People often ask me, “Is your advice useful for most people?” and “If everyone followed your path, wouldn’t society fall apart?”
I reject both of these frames.
First off, I write, create, and share from my own perspective. I don’t write trying to give advice, to build a massive following, or in the hopes that people live like me. I try to create and share what I think as honestly as possible, sharing the ideas that flow through my head. I share because I think it’s fun to put my ideas out into the world. To see if they stand up to scrutiny. But mostly, it’s a way of holding my thinking to a high bar, forcing myself to work out what I claim to care about and then test it in the real world to see if it works.
A big benefit of this finding is that it allows others who life asking similar questions.
This motivates me to share. Every time I put stuff out in the world. other people seem to find it interesting and. This usually leads to interesting rabbit holes and conversations. This may not seem like a great payoff, but for someone like me, conversations and rabbit holes are delightful. They make life fun for me.
Secondly, we are in no danger of society rising and following the “pathless path method” en masse. It’s just not a risk. I talk to a wide range of people all the time, and most people have no interest in my journey. In fact, the default response to my story and journey is usually dismissal: “Wow I could never do that.”
The people that my work seems to attract are the weirdos. They are a small number of people around the world who already know that the standard paths won’t work for them. They spend a lot of time thinking about escape routes, alternative paths, and creative ways to live life on their own terms. They approach my work with curiosity, looking for more clues to help remix their own path.
I think far too many people default to making an error in thinking, which I like to call “mass media brain.” This is the idea that every message put out into the world should be evaluated in its appropriateness for the largest possible audience.
Early on, about a year into my podcast, most of my guest invitations were being rejected since I was still pretty unknown. I felt insecure about finding people to talk to and invite onto the podcast. Around this time, someone asked about my podcast and mentioned she’d glanced at my episodes and noticed only about 30% of my guests were women. She questioned whether I was committed to gender equality. This comment didn’t bother me because I opposed gender equality. It bothered me because after I asked, she said she hadn’t listened to a single episode or knew what the podcast was about. She was more interested in judging me against a podcast run by a massive organization with funding.
While my podcast could theoretically sit side by side with NPR’s podcasts, they are not the same. I was doing something on my own, on my terms, and people could take it or leave it. This is the beauty of the internet. If people don’t like my podcast or want more interviews with women, they can simply download one of the thousands of other alternatives.
The revealed preference of humanity is that 95% of people aren’t interested in what I have to say. And this is a fantastic thing.
Understanding that I am not writing for the mass market has made almost everything I do easier. It helped me ignore interest from a traditional publisher for my book and has made it easy to remain independent with my writing. But after the podcast comment, I was a bit anxious about sharing my stuff for a few months. Eventually, while writing “I’m Not Writing for You,” I realized that I needed to be clear about who I’m trying to reach.
While others may think I’m trying to push a totalizing ideology, I can assure you I’m not. If I were, I’d probably do a better job of promoting things like my community, which grows at quite a humble,e slow pace.
It doesn’t matter. Because I’m writing for the weirdos. I’m writing for the thoughtful, contemplative people who are thinking deeply and looking for more information to continue remixing their lives.
Remembering this at every phase of my journey has made all the difference.
