❌ | On Public & Private Griefs
❌ | On Public & Private Griefs
An audio essay & update.
Welcome, especially to the new subscribers who have found this publication since the release of Substack Notes. More often than not, I release new episodes of my podcast, Exvangelical, each Thursday—though that hasn’t been possible of late. Thankfully, there’s a new episode in the feed today:
New interviews are recorded and being planned, but not ready to be published. Various other commitments in life have taken precedent. In lieu of an interview, I'm publishing an audio version of an essay I wrote here last fall, embedded below:
Here is an excerpt:
I've only been able to publish maybe one or two episodes in the last two months. I'll be honest, that does weigh on me.
I've tried to also be honest in the past, much of this show and its continued life has been a labor of love.
While I've had while I do receive support via Patreon and Substack and places like that, and I do run ads on these shows now, as I am creating revenue. I am still right now losing money, because my costs have increased as I've tried to increase the quality of the show.
All of these things have have contributed to this not being a profitable endeavor, but, remains a meaningful one—and that's why I continue to develop it. But there are these times when I have to take some time off.
Unfortunately, despite my efforts to stick to schedules, often things my personal life or things with my day job (I maintain a full-time job that sometimes requires more than 40 hours a week) come up, and that means that I can't be as quick to publish as I once was.
Right now I can't afford another producer. So that means I can’t offload things like editing. And so I do want to acknowledge that this feed is languishing a little bit. But I have some great interviews and things planned.
It's just a matter of of having the capacity to do the research, read the books. Interview the authors. Edit the podcast. Publish it.
That's just more difficult than I'd like it to be.
If you appreciate my work, you can support it via a free or paid subscription here. I donate 25% of net proceeds.
Thank you Blake for this episode. I think I relate to your struggle both about financially supporting your desire to share your thoughts and experiences and about asking for help. I have something of that same desire, but I'm fearful of being misunderstood so I don't post on Substack very often And even more, I don't want to ask for money because a lot of the people I want to reach have very little. The advice I get from others is to become more like other "successful" people or businesses, but I don't like that model. I have no real advice except to share what I've done. 1. Therapy, although they do seem to want to convince me to go the way of most "success". But I understand their perspective. 2. I read a lot about alternative economies so that I keep my own perspective that this doesn't have to be this way and could be easier on all us who don't want to play the same game. 3. I'm picking my friends and the kind of time I spend with them. And this is harder because I have to change my behavior of wanting to talk about the things that I want to write about. Tricky sentence, but my friends are true friends, even if they don't want to hear all of my thoughts. No monetary success from these actions, but I think I'm feeling less alone.