Okay, this needs saying…
Remember that not everyone is a go-to-protests or yell-from-rooftops person, and that’s 100% okay.
I’m certainly not. I’m a Storyteller, Experimenter, and Builder (not always in that order), and at times, a Guide.
Lately I’ve been posting on Facebook about paid newsletters and platforms, and I suspect folks think I’m ignoring the big issues, but I assured them just now that what I’m highlighting (and what I do) is how word gets spread ABOUT the issue.
And I realized I should fill you in on that, too.
Since Friday, I’ve been even more determined that we know the ins and outs of these “free” paid email newsletter platforms (Substack, Patreon, Revue, etc.), so we can make wise strategic decisions about where to use our voice and collect an audience of like-minded folks.
It’s essential that we can leave a platform with all our work and our people, because we may find the platforms’ views don’t align with ours, or they may shut us down to shut us up.
Whatever platform we choose needs to be affordable, scalable, and self-sustaining — and with data redundancy in case the site gets hacked. And depending on what we’re talking about and who’s listening, that’s not unlikely.
Or we can roll our own platform (as I’m doing-while-cussing) with hot-swappable parts, so we can lose any part of it without losing all of it … so we have as much control and flexibility over the platform as we’re willing to bear.
Like the nursery rhyme says: We must be nimble; we must be quick.
And we must be our selves.
What a relief it was to learn (likely from Patrice Dunckley) that I don’t have to become or behave like some other person to defend our rights and support a movement.
I can contribute as myself, just as I am, with what I know now and what I do best. Which is a good thing, because pretending to be someone else uses energy I can’t spare, not when the race has no finish line…
Not when the line is one we hold against opposition instead of a line we cross to victory — this is not a battle that can be won, it’s a battle that will forever and always need to be fought, on offense or defense, as required.
It’s a delusion to think otherwise.
And with that, I hate to be abrupt, but I don’t have the time or patience needed to soften my words. I’mma say this to you exactly as I said it to myself a bit ago, when my grief started slippery-slope-slidin’ into self-pity, and as I repeated it to my Facebook Friends a bit ago, where the venting started to smell like whining —
>> Stop pouting, pick your place in this shitstorm, and do your fucking part.
…and if it helps, up top is the diagram I fetched to remind myself of who I am and what I’m here to do, along with how I can be of service wherever needed, to whatever degree I can manage, for however long this goes on.
I love my folks on Facebook. I love you, too.
Now get to work.
image credit: Deepa Iyer