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Brad Klein's avatar

hello, it is I, one (of those) strangers from the internet who only uses substack to follow Tomas Pueyo's Uncharted Territories (unintentional plug for a VERY intentional and amazing data science-based newsletter), who stumbled upon your 'stack some months back by... I don't even know how-lgorithmically? Read (most of, #ThanksADHD) one of your ~recent pieces at the time and was gob smacked by how much it both resonated and felt like a kindred soul typing theirs into the ether.

I hadn't really checked back in since (I tend to read UT via email, rarely 'stacked; also that ADHD again...), but today your post came to my e-post and I decided to lean in - because y'know, i totally wasn't doing anything better/three other things at the time...

Well... I'm glad I did. For sooooo many reasons that I won't get into here (if u can believe such self-censorship is possible!), your waxing on performance, your screed on Social Meds, and ESPECIALLY your meta-consideration of The Other(s), really resounded within me as I, -- also a dinosaur millennial pseudo-performer who used to DAU on FB 'til it got too toxic during DJT I and I more or less quit socials altogether cuz the IG UX sucks absolute donkey-D and TikToks? ummm thx but no tox -- have also felt The Call (of/2b wild n' social n' free) and have slowwwly been tippy-toeing back into FB postin' (how quaint!) and considering some of the same things you wrote about.

I felt called to respond here to add a +1 (erm, maybe a -1?) to the void/ether/Light/whathaveyou that there exist others who don't want to just_scream, who want to actively and intentionally and with wit, grace, compassion and Marty-Mauser*-GET-IT-DONE-ness-but-with-200%-more-Empathy find a way to still do the things we enjoy (have always enjoyed) and post and share and dance and laugh about, while trying to do some kind of world-healing while we're (all) at it.

*sorry, I moved to LA from NYC a couple years ago for my (now-) fiancé, and movies are kind of a big deal here and I just saw Marty Supreme and loved it, can you tell?

One of my #someday aspirations is to do something like you do, Amber: a fun quirky bloggy-type thing in 100%-my-own-voice-and-you-can-take-and/or-leave-all-them-cares that endeavors to entertain but also inspire, to humor but also heal (please forgive me if that is not the right takeaway here...).

I look forward to taking more initiative to ingest -- I almost typed "consume" but that feels... not right. so not right -- more of your pieces in future. I hope this initial greeting didn't come off too strong, but I let myself kind of run wild with minimal filter here since I was excited and felt very inspired, lol.

ALSO: semi-obligatory but-also-earnest (hmm, sounds like something else... wat's it called again? oh ya, LIFE) remark that your smile is GREAT just the way it is!

Give a Care, Take a Care's avatar

thank you, i’m so glad it moved you! it is mostly compulsion because if i don’t write about these things they continue to bounce around in the brain distracting me. i also have adhd and writing is a great focusing exercise for me

Brad Klein's avatar

I thought I espied a fellow neuro-div'er ;-)

It's funny you say it's like that for you, because I tend to have the opposite problem: if i don't write it down SOMEwhere, it goes poof! and all I'm left with later (if i remember2remember 'tall) is a memory like "wow, I had a really cute/amazing metaphor for how life and/or existence works that I could probably use in a film/book/Great Work that I want to make someday, I wonder what that thing was?"

So in some ways my exigence to write is also/always compulsory: we MUST lest we FORGET

Emily Rich's avatar

I think there’s a gut feeling inside that made you choose to hide her face and I think trusting that feeling was a smart move.