Hello all,
I just wanted to give a quick update on the status of this Substack. As many of you have noticed, I have taken down all of my posts. There were a few reasons for this.
I had taken a step back to reexamine my relationship with Substack. When I initially joined, Substack had a very cozy, niche feel to it. It felt like a room of intellectuals discussing and debating issues while smoking pipes. I loved the depth of the content I found there and felt that it would be a way to learn about and discuss topics that are close to my heart.
Then came Notes. Then came the mainstreaming of Substack.
Substack went from an intellectual salon of ideas to just another site filled with cheap slop and rage bait. I initially told myself that I would curate my feed and use the site as I originally intended. However, I underestimated the the power of the Substack Succubus.
I became one of the people I despised. Doom scrolling and arguing with random people about issues I don’t even care about.
I also had a few near doxxes. While most of what I say on the internet are things that I would have no problem saying IRL, I did let my guard down and said things that probably better left unsaid. I truly believe that you can change far more hearts and minds by living a life well lived then by arguing dialectally on the internet and my Substack usage was not reflecting that.
Finally, I was going through and am still going through a paradigm shift in perspective. I found that I no longer resonated with many of the opinions that I expressed in the past. For this reason I took down my posts and took a hiatus from Substack .
However, I am now returning to Substack.
This account will be shut down in 5 days and I am going to be port all of my followers to my new account. Feel free to unsubscribe from it if you wish.
My approach to this new account will be a bit different and will be more longer essays and less cultural commentary.
I will be paywalling certain posts.
I really appreciated the many intellectual contributions of all of you and hope you will join this new chapter.
Yosef.
I am very excited to be part of your new journey. I especially can't wait to hear how I single handedly caused you to completely rethink your life 🤣
You once shared a post—a few months back, if I recall—that made the point that motivations matter. That point and explanation were very enlightening to me. I remember the point often. This is all to say that you do affect and teach people, but you may not know when it’s happening. And also: thank you.