Long ago—over a dozen years now—I decided this blog would receive daily updates. Some of the more successful blogs out there receive multiple daily updates, but I’m just one guy, and a working stiff at that. When you do something every day a couple of contradictory things happen: one, you get better at it (if you’re a Gladwellian, it may take almost three decades, but the principle holds), and two, the quality varies. I’ve long noticed this about daily ventures. (I’ve also lately begun to realize that even daily shows take time out to refresh.) I used to stay up to watch David Letterman (that seems impossible to believe in my current time warp). When he was good he was very good, but when he wasn’t it was painful to watch. You can’t be “on” every single day. Emotions are funny that way.
Over the past year or so I’ve taken to occasionally binging on “Good Mythical Morning”—a YouTube daily show starring Rhett and Link. These North Carolinians are inherently likable. They’re a couple of guys who, in many ways, refuse to grow up. They’re smart, and often funny. And extremely popular. Their channel has approaching 18 million subscribers. They have off days, as do we all. Sometimes I wake up feeling so contrary in the morning that I’m not sure I’m the same person who crawled into that bed only hours before. Some days I don’t feel like writing a blog post. On other days I feel like writing several. What perhaps stands out to regular readers, if only one or two, is that some days you’re off. So tragically human. So wonderfully human.
I’ve often wondered if this is just a condition of life. Pets, for example, have off days too. I suppose the difference is that those committed to a daily show have put themselves out there so others can see them. On one of those aptitude tests I took in high school the results suggested I should’ve been an entertainer. Instead I took a religious and scholarly approach to things. Maybe because I’m a middle child I always felt that nobody really paid attention to me. So here I am, a baker’s dozen years out from writing daily on religion, ancient West Asian topics, books, and horror. And sometimes current events, when I feel like it. If you’re taking the daily show route, you need to be aware that, despite the ennui, not every day will be the same. Even someone as successful as Letterman knew that.