Hiding in Plain Sight

On losing readers, hiding in tractors, and why nobody calls the hotline

You know that little pit you get in your belly when the elevator starts going down?

When you jump a gravel road and nose-dive so hard you end up with gravel in your teeth.

That subtle shift from going up to going down.

That’s what it feels like when readers unsubscribe.

So I try to wait a day or two before opening the Substack app after I publish, because I know what’s coming.

Usually, it’s only two or three, and I claw my way back to even.

But those real emotional pieces, the open ones like “Terry” or“The Shackleton Harvest”?

Lost half a Greyhound bus after each of those. Like the back half couldn’t stand the crying coming from row 14.

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Dan Leffelman says I have a whoopee cushion personality.

Inflate, pop, laugh about it later.

Except I don’t laugh right away. First comes the waiting. The checking. Refreshing the app one more time to see if anyone else bailed. The math in my head about how many pieces it’ll take to limp back to even.

Then the mind takes the wheel.

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Idiot.

Why’d you publish that?

Nobody gives a shit that harvest was hard for you.

Why can’t you shut up and keep your head down and do your work like the rest of us?

Go back to the chisel plow.

Make yourself useful … but stay small.

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Then, Angie from the University of Minnesota emails. Two hours after deflation.

Asks if I want help lining up some trial grants for next year.

I stare at the phone. Read it twice. Set it down.

Wait, what?

Here I just bled insanity onto the page about a deranged donut guy at the beet piler, and somebody says that’s the guy I want to work with.

Proof that shame is a liar.

Except I don’t respond.

Not that day. Not the next day either.

And it’s not because I’m busy. I’ve got my phone. I answer texts. Check yield maps. Coordinate with John about which field we’re hitting next.

I’m carrying a backpack with every piece of technology short of a desktop computer. Hell, I could run the entire operation from a tractor seat if I wanted to.

But not that email.

Because my brain is running a different program.

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She feels sorry for you.

This is pity.

You’re not actually qualified for grant work.

You just write emotional shit on the internet.

She’s trying to be nice to the guy who had a public meltdown about harvest.

Don’t embarrass yourself by pretending this is real.

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So I hide. Climb in the tractor for a 12-hour shift and tell myself I’m being productive. Except it’s not my farm. I just work for the guy. But I take it on like it’s mine and use it as an excuse to avoid the things that actually scare me.

Two days later, I finally replied.

I don’t remember what broke. Maybe I just got tired of the voice. Maybe I figured embarrassing myself was better than wondering what could’ve happened.

Either way, I hit send and immediately regretted it. Waited for the response that would confirm I’d misread the whole thing. That she was just being polite.

Except this isn’t about Angie’s email.

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This is what I do. With everything.

I’ve got YouTube videos sitting in drafts. Some from months ago. Good technical content about nitrogen trials and Source applications. But I don’t publish them because what if nobody watches?

What if they do and decide I don’t know what I’m talking about?

I launched a second newsletter a couple months ago—True Grit Field Notes—for the technical farm content. Just data and recommendations and soil science. None of the meltdowns or therapy sessions.

And yet, I haven’t told most of you it exists.

I’d rather let people stumble on it like a rogue fart cloud in aisle nine at the grocery store than actually promote the thing.

Because promoting it means being seen. Means risking the moment someone says, “Who does this guy think he is?”

So I write the emails. Draft the videos. Build the content. Then let it rot in a folder somewhere while I convince myself I’m too busy in the field to hit publish.

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This is what shame does. It convinces you that being different is dangerous, so you make yourself smaller. You find ways to stay busy that keep you from being seen.

Then you wonder why you’re lonely.

Why your business has stalled.

Why you’re stuck.

The ag industry’s got hotlines and LinkedIn coaches selling wellness. “My DMs are always open 🙏.”

Cool. Did it stop the voices? Or just give you another thing to perform?

Nobody’s calling the hotline. You think guys who won’t change their farming practices without getting dragged into it are gonna sign up for therapy?

The problem isn’t that farmers don’t know help exists. It’s that asking feels like admitting you’re different.

And different feels like death.

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The cycle doesn’t break cleanly.

You don’t wake up one day, suddenly brave and unashamed. You just get better at recognizing when you’re in it. And you do the thing anyway.

You publish the piece that loses readers.

You send the email after two days of shame paralysis.

You tell people the newsletter exists even though it feels like admitting you think you actually matter.

You do it badly. You do it scared. You do it anyway.

Because that’s the only exposure therapy that works. Actually doing the thing that frightens you.

I’ve been writing openly and honestly for nearly three years in ag. You can step out, say what’s on your mind, and not die from it.

You can be honest about the hard parts and still be taken seriously when you talk about the data.

Both things can be true. The breakdown and the data. The shame and the doing it anyway.

Maybe ten years from now, we look back on high farmer suicide rates like they were a thing of the past. Not because of hotlines or coaches selling structure. But because some of us dared to stop hiding.

To say out loud: it’s hard out here, I’m struggling, I could use some help.

Being different won’t kill you.

Staying silent might.

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Filed from a tractor cab that isn’t mine, making passes I don’t need to make, still carrying my whole damn house in a backpack, still hiding sometimes, but also, still hitting publish.

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If you want the technical farm content without the therapy sessions, True Grit Field Notes exists. I’ve been too scared to tell you until now.

There’s your proof the cycle’s still running.