Twitter and X and SubStack Notes.
Similar or different? User or algorithm?
Hail and welcome to another week in the Word Emporium!
I have been attempting to stand back a little from the Bru Ha Ha of Substack Notes. With admittedly mediocre will power and therefore only a modicum of success I admit. What seems to have happened to me without much forethought or foresight is this: SubStack has become my number one place for views and commentary. It is the place I now open first to check my authors, acquaintances and friends.
Podcasts are the daily spoken word. SubStack has become my daily printed word.
It is in affect, my daily digital edition of a newspaper. Every kind of column that you used to get in the old newsprint media newspaper is here: quality writing from journalists. From politicians and the commentariat that chews the proverbial cud and regurgitates for the ease of their readers final digestion.
Frivolity. Humour. Challenges. Alternative views. Downright unhinged and wicked postings. It is all here. Notes are pitched as a great way to extend and reach readers and a wider audience. Thus hopefully more potential subscribers.
Is it though? That goal and aim is such a tempting hook. You can never know where the end point will be. It is always, it seems, like the Wee Folks pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. Just out of reach but if I do another Note then….
So just keep posting notes? Notes is like Twitter/ X but just for SubStack?
Can I stop? Yet most importantly keep writing instead a weekly (ish) newsletter? That regular article was what I came here to do. It is my raison d’être. Without that: I have no reason to be here. No desire to be here.
You see I don't need a hit of outrage. Anger. Wind ups. Identity warriors latest ‘slam’s of their opposite viewpoint. Cultural warriors with various coloured hair telling me I am a racist homophobe with an addiction to homophones. Outraged leftists ranting about white supremacy. Lamenting conservatives vacuous with their total lack of political principles and integrity.
I want a trusted author and reader relationship. Not twitter/X feeds. I do get that here on SubStack I am glad to say.
The habit of waking in the morning and automatically reaching for the iPhone to check content is almost automatic. I want that to be different. I got rid of all Social media about five years ago precisely because it loomed large and I allowed It to dominate my waking life. That red Facebook numerical tag? Became a brain addiction.
A silent yet eloquent marker of success or failure. Happiness or sadness. Validation or opprobrium. All of which is a misplaced and misdirected faith.
Your wife/ husband would be doing that. Your parents and siblings would be doing that. Your family and wider community would be doing that. Your nation should be doing that. Socialisation and finding your place amongst this Human family is essential to our development and our well being.
Social media, in any format, is not those things. Yet we are persuaded it is somehow contiguous with the real thing ( a human life being lived) and can be used on such a basis and understanding.
The reason I stopped is that in a rare bout of illumination and with some serious thought and also just good old fashioned “ listening to my feelings” all led me to see that to the algorithm and the commercial interests I had become the appendage. A prosthetic limb whose only import was how clearly connected to that body I had become. I rebelled against this.
I have found myself once again sucked in to all the usual political, cultural gloop with Notes. It so easily distracts from the important things of life. Like earning an honest crust. Loving your family. Practising your faith (if you have one) and walking through life with integrity. Realising on that score as I have so often;
Success is not final: failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts.
Who knew that great newly uncovered anti-hero Winston Churchill could perceive my life in advance and offer some pithy word based balm so clearly? He could because he lived a life himself. His was good, bad and ugly. Like the rest of us.
So you would have noticed I have been trying to do a picture post on Notes on a weekly basis. A flower. A tree. A picture taken from one of my walks in the countryside or from the sojourns I have undertaken. An antidote to the endless mind worms of war and conflict. Left or Right. Equality or Equity. Israel or Palestine. Trump or a Cabbage unable to hold a conversation.
Time spent outraged at Britain’s now steep decline. The undeniable and horrible administration and advancement of Two Tier Justice which is the very antitheses of my culture.
Breathe slowly. In through my nose and fill my lungs. Then breathing out through my mouth.
I can continue with the flowers and hedgerows postings on Notes. Yet less reactions. My focus is the writing of long form articles about whatever takes my fancy that particular week. An Emporium has walls stacked with deep shelves and drawers.
You might find a hand painted ceramic button one week in a drawer. A wooly hat on the next shelf. Four Candles in a box on the top shelf. An article on yellowing paper about politics the next shelf. A musical score of a Brahms Quintet. A Latin thesaurus written by the infamous Biggus Dickus in a-pile of thumbed paperbacks on a rotating stand. All the Cook books stained with the remnants of the ingredients matching the recipe page.
Come in.
Subscribe and pull up that three legged stool over by the counter. There is now three years of stuff in this Emporium! I cant promise you delights each week. Yet there is variety and something to tickle your fancy. So browse. The archives are open. There is poetry: look out in the next day or two for a poem I wrote for my Son all those years ago when he first came into my life with a sketch I made.
It is good to talk to you all like this. I think this has helped me make some decisions.
Have a Blessed Week!
Syre Byrd