Hey, I’m new here.
I’ve been around a while though. I started blogging anonymously - on Blogger, about wine - in 2004, and then came out of the shadows to promote my own winery in 2006 using WordPress. Over a short period of time I turned into a social media gadfly with both work-related and personal accounts on Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter, Medium, Vimeo, Storify, Ello, and likely more I’ve forgotten. I kept it up for nearly two decades
And then I stopped.
There were a lot of reasons I stopped, but mostly I stopped because it stopped being fun. Sure there were specific reasons - business setbacks, brush with death, concerns about mental well-being - but what it boiled down to was that the world changed and I changed and being very online lost any charms it ever held for me.
I don’t really miss writing because I am writing - I’m working on a manuscript dealing with my personal experiences with cancer. Maybe someday that’s going to become a book, maybe not. Whether or not it does, I’ll probably write about it here because this substack represents my final effort to reclaim some of the ether for myself.
I’m not here to start a business or build a brand. I want to go back to the beginning, when I was writing mostly to memorialize things I was doing or interested in that I might otherwise forget, or forget the context of - an issue that only gets more acute with age. I’m going back to writing for an audience of one.
If others find something of interest here among my Harmless Pursuits and want to chat about it, I’m here for it. Let’s see how this goes.
Another thing we share; appreciation for the curmudgeon. I'm guilty of the same tendency at times, to forget the internal editor and express my true sentiments on a topic with, perhaps, minimal regard for how it lands with readers of all stripes. The 3rd party thought was almost flippant; it's true that nothing exists left of center even remotely as outrageous as whats happening in the former GOP. It's like that TV series "The Walking Dead". I do like to think about alternative ways that the world might be organized; it's a reality check on "do things necessarily have to be how they are?". I'm happily in the "nonaligned" category, but my sentiments lean left, sometimes severely. In Biden's case, I think simply being compassionate for the vast majority of the electorate is equated with a liberal, even progressive position, whereas it may actually be simply common sense. And, since trickle-down never did more than trickle at best, there's certainly no sense in continuing what doesn't work and expecting a different result. I listened to Biden speak over 40 years ago when he visited my Alma-Mater while I was an undergrad; I don't remember the specifics, but I was adequately impressed that I have paid attention to his career ever since. I take silent pleasure every time he outmaneuvers the opposition and comes up with a negotiated win. He really learned his craft well over all those years in the Senate.
your story and mine have a few similar elements. The current exchange notwithstanding, I'll follow along and see what you have to say.