I Don't Fully Understand the Problem

But I'm sure that the answer is friendship

Welcome to the 60 new subscribers who joined in the last two days while reading my friend Rob Tourtelot’s viral story The Things We Lose. This article is about my experience of his success.

My friend Rob and his family courtesy of Rob’s about page

“Damn phone,” I muttered, turning over and wrapping my feather pillow around my head. I thought maybe I could block out the annoying chimes and fall back asleep.

My hope for a lazy start to Saturday morning was being dashed by the fact that I’d forgotten to silence my phone the night before. I considered getting up to turn off the phone so I could come back and enjoy my cozy nest. But even by my most optimistic calculations I rated the chances of leaving bed and then regaining the comfort of my current position at nil.

Finally, I realized that the incessant chiming over the last hour was specific to the Substack app I had just downloaded a few days ago.

“Wait . . . that means something is happening with my account!” I realized. Something I wrote must be getting traction! And I sat right up in bed.

In all the years I’ve been writing on Substack I’ve dreamed of being featured in Substack’s weekly digest. I figure the odds of landing placement in the Substack newsletter is roughly equivalent to an inner city kid getting drafted by an NBA scout from a pick up game in the slums. But something akin to this seemed to have happened.

Aside from some massive glitch with the platform, I concluded that my years of consistent publishing was now finally paying off, and that somehow I was finally getting the attention I deserved. Was it one of my articles, a note I’d posted, a comment that I left? I was bursting with curiosity about what had been highlighted or shared.

My mind raced into the future with what this would mean, both the success I would enjoy as well as the pressure I’d face to deliver quality work. I was already contemplating how I’d sidestep audience capture—a form of writing disease that causes the author to follow an audience rather than the other way around.

But what I did next filled me with additional pride.

I got up and ignored my phone.

Instead, I turned to the practices that guide me, and the priorities that anchor me. I did my hour of meditation and joined my wife for tea. We talked about our day, plans for our approaching summer, and then I put an overdue load of laundry into the machine and set the cycle to “normal”—all while quietly relishing the much better than normal day I was about to have.

Several hours had now passed since I realized something crazy good must be happening. Finally, with both excitement and not a small amount of anxiety, I opened my phone.

And there they were.

Hundreds upon hundreds of new followers and subscribers flooding my inbox and choking the notification bell of the app with affirmation of my arrival as a celebrated author.

Alright I thought, let’s find out what breakthrough piece of content is responsible for my destiny being fulfilled.

First I checked my recent articles.

Hmmm.

Nothing’s blown up here. The likes and comments of all my recent articles were just as I left them the day before. How about notes? Did one of my recent postings get shared? No. A comment perhaps? No evidence of that anywhere showed up in my notification feed.

What in the world is going on here? Is this a mistake?

That’s when a group text from my friend Alex arrived, delivered to me and our friend Rob.

Alex Michael, Rob, and I have been meeting weekly for over a year now to support each other on our writing journeys. The three of us met in a writing course and have deepened our friendship through conversation and supporting each other’s work on Substack.

On at least half a dozen separate occasions our conversation has gone like this:

Alex: I don’t understand why you don’t have thousands of followers Rob. Your writing is so good.

Me: I’m always wondering the same thing. Seriously Rob, even in all of our wider writing circle, you’re one of the best writers I know.

Rob: I can never tell if what I’m writing is any good.

Me: Please stop second-guessing yourself, it’s consistently good.

Week after week, we’d repeat some version of this conversation.

Neither Alex nor I were surprised that Rob had finally been discovered. And we weren’t the only ones celebrating his success.

By virtue of Rob’s generosity, both Alex and I are on Rob’s list of recommended Substacks. We were both catching the chum off the back of the feeding frenzy of attention that Rob was getting, and like suckerfish riding the back of a whale we were picking up add-on followers and subscribers from the zillions that have been signing up to follow Rob’s work in the last two days.

If I had an honest resume it would include jealousy, competitiveness and envy as three of my top skills.

I stopped communicating with a business colleague because I was threatened by his success as a speaker. I’ve unsubscribed from other writers who’ve made me feel small in comparison, and declined liking trending essays and notes I’m jealous of. I’ve envied the audiences of others, and stayed up to all hours of the night to out-work my competitors.

Now, someone I call a friend was getting everything I’ve been hoping for.

But something weird was happening.

I was genuinely thrilled for him.

One of the simplest and best explanations I’ve run across for the transformation of judgment into connection, empathy, and joy for the good fortune of others comes from musician Michael Franti.

I believe there is no one you wouldn’t love if you knew their story. When I learn about someone else’s experience I’m always inspired to hear they share the same fears and hopes that I do and in this ever-changing world I look for the optimism of people who can find opportunity in the face of everyday challenges. In my experiences, I have found that music is the quickest way to start conversations and tap into that flow.

—Michael Franti

For me, Rob’s writing does the same work as music. Delivered by the instrument of story, his authentically shared experience ironically transcends Rob as an individual because it’s so personal. Honest story takes us straight to our collective humanness.

As Alex mentioned, Rob has been on a trip, and only learned of his success in small windows of cell phone connection in the wilderness. When he finally caught up with our congratulatory messages he was more excited to share photos of the slot canyon he was hiking through than the mountain of new subscribers that were joining his publication. Typical Rob.

How we got ourselves into the mess of issues we’re now grappling with in the world is beyond complex. But I can’t think of a single problem that humanity is currently facing that isn’t improved by the exchange of our honest stories.

Something crazy good happens when we share them.

And I think it might be called friendship.

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As for me and my new subscribers via Rob, I hope to stand on my own two feet and offer something of value from the realm of story. If you’re new to my writing I appreciate your time and attention, and would love your good company if you decide to stick around.