Good Enough
On Substack - a platform I am not certain I enjoy or respect - I am doing my best to mingle.
In real life, and online I absolutely abhor small talk and mingling unless it is pursuit of a goal. Am I a bit selfish in that regard? Probably. I just can’t stand being around people who I know in their core are intent to be idle… or who have some intense fixation on proving themselves to others, which is such a vacuous thing to do. If you get off on preening and posturing in front of people, that’s pretty gross. If you’re putting yourself out there in search of some kind of substantive connection, that I understand. That call is the call of someone looking for equals to share time with. What I am referring to is the people who gather any and all attention by casting a broad net; by laughing too loud or fabricating their income and mentioning all of their purchases in a faux-casual way. The ones who bulldog a room, seeking only the energy of the moment. I feel it is my duty to ignore and refuse them my energy — sometimes even in a callous and outwardly aggressive way. I won’t be used and I won’t use others. I won’t pretend to enjoy your company to get something out of you. Either I do, or I don’t.
A long diatribe, let’s refocus on where I meant to go with this — On substack, I have reduced myself to engaging with accounts that seem to have a high volume of comments, in the hopes of establishing real and meaningful contacts. The reason I feel gross about it is, there is a consistent thing they’re all doing and saying that is getting them tons of comments. It’s a formula. It is: “If you’re new to substack and want to build community I’d love to connect.”
It’s about as thinly veiled as it could possibly be. It’s a baited hook to anyone who wishes, against the odds, to be someone with their writing. It’s vulture-y, it’s… not a balanced exchange. Hundreds or thousands of people drop a comment like buying a lotto ticket, and the person who made the post walks away pocketing the cash. Scheme-y. Preying upon. Anyways, I engaged because there doesn’t seem to be much else to do besides being consistent, then knocking your head up against the wall.
This actual post had a little more flavor than the generic one. It was: “Doing the thing. Any writers, artists and intellectual creatives that love nerding out, let’s connect. Substack, do your magic.”
To which I replied: "I’m trying.” As in, trying to connect.
The response to which was: “That’s enough :)” Which I think means that’s good enough. I think she misunderstood my meaning and thought I was saying “I’m trying my best as a writer.” Which is true, but I wasn’t looking for validation. Either way. I find That’s enough :) to be a pretty irritating concept. Like who made you the arbiter of what’s enough? What an obnoxious sentiment to receive from another person.
It’s really not enough. We all know this. Trying isn’t achieving unless you break through.
Yesterday I went to the gym and discovered that my little plastic keychain barcode thing had fallen off. I told the front-desk lady I needed a new one. She got it out of the little bin and wrote the serial number down on her chart, put my info next to it on the page, programmed it with my profile. It was a process that took five minutes or so. At the end, I noticed her turn her back and do something with it. There was a momentary pause before she handed it over to me.
”Here you go! Have a good day!” She said. She had me marching away before I had a chance to really look at it. The little hole punch area where my key-ring would go wasn’t punched all the way through. It came from the factory like this, but it just wasn’t punched. I saw a little mark where she’d tried to force the tip of a pen through.
I got instantly furious because I now realized what the momentary pause was. It was that little moment where she decided in her head that that’s good enough. She could either do the right thing, throw it away, and go through the five minute process of programming a new one, or, she could hand it to me and hope I said nothing.
*** Side note — people who make a habit of doing things half-ass like this are also usually professionals of knowing exactly how much they can get away with before getting called on it. They’ve spent their life mastering an acute awareness of where the line is, or weighing the odds.
She was right, I said nothing. The next day I returned and handed it to the other staff member and asked if he had a hole-punch. First he tried to push a pen through it to no avail, then discovered their hole punch, and promptly took a bite out of the corner. “Oops.” He took another go at it, and punched the new hole so close to the bite, that it was separated by an almost invisible thread of plastic. By this I mean, if I even managed to get it onto a keyring at all, it would obviously fall off within a matter of days.
The old lady working beside him said “Should we get a new one for him?”
”Nope!” He said and handed it over. “Here ya go, Bud!”
Again, measuring and wagering that I would not say anything about it. There is something deeply unsatisfying about having someone presume your cowardice and call it so accurately. I walked away, feeling belittled. I could have made a thing out of it. I didn’t. When I came back through, the little bit of plastic had already come broken and the tag had fallen off. Only the old lady remained behind the counter. I handed it to her. She nodded knowingly and made me a new one.
The world seems to function on good enough. I’m not breaking ground by saying this. But in the gym, for example, when the front-desk staff can’t even be bothered to get this right, is it safe to trust that the towels are actually clean? What are the downstream effects of this lethargic behavior?
When we pause and look at something we’ve done and we instantly spot the mistake, should we be content with that? When problems turn up in other areas, shouldn’t it be apparent how we ended up here?
So I hate mingling, posturing, and pretending. It’s the good enough behavior played out to it’s inevitable conclusion. Surrounding yourself with people you keep at an arm’s length, being dishonest with them so you can be dishonest with yourself, and continue to pretend that everything in your life is better than theirs because it’s easier than actually admitting the truth that we’d all like to be someplace better, then working together in a real, meaningful way to get to that place.
