Wednesday, April 25, 2001

mfinley.com "A stab at the truth!"

by Michael Finley

NOTE: I asked readers for suggestions, and got about 319 wonderful responses, arrayed midway down the right column of this web page. They were a delight to me, very thoughtful and (for the most part) very kind. Kind is good when dealing with me, so thanks, everybody, thanks very much. For those of you who are as interested in me as I am, I have compiled these suggestions both on the side panel of this page and on  an overflow page here.

This isn’t a regular column. Rather, a question I have wanted to ask the past two years, but was too anxious to actually ask.

What am I doing wrong?

On a superficial level: Why do so few people subscribe to my weekly letter? It's free. I don’t sell the mailing list, or use it for any commercial purpose. And it's low-maintenance -- no one ever needs to reply or do anything. And I try to make it fun, provocative, interesting, cool.

But it's a no-growth industry. I have invitations to subscribe on nearly every one of my 814 web pages. Nevertheless, my growth rate over five years time has been pitiful, going from 140 to 319.

I am grateful to the people who do subscribe, and that is the worst thing about asking this question -- it puts the very people who have been generous with their support on the spot. That's bad.

I don’t feel unread. Every day I get about 3,000 page-views (perhaps representing 1000 individual visitors) who stop and read something, and move on. They even read the poems, which I find astounding.

But what is it that prevents people from subscribing? I'll bet someone out there knows the answer that I am too blind to see.

Here are some thoughts you may be having, and my two cents worth on each, in advance:

• "You don’t advertise." No one knows you’re there. Not true! I send info about the site to search engines every couple months, and I include web info on all my columns in Computer User and elsewhere.
  
• "You should charge." I think if I charged, I would lose all but maybe a dozen of the 319 readers I currently have. People won't pay for online content.  Example: I have had a "tip jar" on all columns for the past two months. ("Don’t forget to tip your writer!") Total proceeds to date: seventy cents. It's not the money. I write the column mainly for fun. I just think it would be more fun if more people read it.
  
• "Write about things people care about." There is something to this. My most visited pages are about Alvin Toffler, Charles Manson, and anything relating to Napster. People also like a story I wrote years ago about the Tooth Fairy. The problem with that is, I could care less about Toffler, Manson, and Napster. (I hold the Tooth Fairy in as high esteem as any man.) But topic does matter. People truly dislike when I talk about politics. Even my friends fling spitballs at me then.  
  
• "Write better."  I was hoping we wouldn’t go there. I suppose this is the thing. Everyone describes my letters with the word quirky. I liked that for a time, since quirky has connotations I resonated with -- off the beaten track, original, playful. But then there's the killer denotation -- quirky means weird, which per ipso is never going to be popular. (And I'm stuck with it; once you go "eccentric," the circle won’t let you back in.)

Of course, you might ask, what kind of person asks questions, and then answers them before people can answer them? The same sort who then asks what else you might ask.

Guilty on all counts. But I'm still, really, interested in your thoughts. Honest!

Let's take this to another level.

What am I doing wrong?

On one level the question is ickily self-referential. I'm trying not to be that right now (as opposed to several paragraphs ago, when I was).

On another level it is one of the noblest questions because it invites us to be honest about ourselves. What are we doing that cancels out what we want? That's not just a good question, it's a spectacular question.

I read a book lately, which I am trying to apply to my situation. It has an unprepossessing title, Leadership and Self-Deception, by the Arbinger Institute (really a philosopher named Terry Warner). It's about how we indulge ourselves in self-justification, self-betrayal, and blaming even when (and especially when) we ourselves are in the wrong. In this world of internal intrigue, we aren't playing to win but to explain why we lose, and why it's someone else's (usually a loved one's) fault.

It's a profound concept, one I will be unable to do justice to in a few lines. But I do heartily recommend it as a means of appraising one's own bologna, and seeing how "thinking of yourself" all the time gets in the way of communicating better, thinking more honestly, and achieving better results.

It puts me in an awkward position, because much of my role as writer/poet is self-interested by nature. I write about my experiences. I bemoan, as here, my sorrows and comeuppances. I exaggerate. I lament. I mount the parapet. I stack the deck. Me, me, me! This is what writers do.

Even when I am doing straight journalism, about the Internet or management theory, I filter what I observe through this deftly manipulative brain.

It's hard to think clearly because the thing I think with is the arbiter of clarity. I.e., our brains can not be trusted to assess themselves. I.e., we never see ourselves as other see us.

Up above I cried out to know what I was doing wrong with marketing my column. A question more worth crying over is, Am I writing things that matter, that go to the heart of issues and feelings that people care about? Or am I just yakking to hear myself yak?

The writer's answer it that you never know. An "essay" means an "try" or a "stab" at the truth. Not every effort is successful. Sometimes the follow-through comes up short. Sometimes the initial effort is bogus. Sometimes it's all a goof, satire -- how does one be sincere then?

Sometimes I get carried away with words. I have been blessed/cursed by nature with powerful internal language-music, and often when I write I imagine I am offering up a wonderful perfumed gift, when all many readers see is a turd on a satin pillow.

Other times (maybe with politics?) I feel I telling the truth, but it is so barenaked with passion that people recoil from it. (As when I compared Al Gore in Florida to Jesus in Gethsemane.)

Terry Warner says that the only time we can have any confidence we are telling the truth is if we ask ourselves if we are. And even then, we better ask nice.

I suppose that's the question I am really asking. What am I doing wrong?

This time, I don’t know the answer.

mfinley.com 
_{COPYRIGHT (c) 2001
by MICHAEL FINLEY}

Comments on the site