Tesla versus Edison

I am not an influencer but I am as capable of bullshit as the worst of them. Even the best people are capable of desperation, of scrabbling for any bit of recognition, validation. You write books, you want people to read those books, to buy those books, but that isn’t why you’re here….

What was the difference between Tesla and Edison? Some people would point out prosaic details like Edison was born in the United States while Tesla was born in Croatia. Some would point out that Edison heralded DC current while Tesla advocated for AC. The most important difference, in my mind, is the difference in their minds, what we might call their genius. Edison was very pragmatic, his inventions were geared towards success. Tesla was a dreamer, an explorer, it was all about “well, what about this, then?” People remember Edison because he gave us the lightbulb and the photograph among other inventions. People remember Tesla because he saw the 21st century in the 19th century.

If you want to succeed as an artist you have to be Edison. If you try to be Tesla you will end up in a van down by the river, most likely in dirty underpants. Edison would have a logical and consistent approach to his social media posts, a plan; he probably wouldn’t include the phrase “dirty underpants” in a blog. Tesla would be all over the place, running with every idea. Edison would be studying trends, trying to figure out what sort of books people would be interested in. Not following trends, trends dissolve by the time you could write and edit a book, something deeper and more engrained; he certainly wouldn’t be following every wild hair up his ass.

I try to be Edison, I really do. I see all the influencers out there, see the Edison in them and get I should be emulating them, but…

Call it arrogance, call it OCD but…

I last about twenty minutes then I am going on some tangent, building some enormous, wooden tower in my mental backyard.

I have no one to blame for these blogs only having a few reads or my videos getting twenty views but myself.

I watch for things that get people’s attention and incorporate them and then feel like a fraud but maybe it’s the frauds who thrive in this crazy world of ours. The ones who attempt to be true to themselves die deeply in debt in shabby hotels, their only friends the birds they feed.

I am not an influencer but I am as a capable of bullshit as the worst of them. Maybe the worst bullshit is convincing ourselves our laziness is "being genuine,” disguising our elitiism, our arrogance, as “being true to our audience and ourselves.” Even the best of us are capable of distorting and reframing things to serve our own drives and desires. Edison was a great inventor who gave us things we still use today. Tesla was a visionary who died forgotten and yet so many picked from his bones to create things like radio and cellphones, at least in spirit…

Edison would have a concise and logical end to this, tying everything together neatly, making sure he was following SEO rules and using current tags but, as much as I try, I am not Edison...