Writers and Fishermen
Writing online is like opening the wardrobe door and stepping through the mysterious portal into Narnia. It turns your stomach in knots from the fear of the unknown. It feels dangerous. Only after you push through the wardrobe to the other side do you realize the magic. Only after experiencing the fear can you capture the power – like the potential energy of a wave at its crest before crashing against the sand.
I’ve been writing online for more than a year, and I’ve spent most of that time screaming into the abyss. Often it feels futile. Hours spent poring over books in the early morning light become pages of notes. From those pages, I slowly connect a dot or two. Sometimes an idea clicks during a long run through the crisp autumn air – one of the few places I can think deeply without distraction. I might connect a few more during a morning meditation – the time I set aside for stillness which is inevitably interrupted by my best ideas tapping on my skull from the inside pleading to be let out. When I connect enough dots to catch a glimpse of a picture, I sit down to write, and, like Kurt Vonnegut said, “feel like an armless legless man with a crayon in his mouth.”
The path to the publish button is paved with preparation, frustration, and most of all, time. When I finally hit send, the result is often disappointment.
Occasionally, when the moon is full, and the water is still, and the wind fails to blow, I can toss a pebble into the pond and it creates a beautiful ripple. This essay isn’t about the failures. It’s about the ripples.
In December of 2019, I published an essay titled Ailments of Abundance. This piece analyzed the negative impacts of excess on American society. We have too much junk food, too much stimulation, too much analysis, and too much access to debt. These abundances lead to a scarcity of health, attention, independent thought, and financial stability. This essay was the painful culmination of reading, note taking, ideating, and writing. It’s one of my best essays to date. I pushed the publish button, sent it into the world, and like usual, I heard crickets.
Then on February 3, nearly two months after publishing the essay, I sent out a Tweet promoting it. The tweet was simple. I lead with the headline, “We’re killing ourselves with excess.” Then I added four bullets succinctly summarizing four ideas from the piece. I concluded by tagging Morgan Housel, Yuval Noah Harari, and Sebastian Junger to credit them with inspiring the essay. The Tweet got a little more interaction than most of my Tweets, but nothing out of the ordinary.
Six days later, I received an email from a man named Brendan O’Byrne with the subject line, “Ailments of Abundance.” This was the most thoughtful email I’d ever received about my writing. Brendan had clearly read my essay closely, and it resonated with him. My favorite lines from his email read:
“I share similar ideas about abundance. Americans are taught that if they don't want to feel any pain or discomfort, they don't have to. We must experience pain to grow and learn. The child given every comfort is the adult who never grew up.”
Brendan was as interested in this topic as I was. He even conveyed his ideas more eloquently.
Brendan also shared a related article, commented about liking the White Buffalo (mentioned on my Start Here page), and recommended a similar artist he thought I might like. He engaged genuinely and thoroughly.
The name Brendan O’Byrne made a lightbulb flicker somewhere in the dark recesses of my mind, but the flicker was brief. A Google search fixed the faulty wire. Brendan O’Byrne was one of the men featured in Sebastian Junger’s documentary, Restrepo, as well as his book, War. I’m a huge fan of Junger’s work, so I was familiar with Brendan even though it had been years since I’d seen his name.
Brendan’s initial email response launched a two-month thread where we discussed music, society, and Junger’s work. It culminated in a podcast conversation with Brendan – the deepest, darkest, eye-opening, and most important podcast I’ve published.
In talking with Brendan, I learned he read my essay after Sebastian Junger sent it to him – presumably after seeing it in my Tweet.
How many times has a similar series of events played out where interesting people read my work? Maybe none. Maybe dozens. Without receiving an email like Brendan’s, it’s impossible to know - much like a fisherman throwing his line into the water, time after time, only for the hook to be brushed by a monster without taking a bite.
Just like a fisherman continues casting and reeling, changing his tackle and searching for the perfect hole, I’ll keep reading and taking notes, publishing and working through ideas. Anglers can’t catch fish without a line in the water, and a writer won’t earn engagement without publishing his work. I’ve spent many steamy summer afternoons reeling repeatedly to no avail, only to finally feel the hit of a small mouth bass sending waves of excitement coursing through my body. The feeling I get from watching a bass shoot out of the water and glimmer in the summer sun is the same as when I receive an email from a person I admire, engaging with my writing.
Writing online is hard work. It takes hours of reading, composing, and revising, often with no reward. Writing online is scary. It opens you to criticism and elicits vulnerability. But writing online is also magical. It combines the satisfaction of accomplishment with the anticipation of possibility. With consistency, it will open doors and garner influence that silence cannot.
So keep publishing essays. When the silence is deafening, bait another hook, cast another line, spin another reel, and don’t lose hope. Your life-changing bite could be waiting on the next cast.
