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When you furrow your brow and look at me like I’m crazy,
I know you mean it with all your heart.
It’s an endearment shared by just us two.
And even when we’re far apart,
I know we’ll carry these things with us,
These things we’ve grown accustomed to.
When we do nothing, nothing at all, but stare at each other,
I know there’s so much more than nothingness.
There’s fireworks and silver bells, shades of deepest blue.
And even when we say much less,
I know we’ll carry these things with us,
These things we’ve grown accustomed to.
When you say “I’ve got cold feet,” but you mean it quite literally,
I know you trust me much deeper than a friend.
It’s dangerous letting me so close to you.
And even when trust fails and seems impossible to mend,
I know we’ll carry these things with us,
These things we’ve grown accustomed to.
When I laugh with my whole body at our favorite jokes,
I know I’ll never tire of this thing we’ve built between us.
It makes no amends and always presses through.
And even when we’ve turned to dust,
I know we’ll carry these things with us,
These things we’ve grown accustomed to.
When I realize it’s getting late and you stall me any way you can,
I know nothing could ever really tear us apart.
Not distance or words or affections given few.
And even when time betrays what we’ve had from the start,
I know we’ll carry these things with us,
These things we’ve grown accustomed to.
Why do the small things mean so much more when I share them with you?
I know of many explanations I could give to satisfy.
But I’m content to say what I believe will have to do.
That even when the truth evades and neither you nor I know why,
I know we’ll carry these things with us,
These things we’ve grown accustomed to.
This is an example of something I might have written ten or fifteen years ago. I bet you thought for a minute you had stumbled onto the wrong Substack.
What are we doing on Substack?
In fact, I stumbled onto an unfamiliar Substack a few days ago and read something that got me thinking. It was an article called “The Elite Capture of Substack” by Cydney Hayes. Cydney was writing about how Substack is quickly becoming the new Twitter/X with the rollout of the “Notes” feature and how this will inevitably result in the favoring of low quality high quantity writing over high quality writers. Of this she said:
“And this makes me want to bail! Which sucks because I know there are writers on here with really interesting ideas and worldviews, people who I could learn a lot from, and I know there are readers on here who might feel that way about me. But, like every social media effort I’ve ever undertaken, the vibe shift makes me wonder what we’re all doing on Substack anyway.
What is the goal? To get subscribers? If we have a lot of subscribers, does that mean people are reading? So is that the goal, to have people read our work? And then what? I mean that sincerely. Then what? To change hearts and minds? To start conversations? To make yourself known? Why to strangers? Why not to your family or friends or people in your actual life? Why are we all online, on Substack…?”
And as she concludes her article she says:
“We won’t be able to achieve the things we want on platforms run by dudes interested in VC money and endless growth. Or at least I won’t be able to. I guess it depends on what you want. If you want attention, you could get that. If you want money, you could even get that. But at this stage in the elite capture process Substack may never provide with you enough money to quit your day job, or enough attention to parlay subscribers into a book deal like Rayne Fisher-Quann. That said, the hope of achieving your goals is always higher if you know what they are, so ask yourself: What am I doing here?”
What am I doing here online on Substack writing?
“Then what?”
I can sympathize with Cydney’s feelings. I don’t know her beliefs, but me ten or fifteen years ago would have been here for the same reasons most writers on Substack probably come for, and those would be the reasons Cydney theorized: to get subscribers and subsequently, readers, to change hearts and minds, to have conversations, to make myself known to strangers, to get attention and to make money.
But, like Cydney says, “Then what?”
And that was the question that struck me the most. Not in the context of Substack, because writing is legitimately a way that plenty of people make a living, and, of course, people have to want to read and pay for your work, so you’ll need clever ways to get their attention.
No, let’s zoom out to a broader context and ask Cydney’s same question: “What am I doing here?” Here in the world. Because this is the question Cydney is really asking. Everyone is on Substack doing the same thing they would be doing off Substack, granted, lots of people have good intentions in their endeavors on and off the internet. The internet just happens to be the medium we use now to accomplish the same life goals we used to do manually. And what are those life goals?
Well, to get people to pay attention to our work, to change hearts and minds, to have conversations, to make ourselves known to others, to get attention, and to make money. It boils down to this: People want to make a name for themselves and hopefully help others do the same along the way.
“Then what?”
So we are all just building our personal empires so we can help others build their personal empires, but hopefully not help too much because we don’t want their success to overtake ours, if we are honest with ourselves.
Cydney gives reasons for her writing that I find honest and well-intentioned. She says:
“Here’s mine: After some thinking, what I want is to 1) write because it’s fun, 2) practice creative stamina and self-discipline, 3) chronicle what I think about the world for my own posterity, and 4) offer up the idea that there is a different way to live.”
But even her reasons still circle back to making a name for herself (I don’t mean that as an insult, Cydney!) via having fun, being creative and disciplined, and keeping a record of her ideas for others to read, and, hopefully, helping others make a name for themselves via the introduction of a perspective different from their own.
But Cydney, “Then what?”
So, we have fun, we create something neat, we acquire some self-discipline, our ideas are cemented in history, we help a few people better themselves a little bit. Then what?
And, boy, that question hangs heavy. Because we know what inevitably follows even the greatest writers in world history. I would suggest to Cydney to read the book of Ecclesiastes. And that brings me to my original point.
The answer to “Then what?”
If I had started a Substack ten or fifteen years ago, it would have been for all the aforementioned reasons, even for Cydney’s nobler reasons. And I can’t lie, often those reasons still bleed into my work.
But, as you heard, my writing ten or fifteen years ago was more inspired by T. S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” And to what end? Just to be beautiful, expressive, offer another point of view? “Then what?”
There is no “then what” in that case. You make something beautiful, people like it, they like you, and then you die, which about sums up the meaning of “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (or my poem “The Small Things”).
All that changed when I became a Christian. The person walking through this world apart from Christ has no “then what”—only his pride for a short time before fading into obscurity, both on the internet and off it.
But the Christian lives a life that goes far beyond “then what.” In fact, when we get to the end of all these things under the sun, the question won’t be “then what?” as we twiddle our thumbs wondering how much more we can squeeze out of this life before it’s gone for good. No, we will have only just begun.
For now, we are gathering everyone we can to go with us where we will see, create, and enjoy beautiful things forever that will never be forgotten, never fade into obscurity, and never become relics of a person who has succumbed to death. Those are our joyful marching orders from a King who invites all to be part of something everlasting, something greater than making a name for themselves at the low cost (or high cost, depending on your perspective) of laying down their pride and taking up their cross:
“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
- Matthew 28:19-20
You see, to be baptized is to declare yourself as one who has been set apart from this world which can only ask itself “then what?” And to observe all that Christ commands is to practice the laying down of your pride in keeping with that declaration, and to hope that others will see the joy displayed in your expectancy for something greater than what this world offers, and follow you to the foot of the cross.
What am I doing here?
What am I doing on the internet, here on Substack? I’m a wife and a mother. At the moment, I can’t go tell it on the literal mountains because that would be at the expense of my primary mission field at home. But I sure can write about it on the mountains of the internet in the middle of this sea of lost souls asking themselves and each other:
“Then what?”
And that I will do until my hands are freed up to do something greater.
And so I echo Cydney’s words to you:
“Ask yourself: What am I doing here?”
This will be my last article of 2024 and we will continue our series on Revelation in 2025. I will continue working on it in the mean time. Until then, friends!
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