Now that I have had my Theater Ideas Substack restored to my possession (after I had stopped writing on it), I’ll probably end up on Substack a bit more (although I want to avoid getting sucked into that vortex). After having been an active member of the Theatre Blogging Wars of the Aughts, I’ve decided that I need to have some Personal Rules of Engagement as I ease back into the feed. Here they are:

Rules of Engagement

There are only 5 ways to respond:

1. Yes
2. Yes, and…
3. Yes, but…
4. Maybe
5. No

Responses #1 (Yes) and #5 (No) should be rare, because they add little to the conversation. The exception is if someone is a newby and could use the support of a “Yes” as encouragement. If the response is going to be “No,” just move along.

Response #4 (Maybe) should also be rare – if I am not certain, I should just bookmark the post or note and return once I have something worth adding. If that day never comes, oh well…

Response #3 (Yes, but…) should wait until there are a few positive responses from other people. “Yes, but…” tends to make it about me instead of the author of the post. Let the post be about the author at least for a while, then add my “but” in a way that doesn’t make the author look stupid.

Response #4 (Yes, and…) should be my most common response. I need to signal my “Yes” with enthusiasm, preferably with at least one reason, and then build on what has been written.

If I can follow these rules of engagement, maybe I’ll find the internet more interesting and enjoyable.

“To assess political parties according to the criteria of truth, justice and the public interest, let us first identify their essential characteristics. There are three of these: 1. A political party is a machine to generate collective passions. 2. A political party is an organisation designed to exert collective pressure upon the minds of all its individual members. 3. The first objective and also the ultimate goal of any political party is its own growth, without limit. Because of these three characteristics, every party is totalitarian – potentially, and by aspiration.” – Simone Weil, On the Abolition of All Political Parties

Every once in a while, I find myself reading intelligent Substack note after intelligent Substack note, and I think “Why am I avoiding this platform?” Then I subscribe to a few people and suddenly my inbox is overrun with every intellectual twitch a writer has, and I immediately unsubscribe each and every one, panting and sweating by the end as if I’d just averted the apocalypse.

“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater."

J. R. R. Tolkien, “The Fellowship of the Ring”