Stop Kicking the Tires

This Is the Line

If you’re here to read, read.
If you’re here to decide, decide.
If you’re here to buy, buy.
And if you’re here to linger without intention, move on.

That’s the line. Everything else branches from there.

There is a difference between evaluation and avoidance, and pretending they’re the same is how people excuse behavior they’d never tolerate from anyone else. Evaluation has an end. It moves toward a decision. Avoidance pretends the end never needs to arrive. It circles. It delays. It hides behind words like research and consideration while refusing to carry the weight of choice.

Looking something over to compare price and quality is normal. That’s how adults shop. That’s how responsibility works. You check whether the thing does what it claims. You see if the cost matches the value. You take a look at who’s behind it. Then you make a call and live with it. Buy or walk. Both are fine.

What’s happening now isn’t that.

What’s happening is endless circling. Re-reading. Clicking. Sampling. Revisiting. Not to choose—but to delay choosing. To feel informed without ever being accountable for a decision. To hover close enough to extract value while pretending neutrality is a virtue.

That’s not diligence.
That’s tire-kicking with a vocabulary upgrade.

If you’ve been “checking this out” for weeks or months, you’re not evaluating anymore. You’re hiding. From commitment. From consequence. From the simple act of saying yes or no and owning it. You’re outsourcing responsibility to time, hoping the need to decide will disappear if you just keep orbiting long enough.

It won’t.

There is no prize for being the most informed non-buyer.
There is no virtue in hovering.
There is no moral high ground in permanent consideration.

Either this is for you or it isn’t.

If it isn’t, that’s fine. Walk away clean. No drama. No speeches. No explanations required. Walking away is a decision, and decisions are respectable.

If it is, stop pretending you need one more pass. Stop telling yourself you’re being careful when what you’re really being is hesitant. Careful people still decide. Hesitant people just collect reasons not to.

This work does not exist to entertain curiosity without cost. It exists for people who can decide, act, and stand behind their choices—whether that choice is purchase or rejection. Rejection with integrity beats silent consumption every time.

So here’s the call, stated plainly, without padding or apology:

Stop looking without intent.
Stop sampling without direction.
Stop orbiting without deciding.

Choose. Or leave.

Both are respectable.

Lingering without purpose is not.

Like we used to say back in the day: either buy it, read it, commit to it—or shit and get off the pot. Crude, yes. Accurate, absolutely. It names something people have spent years trying to soften so they don’t have to confront it.

I don’t ponder here. I don’t sit around waiting for consensus. I write because I enjoy it, and because some things are worth passing on while they still mean something. I write because experience only matters if it’s actually shared, not teased out in fragments for people who refuse to engage.

Teasing is rude.

Taking without acknowledging is rude.
Hovering without deciding is rude.

If you want to interact, then interact. Ask a question. Argue. Push back. Disagree openly. Say yes or say no and own it. We can talk like adults. Conversation requires a spine, not just curiosity.

If you want to sit here soaking things up without ever committing to a thought, a position, or a decision—move on. There are endless places built exactly for that. They’re designed for passive consumption, for endless scrolling, for the illusion of participation without the burden of choice.

This isn’t one of them.

I’m not here to be an avenue for indecision. I’m not here to reassure people who refuse to act, or to provide cover for those who want the benefit of clarity without paying the cost of choosing.

Read. Decide. Buy. Walk away.

Those are the options.
They’ve always been the options.

Everything else is avoidance pretending to be sophistication.

micvicfaust@intelligent-people.org