My mood is not lightened in any way by Twitter. In trying to increase my reach I appear to be following a number of people in love with “motivational wisdom”. My feed is awash with availability error – celebrities and sportsmen saying “you can achieve anything you want to, if you want it bad enough”. My feed is stinking with the sort of arse-wipe you get on those motivational posters you find in corporate life wherever a David Brent type messiah has been allowed off the leash. And my feed is strutting with people who make their own luck in life, apparently.
To be honest, when it comes to cod philosophy, I prefer Woody Allen. Here's a snippet from an interview he just did with Esquire.
“It's just an accident that we happen to be on earth, enjoying our silly little moments, distracting ourselves as often as possible so we don't have to really face up to the fact that, you know, we're just temporary people with a very short time in a universe that will eventually be completely gone. And everything that you value, whether it's Shakespeare, Beethoven, da Vinci, or whatever, will be gone. The earth will be gone. The sun will be gone. There'll be nothing. The best you can do to get through life is distraction. Love works as a distraction. And work works as a distraction. You can distract yourself a billion different ways. But the key is to distract yourself.
A guy will say,"Well, I make my luck." And the same guy walks down the street and a piano that's been hoisted drops on his head. The truth of the matter is your life is very much out of your control.”