Dear You,
It’s me, Carissa. We have been through a lot together. I mean, the past two and a half years have been crazy! (I know I am not supposed to use that word, feel free to sub in anything like “magical,” “intense,” or “hard”). This week, I was planning on writing to you about how I thought pain worked and how it is actually working in life. More on that later. But I wanted to start out with a couple of things.
How do you know when to give up?
I made the decision last week, to cut back on Substack. Not because I don’t love it. I love every bit of it. It is actually my favorite thing to do. I love processing life with a group of people I know and don’t know. Who always give me the benefit of the doubt. Who read with a sense of openness that I am so very grateful for. I have been able to discuss all the parts of myself that I keep hidden - in a weirdly open way, an honest way, without the shame I normally carry.
But life is telling me I have to pivot. I have a family and a team that I have to support in a financial sense. My goal in the beginning was to make Substack a full-time content engine. Creating a community in the grey areas, the muddy, stuckness of life. But to do that I had to charge people for content - which makes me uncomfortable. I would say 95% of our content is free. And I want to keep it that way. I also want to keep it ad-free. So, with my hands up in the air, I have to say, I tried. But it didn’t happen, so I have to move on. Just because you love something doesn’t mean it is going to work. (I keep having to learn this over and over again…)
In the future, Bad At Keeping Secrets will be scaled way back. I am planning on doing two personal essays a month, two interviews a month (these are my favorite, but again, time) and I am toying with a creative hour. In the creative hour, I would just send out a Zoom meeting once a week for paid subscribers to show up and make time to work on something they have been meaning to do. Start a new instrument, learn to watercolor, and free-write about how much you hate your neighbor’s dog. I will be there. It will be silent, I will be most likely painting.
I am very very grateful that I have been able to do this with you over the past few years, I needed you when my marriage felt like it was falling apart, when I lost two babies, when I looked at patterns of communication that felt so natural but were actually super destructive. You were there. Thank you.
There is, however, something I have been thinking about. It’s about pain and endurance. About how I thought that pain worked like this:
Painful event. Intense pain. Awareness of pain.
Intensity fades. We slowly drift back up on our hedonic treadmill to our baseline of happiness.
But for me, when I think about the pandemic, it feels different.
Painful event: The pandemic, isolation, chronic illness. When I remember it, I don’t remember it being that bad. Yes, we were lucky, no one close to me died. But we did have hospital stays, job insecurity, and my first real panic attacks. But when I think about it that is not where the pain point lies.
The pain point is now. Before the pandemic, I felt agency. I felt a connection. And the real pain of the whole thing is coming into light with the disconnection and lack of control. During, the time just was, because we had to get through it. This moment we are in feels like it could be summed up with the phrase, “So now what?”
And my answer is I don’t know. I know nothing. Researchers on happiness say that about 50% of our happiness is genetics. Wow. 50-fucking-percent. And about 10% is down to our circumstances (I would file both these into the “luck” category). That leaves around 40% that is theoretically within our reach.
I want to have faith that some happy event is just waiting around the corner for you. And for me too. For now, I have to deal with the reality that I just don’t know. So I will get on the treadmill and do the best that I can along with every other creature out there. I see you. I know you are doing the best you can. I have a great love and faith in humanity. If I lose that I will really be lost.
Hi there, First, let me say... I'm not a paid sub b/c the writers strike has me so crazy poor, it's not even funny, otherwise I would be a subscriber. I first came upon you via Elise Loehnen when I was running The Idealists podcast for LSE. I SO love your illustrations... they always speak to me and I wonder if a Liana Finck strategy might serve you better? My agent recently told me I was always trying to bring the kitchen sink and that I needed to do less... I was already enough. Re: your podcast, I haven't always made it through... not because of you, but just a number of guests, I find, need a degree of "show prep" to be really GOOD guests... But there's something about building a body of work here (paid or not) that feels like the innards of a book? But perhaps shorter posts, maybe akin to Austin Kleon? Just unsolicited thoughts on a Monday from an oldster who appreciates you. :)
This is such an intelligent post. Like Alisa, I'm an older writer, but WAY older Alisa. I'm on strike, as well, although when you're my age, you don't get much work anymore. I have reinvented myself countless times because of career ups and down. I teach screenwriting at USC and people often say to me "don't you feel guilty" knowing most of the kids you teach will never get jobs? My answer: not in the least. Who am to decide who is going to make it and who isn't? As a creative person, you must trust your gut. I know someone who spent their entire life trying to break into the movie business as an actor and never made it. He died miserable. Another friend gave it up at 45, started a new career as a headhunter and twenty years later is happy as a clam. The BEST thing about being a writer is you're a writer simply by writing. If you decide to end your SubStack, you haven't ended your voice! If you love writing and you clearly do, you'll find a way. If we judge ourselves by how much we earn, we're doomed. You can't bank on your writing making you bank! On 9/11 I was at the Toronto Film Festival with a movie I wrote. It took me ten years to get made. It was the thing that was going to give me the career I dreamed about. The US premiere was in NYC. Needless to say it never happened. The only reason I'm telling you this is because as writers we spend a lot of time imaging what our careers will look like. What we have to focus on is writing. You write until it no longer makes you happy to do so. Don't let your disappointment kill your joy and talent.