I wrote this and not an AI, I swear!
It was interesting to write my video instead of recording and editing it, but I doubt I will be doing it again any time soon.
I need to be in front of the camera! I need it to be about ME ME ME!
What can I say, I gotta shine.
Descript does seem to have exactly what I am looking for, though. It can take my recorded video and add images and even b-roll to it to make it more professional looking for those who want to actually watch something while I talk.
It would thrill me to no end to be able to create something that looks like a documentary.
It would make me feel all wise and stuff. Like I’m on the BBC! Like my heroes David Attenborough, Desmond Morris, and James Burke!
I am a-tingle just thinking about it.
I’m too modest to claim I don’t have a big ego. At least potentially. I certainly don’t have any limitations as to how high I want to go.
Although I supposed I’d settle for “God-Emperor of Earth”, for the time being at least.
More seriously, the whole territory of my ego is confusing and complex. I am still in the process of integrating my extraordinary abilities into some kind of stable self-image and let me tell you, that’s not easy.
I have to tread the narrow middle path between wretched self-loathing and delusions of grandeur on a daily basis.
In a way it would have been easier to just keep hating myself. But I deserve better than that. I have my flaws but I am overall a truly amazing human being and I deserve to escape this grotty little grotto of mine and get some kind of employment going so that I can finally support myself like a genuine grownup and real human being.
I have so much potential growth all scrunched up inside me, like a rootbound plant.
I need to kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight.
Also, “cockburn” sounds like something supposedly heterosexual teenage boys give to one another in the locker room.
Now where was I? Oh right.
I have pondered just setting my ego free and seeing how high it would go. Maybe all my worries about delusional psychosis are wildly exaggerated and I would have a bit of a swelled head for a bit then things would rebalance and I’d be perfectly fine.
Better, in fact, because I would have healed a huge wound in my psyche and formed the basis for a much healthier self-image.
But it can be very difficult to separate what will probably happen from what feels like it would happen, and we are, fundamentally, creatures of emotion.
Even big brain types like me who can seem so logical and wise.
No matter what, all human action derives from emotion and there’s nothing wrong with that. Logic is just a tool, a guide toward effective action, but the actions are still going to be driven by emotion.
I could go on and on about that but you nice people have read all that from me before.
Maybe I will do a video about it some day.
If I want to get what I want from Descript, I am going to have to pay for a full membership, and yikes, I just looked it up and it’s $35/month, in USD I assume.
They know what they got is golden. Dammit. I was hoping it would be like other sites and thus be like $15/month or thereabouts.
Well I will pay for a month and then judge whether it was worth the money. If it can do what I want it to do, I suspect it will be.
Unless someone makes a free equivalent!
More after the break.
They got me
It bugs me that the people at Descript are going to get a hair under $50 from me for one month of their service at an actually useful level.
And even that is far from unlimited. Granted, making 30 hours of clips a month is more than enough for my modest needs, but still.
My grumpy Taurus nature is just rankled by the feeling of getting plucked by these people. I’ll get over it.
I suppose I could look for another, similar service. A poke around Google might show me a cheaper way to get the same thing done.
The problem is that the thing I want from Descript doesn’t have a single, searchable name. I want something to add images and video that go with what I am saying in my video and thus enrich the experience as well as make it seem more professional.
And feed into my dreams of being a documentary host, of course.
I’ve Googled “like Descript” and got some hits but so far none of them do that thing I want it to do.
I know that some fantastically lucky talking head type people have magical people they call “editors” who do all that kind of thing for them.
Oh how I would love that. I’d feel like I was living a charmed life!
Well, semi-charmed, anyway.
Who knows, maybe if I keep honing my skills at putting my thoughts and wisdom out there, I will reach that magic point where the water seeps through the rock and suddenly you emerge into the public consciousness
That whole, “it takes a lot of time and work to become an overnight success” thing.
I at least am hooking my content up with the wider world via YouTube and TikTok these days. So there is, at least, a chance that someone will notice my stuff and spread the world about me.
I’ve already gotten some comments on my YouTube stuff. That’s a start.
Maybe I need to lean in to doing political rants, like Rick Mercer.
Seems like the time is ripe for those.
And there are worse ways to make a living.
I’m just going to keep doing what I do and see what sprouts up.
Because really, who knows?
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.