Jamiemccarthytv

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  • The Inheritance


    We were given names for things
    long before we knew how to question them.

    [PAGE 1]

    They handed it to us early.
    Before we had the language to question it.

    A name.
    A color.
    A place to stand.

    Not chosen.
    Just… assigned.

    [PAGE 3]

    You grow into it.

    Like a scar—
    tight at first,
    then normal,
    then invisible.

    Until someone presses on it.

    [PAGE 7]

    It’s strange, the way we inherit distance.

    Same coffee.
    Same tired eyes.
    Same quiet fear about time slipping.

    Still—
    not the same.

    So you start looking for proof.

    [PAGE 11]

    Skin becomes signal.
    Language becomes warning.
    God becomes territory.

    No one says it outright.

    They don’t have to.

    [PAGE 18]

    The program was never loud.

    It lives in the small things—
    the glance,
    the pause,
    the almost-word.

    Passed down like something sacred
    no one remembers buying.

    [PAGE 26]

    Religion—
    the version we were handed—

    Feels less like a door
    and more like a fence.

    Different names for the same sky.
    Different rules for the same dust.

    [PAGE 31]

    Every now and then
    it slips.

    A conversation that works when it shouldn’t.
    A laugh that ignores the lines.

    For a second—
    none of it exists.

    [PAGE 32]

    But it comes back.

    Because seeing it
    doesn’t mean you’re free of it.

    It waits
    in your first reaction.

    Proof it was built deep.

  • The Alchemy of Green

    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.

    (No hashtags necessary on this one)

  • Zig Zag of remarkable

    Zig Zag of remarkable

    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?

  • Same Architecture Different Weather.

    Same Architecture Different Weather.

    What’s a moment when a stranger completely restored your faith in people?

    I met a stranger recently.

    He looked familiar in the way abandoned buildings sometimes do.

    Same architecture.
    Different weather.

    He looked tired.

    Not sleepy tired.

    The other kind.

    The kind you get from running hard enough that nobody notices you’re running from anything.

    We didn’t talk.

    I just stood there looking at him.

    And for reasons I can’t completely explain, I felt an enormous amount of compassion for this poor bastard.

    He’d clearly made some mistakes.

    Stayed too long at a few fires.

    Carried things that should’ve been put down miles ago.

    Kept driving after several important parts of the vehicle had begun making expensive noises.

    But there he was.

    Still upright.

    Still breathing.

    Still apparently expected somewhere.

    I don’t know if he restored my faith in humanity.

    That seems like a lot to ask of anybody before coffee.

    But I liked him.

    And that felt like something.

    Then the stranger reached for my toothbrush.

    Which was unsettling.

    But fair.

    We’d met before.

  • The Man Who Said it.

    What is your favorite quote?

    My favorite quote has never been one from a famous author.

    It came from my father:

    “Sometimes you have to care enough to know not to care too much.”

    I’ve found myself repeating it throughout my life.

    As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized it wasn’t about caring less. It was about caring deeply—without letting the outcome consume you. Whether it’s sports, music, work, or life itself, the moment you become too attached to winning, proving yourself, or getting it perfect, you often lose the very thing that got you there.

    The older I get, the wiser his words become.

    I’m grateful they were his.

    J.P McCarthy (Dad)

  • SHE ARRIVED

    SHE ARRIVED

    There is a particular architecture to this part of town.

    The fire escapes aren’t there to save anyone.

    They’re there to hold up the shadows.

    On every corner, the devil dogs are waiting.

    Demonic little bastards with gold teeth and neon eyes, selling pieces of salvation wrapped in tin foil, lining the curbs like gargoyles in cheap leather jackets.

    You’d think darkness would swallow everything whole.

    You’d think the weight of it would collapse the lungs of anything still trying to breathe.

    Then you see her.

    She didn’t descend from some celestial cloud.

    There were no trumpets.

    No holy light clearing the way.

    She arrived.

    Busted up, but not broken.

    Looking like she’d been dragged through three different levels of someone else’s nightmare and somehow walked back out.

    Her wings aren’t pristine white. They’re jagged poetry stitched together with scar tissue, feathers matted with street oil, soot, and sweat.

    She looks like hell.

    Her spirit doesn’t.

    Deep in the alley, where a dead tree forces itself through cracked brick like a broken rib, she finds a place to perch.

    The devil dogs gather below.

    They hiss.

    Throw stones.

    Flash their knives beneath the neon.

    She doesn’t move.

    She watches them the way mountains watch weather.

    Unfettered.

    A creature no gatekeeper would recognize, carrying something no devil can counterfeit.

    You can break the bone.

    You can clip the edges.

    You can grind every bright color into a bruised gray.

    But there is a current underneath all of it.

    Something that never agreed to belong to gravity.

    The gutter reflects the neon.

    The monsters wait.

    She opens what’s left of her wings.

    The demons look up.

    Gravity loses the argument.

  • Proof Of Use

    Proof Of Use

    What do you love now, that you hated when you were younger?

    When I was young, I thought everything worth loving had to announce itself.

    Loud music.
    Fast cars.
    People with big personalities.
    Cities that never slept.

    I mistook volume for importance.

    Now I love things that barely make a sound.

    The first cup of coffee before the house wakes up.

    An old diner where nobody has updated the menu because nobody needed to.

    The click of a turn signal on a truck that’s been working longer than most people have been alive.

    Silence doesn’t feel empty anymore.
    It feels earned.

    I used to hate old people telling stories I’d already heard.

    Now I’d give just about anything to hear a few of them one more time.

    I hated wrinkles.

    Now I think smooth skin just means the book hasn’t been read yet.

    I hated slow.

    Now I understand that almost everything worth remembering happened slowly.

    Trust.

    Love.

    Recovery.

    Forgiveness.

    Even grief.

    Especially grief.

    When you’re young, you think life is made from extraordinary moments.

    Turns out it’s mostly Tuesday mornings.

    It’s grocery stores.

    Neighbors waving.

    Your daughter calling.

    Finding your son’s old coffee cup still tucked behind a stack of cereal boxes because nobody had the heart to move it.

    The older I get, the less interested I am in things trying to look new.

    Give me cracked leather.

    Faded motel signs.

    Paint peeling from a porch.

    The waitress who already knows what I’m ordering.

    The guitar with the finish worn off where someone’s arm rested for twenty years.

    Things that have survived become beautiful.

    Maybe that’s what changed.

    When I was younger, I admired perfection.

    Now I admire endurance.

    The truth is, I don’t think I love different things now.

    I think I finally understand what they were trying to tell me all along.

  • UNPLUGGED FROM WHAT?

    UNPLUGGED FROM WHAT?

    How do you know when it’s time to unplug? What do you do to make it happen?

    Unplugged From What?

    People talk about unplugging like it’s a universal concept.

    It isn’t.

    If you ask ten people what they’re plugged into, nine will point at the glowing rectangle in their hand.

    Fair enough.

    The phone has become humanity’s sixth finger. We carry it everywhere. We sleep beside it. Some people panic if they can’t find it for thirty seconds, as though they’ve misplaced a kidney.

    But the phone is rarely the thing.

    The phone is just the delivery system.

    The real question is:

    What owns your attention when nobody is forcing it to?

    That’s what you’re plugged into.

    For some people it’s social media.

    For others it’s work.

    For others it’s outrage, anxiety, validation, nostalgia, revenge, regret, or the endless fantasy that happiness is waiting just beyond the next achievement.

    The device changes.

    The attachment doesn’t.

    I know it’s time to unplug when I catch myself reaching for something without deciding to.

    When my hand moves before my brain.

    When I’m scrolling and couldn’t tell you what I’ve seen for the last ten minutes.

    When I’m checking email that doesn’t matter.

    When I’m consuming instead of creating.

    When I’m reacting instead of observing.

    Those are usually the warning lights on the dashboard.

    And what do I do to make it happen?

    Nothing heroic.

    I write.

    I walk.

    I sit with a cup of coffee before the rest of the world wakes up.

    I pet Martha.

    I stare out a window longer than modern society considers acceptable.

    Sometimes I play guitar.

    Sometimes I just let the silence make me uncomfortable until it stops being uncomfortable.

    Because unplugging isn’t really about escaping technology.

    It’s about reclaiming attention.

    The phone gets blamed because it’s easy to point at.

    But you can be completely unplugged with a smartphone in your pocket and completely plugged in while sitting alone in a cabin in the woods.

    One is a device.

    The other is a condition.

    Most people are trying to unplug from the device.

    I’m trying to unplug from the condition.

    The device is easy.

    The condition takes practice.

    And if we’re being honest, I’m not sure the goal is ever to completely unplug.

    I think the goal is simply to remember who’s holding the cord.

  • The Cruelty of the Two-Minute Video

    The Cruelty of the Two-Minute Video

    There was a time when asking someone for two uninterrupted minutes of attention was a modest request. Today, it borders on hostage-taking.

    The evidence is not merely anecdotal. Human attention has not wandered off for a cigarette and promised to return. It has collapsed in broad daylight while we all watched.

    The average person now grants a piece of content roughly 8 seconds before rendering judgment. Teenagers switch between applications every 44 seconds. Less than half of viewers survive the first minute of a video, regardless of its length. Only a small fraction remain standing by the final ten seconds. The first thirty seconds are not an introduction anymore; they are a battlefield littered with casualties.

    Yet every week, somewhere in a conference room with poor coffee and an abundance of PowerPoint slides, someone proposes a two-minute B2B video.

    This is usually justified by invoking seriousness.

    “It’s business-to-business.”

    “It needs more detail.”

    “We have a lot to say.”

    No, it doesn’t.

    What it has is a lot of things that nobody was willing to cut.

    The notion that professionals suddenly transform into patient scholars when seated at a laptop on a Tuesday afternoon is one of the more charming delusions of modern marketing. The procurement manager watching your video is the same human being who spent the weekend scrolling through TikTok at six-second intervals. The brain does not enter a special “corporate patience mode” simply because the viewer’s badge works at an enterprise software company.

    The numbers are merciless. Viewers decide within seconds whether something deserves their attention. Slow openings lose a majority of the audience almost immediately. Average retention rates across video platforms are, frankly, horrific. Long-form consumption continues its slow decline while multitasking rises and content exposure explodes.

    In other words, the audience has spoken. Repeatedly. Loudly.

    What remains fascinating is the industry’s refusal to listen.

    There is, of course, one notable exception. People will watch long-form content from creators they trust. Devoted audiences routinely spend hours with their favorite podcasters, commentators, and personalities.

    The operative word is earned.

    A beloved creator can ask for two hours because they have spent years earning that privilege. A corporate brand unveiling its latest fleet management solution has not.

    Confusing the two is like mistaking a first date for a golden anniversary.

    The deeper issue, however, is not effectiveness. It is respect.

    Every unnecessary second in a video represents a small act of arrogance. It assumes the audience’s time is less valuable than the creator’s desire to explain. It suggests a lack of confidence in the message itself. The longer the video becomes, the more it begins to feel like a negotiation with uncertainty.

    Brevity is not the enemy of intelligence.

    Brevity is evidence of it.

    A concise video communicates something powerful: we know what matters, we know what doesn’t, and we trust you to understand the difference.

    Nobody remembers the two-minute explainer.

    They remember the thirty-second piece that made them feel something, understand something, or see something differently.

    The purpose of communication is not to exhaust a subject. It is to illuminate it.

    Everything after that is often just vanity wearing a lanyard.

  • Stuck In The Elevator

    Don’t Panic

    Real is rare
    rarely there
    in the polluted saluted
    sleep-tight sludge-fucker world

    smile-fuckery handshakers
    marionettes needled to their knuckles

    prefabricated friction
    created to fake out frauds
    lost in the empty lie-down crowd

    where is God?
    stuck in the elevator of his own creation

    take the ventilator out
    breathe your own fire

    into the chaos

  • Freezing to Death Politely

    How do you feel about cold weather?

    Shoot me before I discuss the forecast

    They ask about the weather
    like it’s a holy event.
    like rain personally offended them.
    like the clouds filed paperwork.

    Forecasts for the spiritually dead

    “Cold enough for ya?”
    No.
    Shoot me.

    If I ever become a man
    who sincerely discusses wind chill
    at a dinner party,
    I authorize immediate execution.
    Nearest firearm.
    Center mass.
    No hesitation.

    Because weather talk
    is the last known stage
    before the soul calcifies.

    You can watch it happen in real time.

    A guy buys orthopedic shoes.
    Starts saying “we needed this rain.”
    Uses the phrase “bundle up.”
    Suddenly he’s standing in a grocery store
    comparing forecasts
    like a frightened farmer
    protecting invisible crops.

    Meanwhile the planet spins
    through infinite black violence,
    people lose children,
    go bankrupt,
    cheat, relapse, pray,
    fall apart in parked cars at 2AM—

    and Gerald from accounting
    wants to tell me
    it might snow Thursday.

    Beautiful.

    That’s the trick, isn’t it?

    Human beings inventing tiny safe noises
    to keep from screaming into the void.

    So yes—
    I nod politely.
    I participate.
    I mention precipitation percentages
    like a good little citizen.

    But between us?

    I hate cold weather.

    Not philosophically.
    Not poetically.
    I mean physically hate it.

    I hate the gray slush,
    the dead trees,
    the windshield scraping,
    the way winter turns every parking lot
    into a Soviet painting.

    Cold weather feels like punishment
    for surviving November.

    Still—
    people smile through blue lips
    and call it “refreshing.”

    That’s humanity for you.

    Freezing to death politely
    while discussing the forecast.

  • Tailored by Damage

    What’s the oldest things you’re wearing today?

    We earn what’s worn.

    What’s the oldest thing I’m wearing today?

    Not the boots.
    Not the jacket.
    Not the watch pretending time means anything.

    It’s the uneasy stomach.
    The golf ball lodged in the throat.
    The cracked heart stitched together with bad sleep, caffeine and whatever people call “moving on.”

    Those are old.
    Ancient, really.

    Hand-tailored over years by loss, disappointment, memory, guilt, love and the quiet observations you never talk about out loud because everyone else is busy performing wellness like it’s an Olympic sport.

    I wear old conversations that never ended properly.
    Old funerals.
    Old versions of myself I buried but still hear scratching around under the floorboards at 2 a.m.

    None of it was designed by me.

    It was made for me.

    By every slammed door.
    Every hospital hallway.
    Every “I’m fine” that wasn’t.
    Every moment you realized the world keeps spinning with horrifying confidence no matter what it takes from you.

    That’s the oldest thing I’m wearing today.

    And somehow, against all logic, it still fits.

  • The Men Who Carry the City Away Before Sunrise

    The Men Who Carry the City Away Before Sunrise

    What’s a job you would like to do for just one day?

    I’d like to be a sanitation worker for one day.

    Not because I romanticize hard labor.
    Not because I’m looking for some blue-collar cosplay to post online with a thoughtful black-and-white filter and a caption about “real America.”

    No.

    I want the job where the city hands you its emptiness before sunrise.

    Because I suspect I could learn more about humanity in one shift hanging off the back of a garbage truck than most therapists learn in a lifetime of softly lit offices and polite nodding.

    The leftovers.
    The excess.
    The secrets people bag up and leave on the curb hoping nobody notices.

    It’s one of the few jobs where you physically witness consumption, routine, decay, wealth, loneliness—all street by street. One block smells like expensive candles and Amazon boxes. The next smells like beer cans, cigarettes, and the slow collapse of a marriage. Somewhere in between is a kid’s broken bicycle, still half wrapped in birthday paper.

    Civilization revealed through what it throws away.

    No performance.
    No meetings.
    No decks.
    No branding language.
    No buzzwords and bullshit disguised as productivity.

    Just brutal usefulness.

    The world falls apart in about seventy-two hours without sanitation workers. Three days. That’s all it takes before people start realizing how thin the membrane is between society and rats chewing through the walls. Yet most people treat sanitation workers like background noise right up until the moment they disappear.

    I respect that kind of invisible importance.

    And there’s something beautiful about the simplicity of it. You wake up. You do the job. By the end of the shift, the streets are cleaner than you found them. Immediate purpose. Visible results. No quarterly alignment meeting required.

    Plus, I think I’d enjoy waving at people while riding on the back of the truck, holding on with one arm like the city’s least celebrated cowboy, dirty secrets piled up behind me while the sun slowly crawls over the rooftops.

    There’s poetry in that.

    Not the kind written in universities or spoken through podcasts sponsored by mattress companies. Real poetry. The kind that smells faintly like diesel fuel, wet cardboard, stale beer, and human denial.

    The kind of poetry that reminds you every single person leaves something behind.

    #dailyprompt-1930

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    #Prose

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    #TruthInTheTrash

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    #JamieMcCarthy #LettersFromTheStatic #NoBuzzwords

    #invisablepeople