Is Substack The Next Distracting Social Media?

albeit a pretty smart one

Distractions

Rider Waite Smit

Lately, as I’ve moved away from spending so much time on my personal Facebook and Instagram, for the same reasons I know a lot of folks are doing so, I’ve noticed my relationship with this very tool I’m typing into right now has changed. I’m not sure if it is the sheer volume of new writers on Substack, or if it is me, shifting my focus from one distraction to another, which albeit feels like a smarter one. I’m still not reading as many books as I want. I’m not studying tarot as intensely as I’d like. I’m not creating as much as I am ingesting.

I feel compelled to read new Substacks all the time but am also forcing a cull of my current subscriptions. I’m becoming incredibly picky about which subscriptions I pay for. As a recovering compulsive subscriber, I know how easily the amount of content I’m signed up for can get out of hand. I’m attempting control.

But isn’t this exactly one of the key reasons we are sick of social media? We spend more time than we’d like scrolling when we want to be doing other stuff. In this case we are reading, and in many cases reading engaging writing, and learning and getting to know new writers who also link to other on line content which takes us down a variety of rabbit holes.. But I do notice that I’m reading Substack more than I’m picking up real books. And I run bookstores for a living for God’s sake!

I’m wondering, is anyone else noticing they use Substack as a social media substitute?

Does anyone else feel like they use Substack to replace, numb, distract?

Maybe we all need our distractions and picking less harmful ones is better? I’m not sure. I enjoy a binge of Real Housewives and Survivor as much as anyone on occasion. But not every day. My Substack habit is every day for sure. Honestly more than once a day.

Another Potential Pitfall: Comparison

As a Substack writer myself, even though metrics aren’t published publicly like FB and IG, I do find myself in the comparing mode sometimes, when I don’t get great open rates or new subscribers on my posts. It has a little bit of a social media feel to me. Do you like me? Do you like what I have to say? There is an ugh factor, a pit in my stomach that I can’t shake off.

Like the Seven of Cups, sometimes we have so many choices, so many options, this or that, the next sparkly object, even if it is a “good” object, that the distractions take our eyes off the bigger picture. We can end up like the figure covered in a sheet in one of the cups. We can’t really see.

The irony about me writing about the distraction of Substack ON Substack is not lost on me.

Eclipse Season

We’re finishing up eclipse season on Saturday. I’m glad for that. I’ve had a lot of broken stuff this month. A broken refrigerator, punctured tire, dead battery. One of my kids justifiably got really mad at me (I am forgiven—he runs hot and cools fast like his mom). With all the broken stuff comes a sense of scarcity, a worry things will continue to fall apart. This is such Five of Pentacles energy, and I’m not a fan.

Rider Waite Smith

The Five of Pentacles (and all the fives in the tarot), come with a message which cannot be ignored. The challenge to the reader is to not get caught up in what is missing, what’s not working. It can be easy to feel like the figures on the cards, tired, broken, poor, even hopeless. But there is usually a glimmering light from something like the stained glass window to appreciate, if we can make ourselves look up.

Offerings

I’ll be heading to Guatemala soon, for a friend’s 70th birthday party. She’s known since I was in my mum’s tummy. A very long time.

I’ll have some limited readings available. Feel free to sign up on the web site or send me an e mail.

My dear friend Laurie Blackwell and I will be offering a workshop on choosing your card of the year for 2024. This will be coming in December. Details to come.

xo Hanna