Postscript

And the only paywall I'll ever use

I’m not gonna lie, the past week has made me a bit anxious. Even if you’re not monetizing your following, you get attached to it — the amount of conversation and effort that went into writing interesting things is such that, if it just dissipated away instantly, I’d wonder if I did anything in the first place.

I’m going to elaborate on a few things because I got a lot on my plate what I plan on doing next, and I have a clearer idea now:

First, I’m going to sit down and edit the Malt Liquidity anthology. I have 243 posts, many of which deserve more than a quick email open and scroll in my opinion. I have some posts picked out that I know I’m including, along with some drafts that never quite got finished because I was too busy writing topically, but I’d love to get perspective on what you all would like to see, specifically:

Which post made you want to subscribe to Malt Liquidity?

I hope to have this done by end of the year.

Any updates on editing, the fiction I’m planning on writing, and other personal endeavors will come on the main site. The last “official” post is The Present is my Past.

Second, I’ll call it early from my 2025 predictions:

• The “internet of blogs” returns as the X algorithm becomes too sensitive to Elon

has definitely happened. X is unusable, as much as I’ve loved getting to know the site since its acquisition. There is too much anger and too strong a narrative to have authentic conversations on the public timeline anymore. If you try and engage with this constantly, it will fry your brain. Accordingly, I’ll be posting on Substack Notes about what I’m reading, writing, or thinking about. I’ll also push old posts that I think are relevant, as I probably have the best knowledge of what’s in my archive. I just won’t be writing posts on here anymore. We all need to read anything other than topical, attention-economy driven content at this point.

Third, I’d like to reply to all my messages, but I think it’s unhealthy at this point for me to rip out the ol’ “instantaneous reply with a stream of consciousness” reflex. That being said, I lurk all the time — I’m not out of touch or out of time — and the best ways to reach me is Substack Notes or Chat. I’ll try to ensure that I allow user threads in the chat as well, and I’ll get to whatever I can. I’ll also start a reading suggestions thread so we can source these things as a group. The internet is truly bereft of quality content at this point.

Thanks again for reading: I’ll make sure to update the Malt Vault soon.

And now, for the only paywall I’ll put on this site…