Summer 2023 (well, it’s nearly here) began busy.
Which is good.
But that’s meant less writing here on Substack.
Two things have been happening: 1) writing for pay, and 2) writing to get something off my chest. I’ll include both here, since they’re not normal features, they’re bugs.
And bugs can be fixed by, well, debugging them. To a writer, that means more writing. Then editing. Then more writing.
I did it then, I do it now. Ain’t gonna stop.
And I’m always learning, which is the coolest part. (It should be yours, too.) For example, I was fishing for freelance work to add to the dismal full-time pay I’m making and landed it in April. The work started in late May and concludes the end of June.
Here’s the first lesson:
I was terrified I wouldn’t be able to perform the work. It wasn’t a matter of skill, it’s just that I was so rusty. What fixed that right away was finding my own workflow (it helps to have direction from the people who are paying you BTW, which wonderfully I did). I’ve been writing profiles for an East Coast business magazine and must admit: Writing for pay is great in that writing anything engenders more writing (for pay, for one’s own enjoyment, whatever) … and that’s a great, great thing. I’m halfway through the project now, which means another $1,300 in my pocket by early July.
Second June lesson: You’re invited to write an op-ed. You think you have an opinion. You must write this and not worry about its reception.
Let me repeat that: YOU MUST WRITE THIS.
It began when the Minneapolis Star Tribune asked its readers for essays on “Where does Minnesota go from here?” My contribution, submitted last Friday, is included here (as yet unpublished):
MINNESOTA, A STATE I’ve called home for over 50 years now, is asking its citizens (albeit through the Strib): “Where does it go from here?”—here being post-pandemic, post-George Floyd murder, post-historic legislative session, post-everything it seems. It’s a heavy question but one I feel compelled to answer.
A recent New York Times essay (“For People to Really Know Us, We Must Show Up,” May 31, 2023) by author Brad Stulberg (The Practice of Groundedness, Portfolio/Penguin, Sept. 2021) pointed toward a possible piece of Minnesota’s new direction puzzle. “We are stronger and more robust,” Stulberg writes, “when enmeshed with others in community.” For community to grow, he argues, we must show up for each other—consistently.
Minnesota, I would counter, has a “community-building problem.” And it is generally—consistently—AWOL when it comes to showing up to fix that. Consistency implies commitment and commitment reeks of obligation—but, as Stulberg writes, “over time, what starts out as obligation becomes less about something we have to do and more about something we want to do, something that we can’t imagine living without.” He hits the point home: “The spiritual teacher Ram Dass once wrote that ‘we’re all just walking each other home.’ But that’s only true if we don’t constantly cancel our walking plans.”
Now I realize an idea like this might offend most Minnesotans, but I would contend that’s a knee-jerk reaction when you’ve been enmeshed in your own family, neighborhood, old friends and old ways of living for a long time. And it’s something I’ve struggled with myself. To fundamentally move forward, Minnesotans will have to confront new challenges, new ideas, new cultures, and new ways of living. And doing that will ask Minnesota to think deeply about its apparently hard-wired Upper Midwestern DNA—its “go-it-alone” psychology, culture, communication habits, and intentions toward lasting change.
Given its history, this won’t be an easy shift.
You see, our family moved to Minnesota in the early 1970s. In sixth grade, I got excited about a contest for a student writing team to describe “What will the year 2001 look like?” I paired up with a cowriter and we felt like we might win the competition. That was my first experience with Minnesota flakiness—an initial “can-do” attitude that only ends in an AWOL non-commitment. I’ve asked other Minnesotans what’s behind that behavior and usually get shrugs or half-hearted responses. That “go-it-alone,” Scandinavian sort of stoicism is anathema to welcoming anything new or building a supportive community. Minnesotans generally play their cards close to their chests—again, behavior that isn’t exactly warm or welcoming. The passage of time has only made this worse, with the Internet and social media, downturns in religious worship attendance and reluctance to communicate via phone, and lastly political fragmentation and all the aforementioned post-everything. It’s like a hole everyone keeps digging to their own and everyone else’s detriment.
So what is the way out, the way forward?
I reached out to Brad Stulberg for his take on this “community-building problem” to see if he had any practicable suggestions toward turning it around.
“You’ve got to put yourself out there,” he said in an email. “Not every interaction is going to go well. Not every new acquaintance is going to become a friend. But that’s just the cost of building community. We’ve gotten so used to our uber efficient and optimized ways of living that the time and work it takes to build meaningful relationships has gotten a bit crowded out. We need to reclaim that effort. Our personal, relational, and collective sense of meaning lies in the balance. We know from multiple large studies that one of the biggest predictors of our health, life satisfaction, and even longevity is our sense of community. And we all have a part in creating it.”
So, what do you say, Minnesota. Ready to give it a try?
What I enjoyed about this exercise was finding a balance between my longtime attitude about my state and what’s contributing to the seeming epidemic of isolation and loneliness—the long-term patterns (general culture) and 21st century add-ons (technology, changes in society, politics, economics) that are contributing to it.
What do you think?
How is your corner of the world just now?
Nice essay Michael. I am a newish lurker. I grew up in NY and have lived on both coasts as well as inland in a few places. I settled for good in MN in 1995 after a previous stint. My experience has been different. For me, there will always be a difference between what I might want and what exists. I am retired and have an enormous number of interests that connect me "with the natives". I like it here immensely. The gap between what I wish for and what it is like is not that large IMO. It is far from perfect but that's how it works.
This squares with my experience of Minnesota. Most of the people I made friends with during the 5 years we lived there were also transplants. Not all, but most. It seemed like most natives preferred to spend time with the folks the made friends with in K-12.
That said, now I live in Iowa, where the group of friends I spend the most time with is half people I befriended in high school, so perhaps I'm not one to talk.
The exceptions are the places I volunteer, including my neighborhood association. They're good ways to meet like-minded folks who I enjoy spending time with. So that might be my one prescription for the loneliness epidemic: get your neighborhood association active, and find ways to volunteer.