Recently, I celebrated a birthday. A longtime friend emailed me birthday greetings, ending with “Hope the day and the year are an experience of ever-growing emergence into the fullness of who you really are.” (very nicely expressed, I thought!) He then proceeded to ask me about Substack. He wasn’t familiar with it….”Is it the same as a blog? I’m trying to simplify my life and don’t want to struggle with a lot of emails.” I realized that he seemed to be one of many who lacked familiarity with this platform and wondered if it could be of value to them.

Substack defines itself as a media platform where writers and creators can publish their work and make money from paid subscriptions while those supporters can directly sustain the work they deeply value. Unpaid subscriptions are also an easy option but not all of the content will be available to them….some will be behind a “paywall” which is available only for paid subscribers to access.

Here’s how I explained my use of it to him.

“I used to write short articles in the "Blog" section on my website but when my website was redone last year, someone recommended that I open a Substack account and transfer all the old articles from there onto the new Substack. I guess blogs are still done, but the downside is that they don't get viewed that often because a potential reader has to specifically log onto that website which is usually connected to only one person. With Substack, there is a wide variety of people writing on a wide variety of topics. I, for example, subscribe to about 10 different people who write on a variety of topics that I'm interested in - natural health, homesteading and sustainable farming, energy and spirituality, and beautifully written articles on nature. Any new posts from them automatically come into my email inbox. I take a look and decide whether I want to read the whole thing or not. Occasionally I delete my subscription because I'm not really reading it very often.....but then I find someone new who might be recommended by one of my favorites and then I subscribe to them. Great way to hone in on what really interests me and expand my knowledge and even belief system, at times. I don't agree with everything that my chosen authors write, but I am learning and growing on a regular basis through these articles. The way that I usually decide on who to follow is 1) I respect their general integrity and honesty and 2) they appear to have more knowledge in a specific area than I.

I empathize with your desire to keep your life simple, but I achieve a lot of life satisfaction through the feeling that I am spending my time focusing on what is of most importance to me and learning and growing.

My main purpose in writing is for me to express myself (‘speak my truth’) and provide content that can be helpful to others - in my case, specifically those who want to improve their general health and well being and are willing to assume more self responsibility in doing so.”

An interesting observation - what I'm doing on Substack seems to be reflective of his birthday wish to me: "….an experience of ever-growing emergence into the fullness of who you really are". I hope that it can also serve to help others have the same experience by taking charge of improving the quality of their lives.