About

Every article you write is your About page. The labeled one was written before the writing began.

There’s a generous tradition on Substack. A writer with a large following opens a thread and extends a hand to those of us without one.

Share your work here, they say. Borrow my reach.

I watched how people answered the call. A link to the front page like a resume for a job you don’t know you’re applying for. An article they were proud of. Or, three quick sentences in the reply.

But the ones who shared their About page caught my eye.

One page, built to introduce you, sent ahead like a thoughtful handshake. So I went to grab mine.

I couldn’t remember what it said.

The first thing I saw was the header. Why subscribe?

Substack’s default placeholder. I had never changed it.

A placeholder.

And the first answer I had given to that question, the opening line of my entire publication, was that people who know me call me Yoda or Socrates.

Sit with that.

A stranger arrives, deciding whether to give you their attention, and your handshake is a comparison to Socrates and Yoda. One real. One fictional. Both, apparently, me. There is no humble delivery of that line.

The nickname is real. Friends have called me that for years, and I’ve taken it as a nod of recognition from people who have watched me for decades.

That’s exactly the problem. It’s a gift from long acquaintance. It doesn’t transfer.

Handing it to a stranger as an introduction is like walking into a job interview and leading with the nice things your mother says about you.

Chest-pounding is not on the playlist of a committed introvert.

The line wasn’t the real discovery. The date was. The date is also the explanation.

I wrote that About page before I wrote my first article. It was before I had published a word. I sat down and described who I was. The page was never a portrait. It was a prediction.

Then I ran it. A season of weekly essays, every one of them public.

And the writing did what writing does. It changed me.

The person who clicked back to that page is not the person who wrote it. The distance between them is months wide. Not years. Months.

My first instinct was discomfort, and not a new one. I’ve never been entirely comfortable with the nickname, even from the people who meant it.

Compliments for wisdom I’d borrowed from someone else have always landed sideways for me.

Reading that line on the page, aimed at a stranger I had no credibility with yet.

The discomfort went somewhere I couldn’t sit with. The claim wasn’t arrogant. It was premature.

I wrote it before I’d built anything.

Brian Johnson puts it this way: if you want to know how tall a building is going to be, look at how deep they’re digging the foundation. The original About page was a shallow pour. The months of writing since have been the digging.

My second instinct was better.

The page is out of date because the work worked.

So I rewrote it. That’s not the story either.

The story is the invitation. I never would have looked at that page on my own.

It took someone else’s generosity, a stranger holding a door open, to send me back to my own front entrance to read what was posted there.

Those invitations are everywhere. The resume you haven’t updated. The way you answer when someone at a dinner table says, So, tell me about yourself.

Each one is a chance to feel how far you’ve come.

Do you really know who you are?

Sometimes, yes.

Other times, let me think about that. I’ll get back to you.

Those invitations can pass unanswered because constant self-review can be its own trap.

I’ve been in it. Examination turns into anxiety faster than you’d think.

But things age differently.

Does your page age like milk or like wine?

When you’re standing on a dimly lit stage, and the spotlight comes up, are you ready to step into it, or do you continue to lurk in the shadows?

I’m still deciding. The deciding happens every time I publish.

Lately I’ve been ending my days with a quieter version of the same question.

Did my words and actions today describe the person I’m trying to become?

I’m told there is no try.

Do or do not.