Hey there, friends. This isn't really a Tethered Letter, just an incidental pontification about something I've been thinking about which you may or may not be interested in. Well… *cough* I guess it's not an official Tethered Letter. Just a little “look under the hood” regarding some of my thoughts on writing and reading. All the disclaimers about this being my opinion and I'm happy to receive counterpoint, etc. etc. are in effect. Thanks for humoring me. :)
Not long ago I reviewed my email list and unsubscribed from a number of Substack publications. I'm thinking of making this an annual autumn thing, reviewing the emails I receive and deciding which ones I will keep and which ones I should stop. It just felt so good to air out ye olde inboxe.
Of course, I promptly went on a Substack search binge and subscribed to three times the stacks I scrapped.
In my defense, I've been yearning to read new stuff. When you have your window open and the air is cold and smells like autumn you just want to go on an adventure. As I change I'm going to want to read different things. Which writers I dropped or added is irrelevant; my decision was not a value judgment on anybody's writing or viewpoint. It was rather about choosing to read things I like and not things I should like. Because there's a difference, and that difference might be why opening your inbox feels so stressful most days.
But why was I in that stressful predicament in the first place? I'm glad you asked. (I know you didn’t, just play along)
Here's a list of reasons I have signed up for emails I never read:
because I want to look well-read, whether I am or not.
because I never want to miss out on something important.
because I feel beholden to someone for liking, sharing, or subscribing to my work.
because I met someone once and signed up as a courtesy.
because I liked something they wrote and hoped they wrote more of it, only to find out it was a one-off, or to find out it was all they wrote about.
because I didn't know what I wanted to read and it looked mildly interesting.
because I follow someone they also follow, or I follow someone who follows them.
because I believe, ludicrously, that I have enough space in my brain and time on my hands to consume miles of "content" in the hopes of gaining the fabled peace of mind and decisive will that comes from KNOWING ALL THE THINGS.
Once the hook is set, then the hedging begins.
I will skim. I will read one paragraph and delete it. I will force-feed it to myself so as to not offend (assuming they know or even care). I will store it along with my burgeoning guilt in my inbox for weeks and maybe months before deleting it in a fit of minimalistic angst. You know the drill. I'm willing to bet you've done the same.
Why do I do this?
I think my difficulty with obligatory reading started during college, because up until that point I was voracious. I would average three to four books of decent size a week, fantasy, sci-fi, mystery, theology. On the first cross-country tour I took with the men's collegiate choir, I read the entire Harry Potter series in under two weeks.
But as the years went on, I force-fed myself texts that grew progressively less applicable to my life and more informational. Consequently, I began putting a higher premium on reading for knowledge instead of reading for enjoyment. I read more and more online content designed for quick consumption instead of long digestion. Free time became a distant memory, and when I found a spare hour the options for filling it were expansive and played to my laziest (or most exhausted?) impulses. I got on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. My attention span shriveled up.
By the time I graduated I didn't want to, or couldn't, read much of anything. For a year or two afterward I stopped reading almost entirely.
I can already hear some educators out there objecting to this picture I'm painting. Unfortunately, I think a lot of higher education has, for quite some time now, been designed around filling minds with information. I believed in that priority for years, but also, I had little concept of what it means to be a whole, healthy person. My education did not help me in that regard. The people who loved me during and after college — professors, colleagues, friends, church family — did help me. There is growth because of something, and growth in spite of it. Obviously there are counter-examples to my experience.
What I'm interested in, however, is not the circumstances surrounding my reading burnout, but my motivations. During those years, I was reading for completion and testing, not because I wanted to read. Someone else was telling me “this is what you should read.” And in the absence of those authorities after I graduated, I acquired new authorities: the hot takes and desperate issues of the day, the Christian influencer culture, the literati, the idols of whatever community I glommed onto, recommendations from writers who had "made it," etc.
I was still reading to know, because knowledge gave me a modicum of control. Knowledge made me look good, got me esteem in the circles I wanted to enter. Knowledge made conversation easier.
The catch to making all these sacrifices to the god of KNOWING THINGS is that eventually you run out of steam. I am human, after all, which means that I am limited. In this word-drenched age, I can't read it all. What's more, I shouldn't.
What my reading-less odyssey taught me, now that I've returned home to the comfort and delight of reading what I want to read when I want to read it, is that little good comes from forced reading — whether it's yourself doing the forcing or someone else. Of course there are books that are hard to read that are well worth reading. But there's a difference between training for and running a marathon because you want to do it, and running 26.2 miles being chased by a bunch of maniacs with whips (i.e. all of my inner voices).
So what do we do about it now? I think it's incumbent upon all of us to unsubscribe regularly from things and not feel guilty about that at all. If we're really interested in being better readers and writers, it's vital that we do this. We have to switch from a posture of obligation to a posture of delight.
Here are a few common objections I've used to excuse my subscription glut in the past.
The first one is answered pretty easily: doesn't subscribing help writers? Well, yes! But only if you're reading what they write. Stats are often the measure of this. A dubious measure, to be sure... but let's go there for a second.
There are two stats in question here: subscriber count and open rate. One impacts the other. If I have 100 subscribers and I'm operating with a decent open rate of 25% (the industry standard is between 17-28%), that means that 25 people opened and presumably read my newsletter. Now, imagine if the ones who didn't read my email just unsubscribed. I would have a 100% open rate. Higher open rate improves deliverability by lowering the amount of emails you send and growing your engagement rates. It also hones your writing to a point; instead of going diffuse and trying to convince a bunch of currently unconvinced people that your stuff is worth their time, you can relax and just write good work for people you know want to read it.
If you think about this in terms of sales, potential sales carry less weight than actual sales. Or you can think about it in terms of Kevin Kelly's 1000 True Fans theory. The point is that, if you carry a modicum of guilt in your mind about unsubscribing for this reason, take heart: if you’re not able to keep up with reading it, unsubscribing is the best thing you can do for writers.
And let's be frank: you can't help every starving artist. Saying you can by subscribing to any and every writer that crosses your path is foolhardy and will burn you out.
Here's another question: what about the relational aspect of subscribing to someone's letter? Isn't that worth sticking around for?
Well, what kind of relationship are we talking about? Relationships are amalgams of duty and delight. Every relationship involves obligation to some extent, and every relationship should be rooted in love. But not every relationship requires the same amount of those things.
There may be a relationship that you have cultivated with a writer over time, whether in person or via social media, etc. It can feel very personal, especially when the writer is revealing so much of themselves to you on a regular basis. But again, we're talking about writers we don't read regularly — we intend to read them, but we don't do it.
Maybe we're holding out because of the prospect of a relationship, or the feeling of a deeper connection than we have in reality, or because we've been told it's important to network. These reasons just keep us in the obligation spiral. If you don't want to read a writer or don't have time because you're reading writers you do want to read — just unsubscribe.
If you really do have an ongoing friendship with an author you don't get to see often in real life, you are probably reading their stuff regularly anyway. In that sense, staying subscribed makes sense. But if you aren't keeping up with them, stop pretending to do so. For friends who really care about one another, and for most decent human beings — they will understand and won't take it hard.
The other objection that comes up is: it's important for my vocation as a writer to read a lot, have my finger on the pulse of the writing world, get writing tips, etc.
I've read a lot of advice on writing over the years, and some of it has been helpful. I firmly believe that living my life engaged in the real, non-digital world, coupled with a regular discipline of writing, is what will make me a better writer. Here's what will not:
spending my life managing social media and building platforms.
reading and writing think pieces about think pieces about think pieces (ad nauseum).
networking in writer circles (i.e. glomming on to the right writers).
reading a bunch of tips on how to be a better writer.
going to a conference about how to be a better writer.
I anticipate some squawking about these, and I want to reiterate: these things do have value, but their value is limited to why we do them. A lot of us want to “make it” as a writer, and we're told that the path is through these things (which is questionable at best, an outright lie at worst). But what is absolutely true is that these things will not help me to grow as a writer. Living a full life and putting my butt in my chair to write is the only thing that will do that. In my case, I have found that the path of "making it" has actively hindered my growth as a writer. Whereas, going out to my garden and tying up my tomato plants does not.
To use another analogy: reading about spending time with God is very different than spending time with God. The former makes you feel some sort of way about the topic: ambitious, guilty, pompous, insecure. The latter changes your life.
Why is it that we rely so heavily on disembodied and disintegrated online networks and societies to be better writers? Because doing the thing is so hard, and thinking about doing it easy. But if you've ever done anything, you know that it gets easier the more you do it, not the more you read about it or think about it.
I think we need to ask ourselves a few questions:
Is whatever online writer/reader subculture I'm swimming in serving my ambition, or my vocation? To what extent?
Is there evidence that swimming in this culture is destroying my ability to write and read well, or bolstering it?
Is my real (non-online) life better because of my presence in these online spaces, or is it suffering because of it?
If I've determined that the online society I'm involved in is hindering me from growth, what stops me from leaving it? Do those reasons to stay outweigh my reasons to leave?
What am I going to do about it now?
Consider this newsletter, or any of the fifteen other newsletters that arrived in your inbox this morning. Why are you reading this? What could you be doing instead of reading this? Is it making your life better or distracting you from it? Is it cultivating your curiosity or affirming your biases? Is it broadening your mind and heart or reducing you?
It's my responsibility in this space to offer you the best creative writing that I can, writing that inspires and encourages you to keep going, that points to amazing things and asks you to consider them. I don't always do that, I know. I get stuck in ruts and loops and I backtrack and sometimes I'm just plain lazy. I do not add up to my own ideals half the time. But I'm trying my darndest, because I take this stuff seriously. This is one reason I've committed to never using AI to generate ideas or writing in this space.
This being said, it's your responsibility as a reader and a human being to decide if what I'm writing is worth your time, and to react accordingly. The amount of unread emails from myself or other writers hanging out in your inbox might be an indication of who needs to go.
No single author is going to bring you a new delightful read every time, but at the very least, go for the ones who give you the highest percentage of delight. Then, in a few months or a year, reconsider who you're regularly reading and adjust to taste. But reading from obligation will slowly kill your spirit.
So, emails. Substack. All this glut of writing, good or otherwise, that calls your name and promises the reward of extensive knowledge, the accolades of readers and wannabe readers everywhere, the love of friends and acquaintances alike, the ultimate bragging right of end-of-year reading lists.
Screw all that.
Read what you like, when you want to. Read it because it delights you, not because you should. When you tire of reading, set it down and go live your life. The best excuse I can think of for someone not reading my monthly bags of hot air is that they were too busy having a Nerf war with their kids, or harvesting potatoes, or reading a really wonderful novel, or just looking at a tree. When was the last time you just really looked at a tree?? Life is calling to you, people. Don’t unsubscribe from that, of all things.
But hey, just down there below the like/comment/share bar is the unsubscribe button. Just in case you need it. And if you do, may you discover delight, and truth, and goodness wherever you roam.
Godspeed,
C
My soul needed this. I try not to subscribe/follow anyone I feel I won't be able to engage with properly, since I personally don't like when people just follow me and then never engage or read what I'm writing.
I also related so much to what you wrote about reading for knowledge.
Hi, Chris, I love that you asked us when was the last time we really looked at a tree. Today, I was driving past Pretoria. The jacaranda trees for which the city is famous are in bloom this time of year, and the angle of the sun setting low in the sky backlit their purple canopies in a neon haze of glowing lilac. I should have pulled the car over and really taken them in. But even at 120 km per hour, their splendor reached my heart. Thank you for pointing me towards delight, reminding me of God's goodness, and not making me feel guilty about not managing to read every one of your letters. 😉