Celebrating One Year In!

From Toothpaste Tube to Michelangelo

This marks the beginning of my second year on Substack. Thank you. Without readers, there would be no point in writing. It’s been deeply satisfying, and I’m grateful to have had you with me.

I had wanted a blog for years. I felt like a tube of toothpaste, cap still on, being squeezed. I was frustrated,  with what I was seeing in social media, even sometimes with conversation. I wanted a space to work out ideas with some care, and to say things that don’t fit into our cramped political boxes.

Enter Substack. Thanks to Lisa, who introduced me.

The Rhythm of Writing

Before that first post I had planned to have three finished column on hand, as backup.  Ha. I had no idea how many hours each colmn would require (nor how satisfying that time would be). Eventually I found a rhythm, posting on the first and the 16^th of each month.

I now post on the first and 16th of each month.

Another rhythm rules as well.

• Pleasure. At the beginning, the words flow out; “This one will write itself.” Then I check facts, lay out my reasoning . . .

• Discomfort.  The facts aren’t what I had assumed. My logic is not so tight.

• Relief. I corral the new ideas into coherence. “This will work.”

• Pleasure again. Refining language, polishing, molding and sculpting. I feel like Michelangelo. Part of the process includes checking with my useful set of academic contacts. (Thanks to all of you, too: Anita, Paul, Ann, Ruth, David, Ann . . . )

• Calm: The blog is posted, and peace descends.

Then a pleasurable uncertainty emerges:  How is the piece being received? Is it even being read?  

Readers and Responses

Substack gives writers a lot of statistics. Most of my posts, for instance, are opened more than 200 times – but not necessarily by 200 different people. And of course, “open” doesn’t mean read. I have no idea how many people read an entire post. Similarly, I have 120 subscribers, about half of whom open any given post. By Substack standards that’s paltry. By mine, it’s gratisfying. Most of my subscribers are people I know; that’s natural. But I’m glad when others join.

My last column, “Babies Needed,” got more response than any earlier post had. Maybe because the topic is new, and easy to misunderstand? Whatever the reason, I’m delighted with the comments. Some may appear in the follow up post (August 16). I  hope for more reader engagement, but am uncertain what form that should take.

Still Wondering . . . about What?

When I started, I had a list of 20 or 30 topics in mind, things I’d been thinking about for years. Sometimes decades. Thirty years ago a friend called her first trimester of pregnancy torture. (“I wouldn’t force this on anyone.”) That led, eventually, to “The Erasure of Pregnancy.” But new topics occur constantly. “Babies Needed,” was a response to something I read this June.

Unlike most Substack blogs, I have no niche. But the posts do cluster a bit.

I often try to fill out too-simple pictures, especially where dramatic evil puts the rest of a story in shadow. “Let’s Not Talk About It,” “On having Been Catholic,” “When Patients Are Suffering.”

I also push structural change in government. Some of the Founders’ original design has aged poorly. (I don’t write about partisan politics. It matters who’s elected, but whoever it is will be hamstrung by an antiquated system.) Let’s moot the Electoral College; get rid of gerrymandering, enlarge the number of parties, put term limits on Supreme Court Justices. There are lots of practical ideas out there.

I’m an analytic philosopher, and so I make distinctions and try to clarify arguments. In the abortion debate, for instance, we need to separate the issues: interpreting the Constitution is one thing, passing laws is another, and evaluating morality is still another.  Each involves different sorts of facts and reasoning.

Not a few posts have been written after frustrating conversations. See “I Talk with Political Skeptics” and “Taxed Enough Already?”

Starting my second year

My next post continues my last, “Babies Needed.” Then I’ll resurrect and update my very first post, about college admissions, now that racial preference has been forbidden. Then there’s lots to think through about aging (I’ve got notes for “Aging in Cyberland.”) And I’m conflicted by current research into happiness. Philosophers have thought that it can’t be gotten by chasing it. Maybe we’re wrong. 

Moving together toward clarity, or at least a higher level of confusion

Subscribers sometimes call the posts thought-provoking. Thank you; that’s my point. I write for readers like Ann Larabee, who is “as confused as every thinking person.” Perhaps we can move together to a little more clarity, or at least a higher level of confusion.

Again, heartfelt thanks for joining me.