable, one must embrace what stands in their way and see it as the only way forward.
The Lure of the Zig: The Comfort of Conformity
Let’s first talk about the Zig. The zig represents the safe harbor of conformity. In business, it manifests as industry standards, best practices, and tried-and-tested strategies. A cheap hologram of acronyms littered about in a dreadfully vanilla and cliche power point presentation. In the realm of creativity and innovation, it’s the allure of following trends, sinply emulating successful models, and avoiding risks. The zig is appealing; it’s the siren song of the status quo, promising security and a modicum of success. But, nine out of ten zigs never get the stamp of remarkable.
The Zag: A Leap into the Unknown or simply what stands before you.
Conversely, the zag is an aberration from this path. It’s the embodiment of original thought, the pursuit of unexplored ideas, and the courage to challenge prevailing norms. The zag is not just about being different for the sake of it; it’s a deliberate choice to explore new horizons, driven by a quest for something more profound than mere success – the pursuit of remarkability. A place where commerce feels more like art.
The Irony of Being Remarkable
Herein lies the irony: in a world obsessed with unconscious zigging, true distinction often lies in zagging. Remarkability is not found in the crowded alleys of common thought but in the solitary paths of uncharted territories. This is not a mere contrarian stance; it’s an acknowledgment that the most groundbreaking innovations and creative masterpieces often arise from a willingness to diverge from the mainstream and sometimes it doesn’t at all mean taking that road less traveled, it’s often right front of you and isn’t even on a road, and may not require going anywhere at all.
The 180: Embracing Intellectual Rigor
Drawing inspiration from the intellectual rigor of Simon Sinek and Seth Godin, zagging is not about reckless deviation but about informed and thoughtful non-conformity. It’s a process steeped in intellectual curiosity, critical thinking, and a fearless attitude towards questioning the status quo or perhaps seeing the very overused term “status quo” as the North Star of the consensus and your mortal enemy.
The Role of Zagging in Creativity and Innovation
In the landscape of creativity and innovation, zagging represents the essence and the art of true creativity – the ability to see connections where others see divides, to find potential where others see pitfalls. It’s about reimagining the familiar in unfamiliar ways and daring to implement ideas that may initially seem scary or even weird. But perhaps one must first journey with the zigs, maybe even learn from them, all to find themselves in the middle of a happy accident, where they are struck with a beautiful epiphany that they are indeed going to zag.
Navigating the Zig Zag Dichotomy
The challenge, however, lies in navigating the dichotomy between zigging and zagging. It requires a delicate balance – an understanding of when to adhere to conventions and when to defy them. The art of being remarkable lies in recognizing that the most impactful ideas often emerge at the intersection of conformity and rebellion yet without making conference room compromises as they, indeed are just accidents without the happy.
The Call to Zag
At this point, you may be only hearing the reverb of this semi verbose rant, so I shall begin to wrap it up neatly and add a bow of colorful clarity to this little package of riddles. You see, the Zig Zag Irony of Being Remarkable is a clarion call to those aspiring to leave an indelible mark in their fields. It’s an invitation to embrace the zag – it’s not the path less traveled, but that very place most only see warning signs in red with bold letters: Do Not Enter. This direction is fraught with uncertainties but rich with the potential for true innovation and unparalleled creativity. In a world preoccupied with zigging, the bold, the imaginative, and the daring find their true calling in the art of the zag. Creating their own way by digging out of the very problem they’re trying to solve by embracing the deep holes that may first have them stuck, struggling and perhaps suffering a little more. But the proverbial light is always much brighter coming out the other side when that very problem is now the solution. This idea of zagging is 2000 years old, Marcus Aurelius put it best, “The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.” So, when you put your critical thinking cap on today, put it on backwards and ask yourself, am I zigging or zagging?
He had an Apple IIe back when Michigan still thought a “home computer” was something you yelled at. My father collected firsts the way other men collected regrets. Not to brag — to know. He wanted to see how the future worked before it decided what it was.
That machine sat in our house like a glowing confession booth. Green letters on a black screen. The future, stuttering.
Mine showed up in 1997.
By then, the future had learned how to sell itself.
That was the year I became that guy — the one who corrected people at parties over a commercial.
“Jobs didn’t write that,” I’d say, beer in hand, moral high ground wobbling under my feet. “That’s beat poetry in a business suit. He just stole it and slapped a logo on the ribs.”
I called it blasphemy — using dead poets to move plastic and silicon.
But I respected the hustle.
Because in one clean, arrogant move, he didn’t sell you a computer.
He sold you a seat at the same table as Einstein and Gandhi and Picasso.
Buy this machine and maybe, kid, you’re one of them now.
I couldn’t tell if Jobs was in a garage somewhere burning his fingers on a soldering iron…
Or just the best preacher Silicon Valley ever produced.
While all that was flashing across the TV, I was in my room discovering a different sin.
I started writing.
In 1997, writing poems on a computer felt like cheating on paper. My classmates were bleeding into notebooks, breaking hearts in cursive. Love songs, death songs, soft-focus misery.
I was staring at a screen, trying to figure out how to be a hard version of Sylvia Plath without driving my own car into a lake.
I tried pretty metaphors. Lakes as mirrors. Souls as reflections.
I hated all of it.
So I wrote my first real poem instead:
“Dionysus and the Silver Spoon.”
It was about a man who treated excess like oxygen. A drunk god in a borrowed suit who thought the world owed him women, wine, and a standing ovation.
It wasn’t mythology.
It was me with better lighting.
And that’s when the joke landed.
There I was, calling out Jobs for dressing up as Kerouac…
While I was wearing Plath and dead gods like a Halloween costume, hoping someone in the room would clap.
That computer didn’t teach me how to write.
It taught me how to look at myself without flinching.
It showed me the hunger. The vanity. The quiet little prayer every creative mutters when no one’s listening:
You will be told to keep it down. You will be called edgy, angry, reckless, dangerous, misinformed. You will be warned to think before you speak, but the only ones worrying about your volume will be those who fear your voice. Truth is treated as noise by those who live securely behind their own proof of lies. We’ve been told who to hate, we’ve been told who to trust, we’ve been told when to mourn, we’ve been told what to fear. And with each order, they’ve made the world quieter, emptier, and easier to control. A country where anger, grief, heartbreak, and dissent are classified as symptoms instead of signals. Turn it up until they know your name. Shatter the windows. Wake the neighbors. They tell us to be disarmed. Let’s make sure they can’t sleep.
If you could un-invent something, what would it be?
If I had to un-invent Organized Religion, let’s be clear: I wouldn’t be trying to kill God. I’d be firing the middle management.
I would dissolve the corporation of faith. Because that is what it has become: a global franchise that sells you water while you’re standing knee-deep in a river.
There is a profound difference between the spiritual impulse—that raw, undeniable feeling you get when you write a lyric that tells the truth, or when you sit in silence and actually face your own Jungian shadow—and the rigid structures that demand you outsource your conscience.
Hitchens would call it a “celestial dictatorship,” and he’d be right. It is the ultimate Orwellian surveillance state. It demands we surrender our modern intellect to the whims of bronze-age provincials. It insists we take our moral cues from illiterate merchant warlords who solved their disputes with the sword and claimed divine permission for their questionable domestic arrangements.
Why should the messy, beautiful search for meaning be held hostage by the egos of men who have been dust for a thousand years?
If we un-invented the organization, we wouldn’t be left with nothing. We would be left with us. We would be forced to build our own moral architecture, brick by brick, based on empathy and reason rather than fear. We would have to find the divine in the faces of the people we love—and the people we mourn—rather than looking for it in a gilded cage.
True spirituality requires bravery. It requires the guts to walk into the dark without a map. Organized religion is just selling you a flashlight with dead batteries and telling you it’s the sun.
It did not sprinkle moral disinfectant on your habits while you slept.
January 1st is not a beginning. It’s a receipt.
If you were moving toward something in October, you’re already closer now.
If you were lying to yourself in November, you brought that lie with you—carry-on, not checked.
Resolutions are charming in the way apologies are charming when they arrive late and rehearsed.
They sound noble.
They feel ceremonial.
They allow us to pretend that discipline is seasonal and courage can be scheduled.
But character doesn’t wait for fireworks.
Anyone who truly meant it—the running, the quitting, the writing, the calling back, the drinking less or loving better—quietly started when no one was watching. Usually on a random Tuesday. Usually without an announcement. Usually without permission.
That’s the part no one sells you.
Change doesn’t arrive with a slogan. It creeps in through boredom, discomfort, repetition.
It shows up looking unremarkable and asks if you’re willing to be consistent instead of inspired.
So keep your resolutions if you like. They’re harmless theater.
But don’t confuse the theater for the work.
If you want to begin, begin now.
If you already began, don’t stop just because the calendar caught up.
January doesn’t make you new.
It merely exposes whether you were honest before the countdown.
And that, inconveniently, is the only resolution that ever mattered.
There’s enough rot in a regular person to fuel a thousand comment sections and still have leftovers for Sunday.
You don’t need monsters. You just need people with slogans and something to protect.
The loudest about mercy keep their hands clean by pointing.
The loudest about love need an audience or it spoils.
The loudest about peace sleep with one eye open and a thumb on the trigger they swear they don’t own.
God-talkers rent God. They don’t live with Him. Peace-talkers rehearse it like a line they keep forgetting. Love-talkers mean approval and charge interest.
Watch the ones with microphones. Watch the ones with certainty. Watch the ones who underline books but never bleed on the page.
Watch the ones who romanticize hunger or mock it— both are tourists.
Watch the fast clappers. They clap to hear themselves.
Watch the ones who police language— they’re terrified something feral might get loose and name them.
Watch the ones who need crowds. Alone, they evaporate.
The average man isn’t harmless. The average woman isn’t gentle. Their love wants a receipt. Their love wants witnesses. Their love wants to be normal so it doesn’t have to be brave.
And here’s the part nobody says out loud:
There’s brilliance in their resentment. A precision. A teamwork. A choreography.
They can’t stand silence because silence asks questions. They can’t stand solitude because it doesn’t applaud.
They can’t make anything that didn’t already exist, so when they fail they blame the room, the time, the culture, the weather, you.
They don’t understand art because art doesn’t ask permission. They don’t understand love because love doesn’t negotiate.
So they’ll tell you you’re doing it wrong. That your grief is excessive. That your joy is suspicious. That your freedom is offensive.
Then they’ll come for you not messy, not emotional— but clean.
Their hatred is efficient. It shines. It passes inspections. It wears credentials.
It doesn’t rage.zwzwq It executes.
And that— that is the only masterpiece most of them will ever finish.
(The Diagnosis Was Wrong, But the Confidence Was Strong)
“Doctor, the patients are restless.” Good. If they were calm, I’d think the meds were working. Hand me the clipboard— the one covered in my old resentments and your new insurance co-pays.
The refill
I need a refill on whatever I prescribed last time. Don’t check the dosage— I wrote it during a blackout and the AMA refused to comment.
Bring in the next disaster. Who is it? Ah yes— the man allergic to responsibility and addicted to horoscopes and whores. Put him in the trauma bay; tell him Mercury’s been in retrograde since his third divorce, and Amber retired anyway.
And someone get me my reading glasses. Not to read— just to look smart while I guess wildly.
The nurse asks, “Doctor, are you okay?” Of course not. I’m a mental health professional. We don’t heal— we outsource.
Now… where were we? Ah yes, the refill.
RX #1: Take one truth with two lies and chase it with a childhood memory you haven’t processed yet.
RX #2: Apply gratitude directly to the wound. If burning occurs, good. It means you’re still alive.
RX #3: Stop saying “everything happens for a reason.” Everything happens because people are irresponsible and God clocks out early.
Next patient, please.
Mr. Ego returns— as usual— complaining of a swollen sense of self. I recommend ice. Preferably Antarctica.
Miss Co-Dependence is back too. We tried cutting her off last visit, but she refused because she “didn’t want to be rude.” We’ll keep her overnight.
And you— yes, you— the one pretending to be fine because you bought a new candle. You need a refill most of all.
Your diagnosis? Life. Chronic. Terminal. Relapsing and remitting but mostly just remitting.
The nurse hands me a chart. The chart hands me my fate. I stare into it, horrified. “My god… is this my handwriting?” No wonder half the patients left the building enlightened and the other half started a podcast.
Time of day: who knows. Cause of day: capitalism. Treatment plan: “fuck around and see.”
I sign the discharge papers with the confidence of a televangelist and the accuracy of a man throwing darts in the dark.
Before I leave, I grab my coat, my stethoscope, and the final universal truth:
Nobody’s cured. We just refill the prescription until the bottle or the body runs out.
Fade to black. The credits roll. Freud slips again.
Nineteen feminists —yeah, nineteen— were sentenced today for laundering bra straps.
Not the Steinem warriors. Not the women who marched, bled, built, changed the goddamn world while men smoked on the porch and called it thinking.
No. These were the new models. The knock-offs. The grievance influencers. Feminism with a filter. Oppression with a promo code plus a series of weak hashtags that only resignate with band wagon broads who’ve never turned the pages of a book beyond Woman’s World.
And the prosecution— a collection of men who still need two hands to operate a zipper— said the defendants got “girly” with a plea bargain.
Meaning: they spoke clearly. And weren’t apologizing for taking up oxygen.
Then the judge— God bless him— a man whose worldview was embalmed sometime around the Reagan administration, issued his verdict like a man auditioning for a parody of himself:
Women. For life. No parole. No shopping.
The courtroom gasped. Mostly because the judge thought he was being edgy.
And in the back? Steinem’s generation. Arms folded. Looking at this circus like teachers watching students act out Hamlet using emojis, and incomplete sentences.
Attention all gentlemen: a few of these new-breed feminists are still on the loose. Yes, you’ll know them. They weaponize victimhood like pepper spray, and treat every polite man like a war criminal who forgot to Venmo reparations.
But— listen to me now— if you’re one of the rare good men, the real ones, the diaper-changing, emotional-labor-sharing, I’m-here-I’m-present-I’m-accountable men— you’re safe. You’re invisible. They don’t attack you. Because they know you aren’t a murderer but are capable of doing so with your barehands if that means protecting the woman you love.
They only go for men who look like authority or know how to use a wrench.
If you get “hard up,” the state recommends: Handle it yourself. Safest option. Least paperwork.
Ignore that and you’ll find yourself caught in the spin cycle— tumbled, shrunken, and left in the lint trap next to every man accused of sins such as “interrupting,” “breathing confidently,” or “existing while male in the general vicinity of a complaint.”
Outside the courthouse? Oh, it gets better. They’re shouting “GLORIA STEINEM! PROSTITUTION!” like it’s a spell that summons empowerment instead of proving they’ve never read a single goddamn thing she wrote.
Somebody tell the prosecution this is community service. A PSA. A reminder: that real feminism is a movement, not a mood swing with a merch table.
Meanwhile the doctor— who’s clearly done with everyone— sent his report: “Surgery successful. Patience drained. Shirt removed. Libido parked. Safest place for it.”
He’s running on empty, but insists feminism stole the gas cap.
This from a man who’s been firing homemade grenades of insecurity into every conversation since 2009.
It is not easy— trust me— being a man married to the cleaning lady when the cleaning lady is the only person in the house who understands equality and how a washing machine works.
P.S. Before you forget— help your wife with the laundry. Not to earn points. Not to look woke. Not to impress anybody.
Do it because lifting your own weight is the oldest and sexiest political statement you’ll ever make.
