Want to Feel Special. Read This

Author's preface: A comment on a recent story published here (thanks Kendall DeFoe) triggered something in me which caused me to recall a story I had written many years ago, way back in 2016. That article was published on a different web publishing platform, which I will not name, but rhymes with tedium, from which I have since been twice suspended and (apparently) permanently banned. It was written as part of my 1000 page view up all night write-athon which was some stupid thing I thought to try and do after I finally hit 1000 page views. I had started publishing there in early 2015 so it took me a solid year to hit the 1000 mark with close to 200 stories published in that first year. I was quite prolific back in those days and, exactly like today, I was not very popular, as those dismal stats clearly indicate. That said I was very proud of the achievement, and decided I would try a stunt where I stayed up all night (5pm until 8am the next day) and try and write and publish as many articles as I could in that time span. I conceived of the idea the day I hit 1000, and initiated the challenge the following evening so I did not have time to think much about how difficult a thing that actually could be. Also, exactly like today, I did not tend to think very much in advance about stuff, and figured it would just work itself out in the end. This other unnamed platform did not have a ludicrous and absurd minimum word count requirement like Vocal, nor did it have a roving censor brigade, and one could get away with just about anything in those early days on the site. As per my typical MO, I tended to take a very laissez-faire attitude with respect to the "rules" which obviously ended up hurting me fairly badly many years later when I got my first suspension, and then again a year after that when I was suspended a second time. This was about two years ago and that suspension has yet to be rescinded, despite several petitions, so amounts to a permanent ban. In any event I can't actually recall how many stories I banged out, but think I got close to fifteen. Below is just one of them which surprisingly holds up even today both in terms of its truth value (I am still an almost never read writer) and its overall quality (fair to middlin at best). Crazy how the computer references seem so dated and ancient. It really was not that long ago. lol! Enjoy!

Updates italicized below

Based on my current stats I average roughly 1 or 2 (roughly 5 to 15) readers of anything I post here. You are truly special. Out of the approximately 7.5 billion people currently living on this planet, it is only you and maybe one (4–14) other person(s) who happen, by some completely improbable, no doubt mostly random series of events, to be reading these words at this very moment.

Now that you feel special or terrible let me go on. The chances that you, yes I am talking to you dear reader(s) are actually reading this right now are approximately 1 or 2 (5 or 15) in 7.5x10^9. For comparison the chances of you winning the powerball are roughly 1 in 3x10^9. Yes you read that correctly. You had a 2x better chance of winning the powerball today then reading this post. Sucks to think about right? Boy does it ever.

Instead of stopping at the seven eleven after work like you normally do, grabbing a big gulp and shelling out one measly buck for the powerball you decided to go straight home today. I understand, you had a long day. Those fuckers in accounting keep screwing up the monthly payroll. Meanwhile Janice in marketing was yacking away non-stop about her weekend visit to Des Moines like it was a luxury vacation in London or something. Yes, cities have big buildings and homeless people. Holy shit! Stop the fucking presses.

Anyway all of that shit wore you out. So you went straight home. Wife and/or husband was passed out dead drunk on the couch as per usual. Cans of Miller Lite all over the floor. It’s only 5:30 for fucks sake. Straight to the bedroom you head, fire up the trusty old Dell P210 tower. After about five minutes she finally boots up. Fucking Vista is a real strain on her well used processor and barely adequate RAM. Not to mention the fact that you just hit 98% capacity on the 1GB hard drive with the MP3s you downloaded while high as fuck last weekend. Eventually you will delete all those old pictures from college. You know the ones I am talking about. Back when you still had some hope, could count on getting laid at least two or three times a year. The glory days. Ouch, I was pretty ruthless back in the day, September of 2016.

You double click on the trusty old Explorer short cut and hello inter webs. Those pictures from college made you remember how you once thought you were going to write the great American novel. You were sure of it. I can still write and I am gonna prove it to the world you say to yourself. Hello Medium, finally I can write and publish like a real professional without all those worries about editors and publishers and sales. All that shit that doesn’t matter. Writing is an art man. (nice Medium dig Danny boy, well done)

Fuck you are depressed. What’s this you say to yourself as you spot this piece? Hell yes I want to feel special. Damn, that’s it? You have reached the bitter end. There is always tomorrow. For sure you are going to buy that power ball ticket tomorrow. You can’t lose.

Obviously my math here relies on accepting that you found this article totally randomly. and that the your powerball numbers and the winning numbers are both totally random. The powerball are about as close to random as a person can get without resorting to ultra high end random number generation schemes that rely on the most random things we know about in nature such as certain types of quantum phenomenon. Anything generated using a mathematical formula is technically pseudo random. Most computer based RNGs use formula. Some websites use things like atmospheric noise or other physical events. Anyway, depending on the scale of your life that you choose to focus in on, the fact of you reading this or not may or may not seem totally random. In my view it is close enough to make the comparison legitimate.

Damn I put a lot of thought into that update postscript. Geesh. lol!