We Could Use More Kindness
There are no perfect people, no perfect places to write, and when push comes to shove, all we have is each other. Plus, a letter from Kerouac to Ginsberg.
Sometimes when I wake up Friday, I have one clear idea that I want to write about. Today my head is bouncing around a bunch of things I read. Joan Didion said she writes to find out what she thinks. I think that’s what I’m doing today.
Let me start in a strange place.
A while ago, Roman sent me a letter Jack Kerouac sent to Allen Ginsberg back in 1950 because that’s the kind of friends we are. We share books and literary stuff and edit each other’s writing and it’s lovely. Anyway, the letter started out like this:
Dear Allen
Tonight while walking on the waterfront in the angelic streets I suddenly wanted to tell you how wonderful I think you are. Please don't dislike me. What is the mystery of the world? Nobody knows they're angels…
What is the mystery of the world? Nobody knows they’re angels.
That letter kept bouncing around my head.
Because of stuff I read recently.
For example.
I read a note yesterday telling readers if they want to unsubscribe from a paid Substack please don’t call the bank because the writer gets fined $25 and the fines add up and if a writer is charging five or ten dollars a month it really whacks their ability to pay their bills when every cancellation costs the equivalent of several subscribers and I kind of just stared, wondering who would do that and why?
Why call the bank? Why not Google? Why not ask the writer? Why not ask Substack? Why not ask anyone? Why call the bank to complain that someone billed you when you signed up by choice? But from the number of comments on that note, I have to assume it’s more common than I realized so I re-stacked and moved along.
Another example.
Yesterday I read a post that said you can get traction on Notes without even going there because apparently there’s a Chrome extension you can use to schedule Notes and an AI tool to write them and voila, just sit down and schedule it all.
The irony hit me in a funny place. Writers. Who want to attract readers to their thoughts and words and then use tools so they don’t have to, you know, actually communicate with those same readers they want to follow them.
Made me wonder if human connection means anything anymore. Are we so busy marketing ourselves that we forget it’s people we’re talking to?
Another example.
I read a post on another platform by a writer who was crushed because her Substack got disabled and she didn’t know why. Just woke up one morning and it was disabled and she got an automated email saying she violated some policy but she didn’t know what she did wrong and so she asked what she did wrong but hasn’t heard back.
Then another writer told her it was probably because she was using Substack to complain about that same other platform and she said oh! Because she was. That’s exactly what she did. Started a Substack to complain about that other platform.
Nobody knows they’re angels.
One more. This one made me saddest.
Apparently Glennon Doyle pretty much got run off Substack. I don’t usually use names and hers is the only name I’m going to use so please don’t use any others in the comments or I will delete them because I just can’t with naming and shaming.
I don’t use names because I can promise you it doesn’t feel nice to find people writing about you publicly. I know. It’s happened to me and it feels really truly awful.
Tell you a little story. Way back in 2009, Glennon started a blog. And after four years of blogging day after day, she built a following and published her first book in 2013. She’s written five books so far and one of them made Oprah’s book club.
Which—you know—led to more followers.
Earlier this month, she joined Substack because she kept hearing it’s such a friendly place. So she imported her list of 200,000 subscribers. Brought all the people who followed her for the past sixteen years. Y’all, come on over to Substack.
And then someone wrote an impassioned letter saying she’d done it all wrong. How dare you come here and get your checkmark right away when so many of us work so hard. You should have started gently. You should have liked posts of the little people here and shared more, not come in outshining all us struggling writers.
Thousands of people hearted that. Hundreds commented. Hundreds restacked.
Then the actual posts started.
Here are just a few of the titles I saw.
Glennon Doyle isn’t a victim. Was Glennon bullied? Glennon deserves to be here! Everything Glennon did wrong. Another unsolicited take on Glennon Doyle. What happened to Glennon? And this one — Get the “F” out, Glennon.
Know what the funny thing is? Piers Morgan brought his list and dived in. So did John Cleese. Countless men I’m sure and no one told them they did it wrong.
Just an insidious little part of the world we live in. The way we police how women show up in the world. Why were you there, why did you wear that dress, what did you think was going to happen? Sit down. Be quiet. Cross your legs.
But if anyone says that out loud someone else will say nuh-uh it’s not about policing because that’s how ingrained knee-jerk behavior works. We do. Then we defend.
A week or so later, she shut down her Substack. Sent an email to 200,000 people saying I’m sorry, I thought it would be a friendly place but for me it wasn’t. I don’t feel safe writing there and that kind of broke me to read. For two reasons.
First, because it’s happened to me and I promise you it does not feel good to be publicly named and shamed for something you didn’t even do.
See, Glenna didn’t come here and “grab” all the subscribers because she’s famous. No. She’d been building her list since 2009. There was no Substack. No Medium, no Vocal. Just one woman blogging day after day after tiring day to build a following.
Two hundred thousand readers. Readers who might have found you and me and other writers and joyfully joined this community and I wonder how many of them will be leery of this place because of what happened to the woman they followed here.
Not even done. I wish I was.
Now people are piling on the writer who started it. Sure, just ignore the thousands of hearts, hundreds of comments, restacks and piggy-back posts. Nuh-uh. SHE started it. Like children pointing the finger. I’m sure Glennon could have ignored one Note if so many people hadn’t piled on.
Which is, incidentally, why I didn’t use her name in the title or subtitle.
I’m not looking to piggy back. And hell, I don’t want to sound like I’m being preachy, either. But dammit, we could use a little more kindness in the world, couldn’t we?
Nobody knows they’re angels.
Here’s more of that letter…
… What is the mystery of the world? Nobody knows they're angels.
God's angels are ravishing and fooling me. I saw a whore and an old man in a lunchcart, and God - their faces. I wondered what God was up to. In the subway I almost jumped up to yell, "What was that for? What's going on up there? What do you mean by that?"
Jesus, Allen, life ain't worth the candle, we all know it, and almost everything is wrong but there's nothing we can do about it, and living is heaven.
I think there is something we can do about it. We can be kinder. Doesn’t cost a penny to stop and breathe. Which isn’t to say we shouldn’t bring up valid concerns or fight injustice. But there’s merit in stopping to think before we react. You know?
Yesterday I read a lovely post by Abigail Thomas. Abigail is 82 and always wanted to be a writer but she got kicked out of college for getting pregnant because that’s a thing that happened when she was young. She finally started writing at 48 and has written a few books now. The post is called The Side Door and it’s worth a read.
And this, called Until I Am Fog, by my friend Roman is a beautiful read and boy, I have felt that way some days. Like fog.
My favorite of his is actually How Hard Should You Kiss A Woman because lord, if you think men are macho creatures that don’t feel, it will change your mind real fast. Why don’t we know the difference between masculine and macho anymore?
Which brings to mind the piece Tamara wrote, called Men, Actually, which is a really refreshing look at where men are at in a world where there’s a whole lot of women hating men and men hating women because rage bait is the name of the game.
Which brings to mind Viktor’s post, called The Love That Keeps Ukraine Alive and if you can believe this, it’s about cats. In the middle of war. Broke my heart.
Let me tell you why I shared those. Because they’re worth reading. And I hope you’ll go read every one of them because they’re worth the read. And because we’re all angels even if we don’t know it. And because life is worth the candle. It is.
“My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.”
― Dalai Lama XIV
Like you I've noticed that women on Substack are treated much worse than men. Maybe I should tear up my man card, because I'm damned if I can understand why. There are some brilliant and gifted women writers here. I'm mediocre at best, and I'm OK with that. At the age of 77 I could be on final approach, though I feel like I've got at least another 20 years left in me. With age comes grandchildren, which tempers one to be kind. I try to follow my mother's admonition: "If you can't say something nice...". In 50+ years of selling, I've learned that the most effective marketing is to produce a great product for a small audience that appreciates it. They will tell the others, which is magnitudes better than advertising. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and wisdom.
Social media is broken because people are broken.
In the late 1970s, Jimmy Carter tried to bring notice to the crumbling of the American psyche, and he got run out of town for it.
Many of us worried about the state of America's growing psychosis during those years and beyond. That if left unchecked, something would break. Maybe everything would break.
It happened.
The only thing each of us can do is what you're recommending here. It won't fix the world, but maybe you can build a safe enough island to weather the storm.