Thinking about Substack
....and general musings as I harrow my mind....
We sit down and run our fingers over the keyboard. We share our thoughts harrowed from the cerebral cortex and read each other with a kind of hunger and excitement. Substack reminds me of the promise of the early days of the Internet when anyone could say anything about anything to anyone anywhere. I was there in what seems like another lifetime, a youngish graduate student at the University of Pittsburgh, teaching German to undergrads to earn my keep and studying Emblematica with Dr. Klaus Conermann and Weimar Cinema with Dr. Sabina Hake. The first thing was email and I was astonished at how I could write to someone without having to mail it. Soon I could talk to someone on the other-side of the globe without incurring tremendous debts from long-distance calling. The world was transformed.
Now we are again being presented with a suite of tools that allows us to write long-form, short form, and little notes as well as video engagement. Today, I made my first foray into an interview format. I’m looking forward to doing still more in this vein and have invited people to contact me if they have an interest in being a guest on my podcast or, potentially, being a guest on others. Now, this begs the question, why would anyone want to interview me? I’m not sure I am qualified to answer the question. However, in conversation between individuals, things emerge that might not be predicted. These connections between individuals is where meaning is created - in relationship. I’m reminded of both Goethe who wrote a novel called “Elective Affinities” (in German: Die Wahlverwandschaften) and a statement made by Carl Jung which translates roughly into “When two people meet, if anything happens at all, both are transformed.” Essentially, what we are doing is alchemy in other words. We come together and are transformed through our relationships with each other. We become something together that is greater than the sum of the parts.
Our brave new platform - now about 7 or 8 years old - if I understood the Wikipedia article on Substack correctly, gives us all an opportunity. I’d recommend that we all find all the kindness and empathy we can as we communicate. It is unfortunate that there is a trend toward cruelty and reaction as opposed to deliberative, considerate listening to one another.
For now, this is probably enough commentary. There is much more that could be said, but I have always been a great believer that the fewer words used to convey an idea, the better. I’d love to hear your comments and thank you all for your subscriptions. Remember, that restacking is helpful and any amplification of the signal through the noise of cyberspace is much appreciated.