Three Metaphors for SubStack Notes
The Grand Bazaar, a Baby’s Spoon, and Skinner’s Pigeons
I made a promise to myself that The Inner Room would be about giving form to things we feel and experience that — for a myriad of reasons — go unnoticed, unspoken, or unarticulated.
It’s unpredictable subject matter. These kinds of experiences aren’t the sort of phenomena you can carefully plan out in advance. More often, you bump into them as you go about living your life.
This is my first week on Substack, and I’ve already bumped into something I feel an urge to articulate — even if only for myself —and perhaps to invite others in, so that I can make a bit more sense of it and feel less crazy in the process.
It’s about Substack Notes, and how I’ve experienced it over this first week. More precisely, it’s about the feelings, images, and metaphors that have emerged in me as I’ve tried to find my way through it.
I even Googled it — “I don’t get Substack Notes”, “how on earth do you use Substack Notes?” — and my search results suggest I’m not alone in my confusion. So I’ll press on.
Three metaphor‑like images have come to the foreground for me as I’ve navigated Notes this week. Each captures something about how it has felt to inhabit — particularly the uncertainty around intention, motive, and what sort of connection is being invited. I’ll use them to try to make sense of that experience.
(1) The Grand Bazaar
The first time I wandered Istanbul’s marketplaces, I was struck by what felt like a circus of sensory overload. Beyond the sounds, colurs, smells, and textures, what stayed with me most was how many people wanted others to notice — and buy into — what they had to offer.
As I wandered, I was beckoned, seduced, entertained, lectured, convinced, persuaded, hassled, and enticed. My friend Wayne and I were eventually ushered up to the top floor of a small carpet shop, given copious amounts of sweet apple tea, and shown rugs far beyond our budget.
When the owners realized we had nothing to spend, we were swiftly ushered out. It was our first taste of a feeling that would become familiar during our time in Istanbul:
Why do these people really want to connect with me? Why are they telling me this? Giving me this? Showing me kindness? Offering wisdom? Is it genuinely altruistic — or is there something they ultimately want? And if the latter, how do I feel about that? Do I like it?
I’ve found myself asking similar questions as I’ve wandered through Substack Notes over this past week.
(2) My Sister’s Baby
I watched my sister feeding her toddler, Otis, the other day and noticed a familiar rhythm — one I’ve seen play out many times with babies and small children.
At first, she simply offers the food, gently guiding the Peppa Pig spoon towards his mouth. When that doesn’t work, she escalates. Out come the plane noises and swooping arm movements. Then the cuddly toys, each taking a turn to taste the food themselves, reassuring him — in high‑pitched voices — that it’s really very good.
If all else fails, there are promises: if he eats, he can go and play; he’ll be a good boy; he’ll make Mum proud.
Watching her, it struck me how much feeding can resemble advertising — a careful calibration of strategies aimed at persuading someone to want what’s being offered.
As I scroll through Notes, I can’t help wondering: is this what I’m encountering here? People pulling out different techniques, contorting themselves into various shapes, trying to elicit interest, engagement, response? And if so, is that what I’m meant to be doing too?
(3) Skinner’s Pigeons
A particular experiment by B. F. Skinner has stayed with me over the years. A pigeon is placed in a cage with a disc it can peck to receive food. But the system is rigged: the reward appears only intermittently, with no predictable pattern.
Sometimes the pigeon pecks and receives grain. Other times, nothing happens. Confused, it paces, pecks again, waits. Suddenly —grain again. The pigeon begins to wonder what it did differently. It starts experimenting, developing increasingly elaborate rituals around the pecking: a step here, a shuffle there, then peck.
Unable to let go of the belief that the reward must be contingent on the right behavior, the pigeon keeps trying and more and more elaborate patterns of behavior are reinforced.
Humans are similarly wedded to idea of cause and effect.
As I’ve scrolled through Notes, I’ve wondered whether I’m witnessing something similar: people experimenting with quotes, questions, encouragements, advice, images — trying to discover the secret combination that leads to the jackpot of attention, connection, affirmation, numbers. I’ve caught myself wondering whether I should be doing the same.
So there it is. That’s how Notes has landed for me so far.
I’ve found it one of the most confusing online environments I’ve encountered — not because it’s chaotic in itself, but because I feel unsure about the deeper motives behind posts: whether there’s an unspoken game being played, a hidden performance beneath the surface.
At the same time, I’m fully aware that this discomfort may say as much about me as it does about Notes. I may be projecting, filling in blanks that don’t neatly exist.
I find myself wondering what your own experiences have been.