well this is embarrassing

when you're madsad about the caviar problems

I spent a good part of this past weekend much the same way I spend most weekends — madsad.

Anxious and befuddled at the fate befallen me.

Something I’d written did not ‘do as well’ as I would have liked.

Besides death itself, there is nothing worse.

Now I know this is a caviar problem. I know that my posts, relative to most, ‘do well.’ But that just makes my madsadness about it all the worse. Shame! How dare you feel bad when others worse?? Shame-fried shame for living a life so high up on Maslow’s Hierarchical Hotel of Needs that I can spend days - full USD days - engrossed in said anxiety.

There's that meme about how the things we talk about would lay waste to a child from the Victorian era.

Poor Florence would hear me say “I’m anxious that my post comparing being a father to a game of color or country didn’t get the numbers I thought it would and my paid subscriptions are down while engagement holds basically steady,” and poor Florence would simply cease to be.

Except we don’t even need to go to the Victorian era. That phrase would kill almost anyone alive on the planet right now.

Like on this hike we went on the other day, this old lady and old man sat on a tree that'd fallen over sideways and the lady said 'here, you take my walking stick and I'll take your camera and let's keep walking.'

Can you imagine if I told them about how the numbers were down?

They’d whack me with the walking stick and then take my photo with their camera to show all their friends. “Look at this idiot,” they’d say, “he cares about whether people like him,” and they’d laugh and laugh and laugh until it hurt and one of them would say “guys stop my stomach is literally hurting” but that would just make them all laugh even more.

There were like 40 people on that hike. And each little group of them were having these conversations about stuff they really thought was important because - get this - in their minds - it WAS important.

Know what wasn’t important? Me and my bullshit.

Wilder found a bright green wiggle worm centipedes writhing its way from one rock to the next. He called one tree a giraffe and another an elephant. This, now this was news I could use.

I’m lovin it

I'm writing this from a mcdonalds because the library and coffee shop were both closed and honestly the AC is blasting, the wifi is fire, and the coke zero is endless for a meager $1.59 plus tax.

There are...three other people here. One lady is in an intense mechanical wheelchair thing and there's a man with glasses who just closed the lid on his mcdonald's coffee and he just got up and pulled his pants up a little bit and now he's moving he's leaving with his red book no he's back down no he's back up and he's right behind me and now he's gone. Out the door. what was he reading? why did he put his stuff down and then pick it up again.

He's walking now, I see him through the window, headed to his car . A truck I think or maybe one of the three vans no its the truck. he opens it with his key not with a beep beep thing. Now he's in the car. it hasn't started. he's going slow. taking his time.

imagine me telling him about my anxiety with my last substack post. he'd take his glasses off and spit big right onto the pavement. “Son, that’s, well now that just ain’t right.”

Why am I writing all this? because it feels important. it feels helpful, this reminder, how little the things we treat as big really are.

Am I saying not to treat them as big? Not exactly. Feel your feelings, big dawg, but also zoom out so you can hold at once how they feel huge in the brain and are utterly meaningless to everyone who walks this earth.

That guy drove away, by the way, while I was writing that last part, off to the next stop on his grand adventure. and he's just ONE of the cars on the road right now. five different cars just drove by on the road and each of them have someone in them with his very own worry and red book and problem and love and sin and pain and remorse and a half eaten sandwich on the dash that should still be good to eat since it's just a veggie sandwich so how 'bad' could it really go but maybe it's not worth the risk who knows??

Ok a new couple just sat down at the mcdonalds in matching pastel polos he's got green and she's got pink and they're both chomping down on vanilla ice cream and they seem happy. for a moment there they seem happy. he just made a little joke or so it seems based on her giggle . she's giggling more now, he's really got her going. "she wouldn't like that drive" he says to her.

who wouldn't? why?

we're more connected than ever now, with the internet, and more than ever focused on ourselves. there has got to be a better way to say all that.

There is no pithy takeaway here nor is there a stance against pithy takeaways — just a reminder

That what matters

May not

And that the big deals most likely aren’t

The mountains are molehills

And the molehills? They are lit — you ever hang out in a molehill? Moles go nuts man they party.

The world is is a tragic mess of nothings that feel like everything.

and everythings that feel like nothing.

And guess what - both are true. It’s all true and false and there is no test. There is just us - me, you, and the ice cream couple and the man with his red book in his truck and the elephant tree and Florence she’s alive Florence is alive!! and the giraffe tree and that old lady who’s now holding the old guy’s camera so he can hold her walking stick and they’re both still laughing in fact we all are so let’s just keep laughing and walking and we can stay sad but let’s make space for the happy too because there is room even with at least forty people on this planet and probably more, there is always room.

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This post took me 36 years to write. Please consider supporting Both Are True.