A Candid Discussion about this Substack's Future

A Room for Open Dialogue

I want to start of by saying that I hope you all are having a great Friday! I also want to show my appreciation for the dialogue my hypothesis post is providing. There’s a lot going on that requires some investigation, and I wanted to provide some of my opinions and gauge what people think. It’s quite obvious that not enough of this is happening within the COVID discourse as is.

For those who are newer to this Substack or may not have noticed my older posts, I wanted to provide some context as to why I started this Substack. I’ll just comment that many of the sentiments I post here have been made previously here.

Before all of this COVID madness I used to work as a lab technician. I stayed there for several years even with the pretty low pay (science tends not to pay well, especially when affiliated with a college or university) and overall was considered a very good employee.

Then, when COVID arrived we were put on paid leave. However, I was one of the “chosen” ones who still remained to work while several other coworkers were paid to stay at home. At the time it didn’t bother me; I’d much rather have fewer people at work for the sake of their safety. But then we were all told to return to work full time, and by the Summer of 2020 there were considerations that we would turn into a COVID lab. By Fall of 2020 that came to fruition, and I was part of the crew tasked with PCR COVID testing.

Then the vaccines began to emerge. At first, I was thinking of taking the vaccines and even thought about signing up for clinical trials. Then, by the Winter of 2021 information came about that the vaccine rollouts would be based on social justice and equity rather than science. What that meant was that I, a late 20s millennial would be offered a vaccine before my elderly parents and grandparents. As Dr. Jordan Peterson put it, I found it all to be, “morally reprehensible”.

So I decided not to take it. By Summer 2021 there were talks about coworkers putting their vaccine info online for a day off (anyone remember a vaccine so safe you had to take time off of work because they were just so safe?). It was then that I found out that it wasn’t an offer to get time off; it was part of my workplace’s vaccine mandate, which was going to take effect in August.

At that point I struggled to figure out what to do. Do I give in even though I found it all unethical, including mandating vaccination? Eventually I decided not to cave, and to keep it shorter I was put on unpaid leave, eventually leaving at the end of August and early September.

Considering I was in a state that was mandating all sorts of masking and vaccines, I really couldn’t find any way to be both unvaccinated and employed. Therefore, I decided to try my hand at Substack and stat writing about COVID from the perspective of a scientist.

I knew the first few months would be a struggle and meant that I would dip into my savings for quite a few months before things got started. Honestly, I’m quite surprised how much traction some of my posts have gotten, and I’ve been so grateful for all of the Subscribers, both paid and free, who thought that what I was writing was important.

And here’s where the candid part comes in. Even with all of the traction, and all of the engagement within the comments, I’ve come to the point where I’m battling with the viability of this Substack as a financial endeavor. That is to say, this Substack is not quite the profession transition that I was hoping for. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been a substitute for a job proper.

With everything opening up, and taking my current funds into consideration, I’m now battling with the idea of whether I may shift my efforts to finding another job.

It’s a really difficult decision. Even if things are opening back up I have to wonder if my vaccination status is an issue, even though I just had Omicron. Still, if COVID becomes a seasonal illness would I then have to think about my employment becoming seasonal if I decide not to get an annual COVID shot?

There’s a lot to try to sort out, and there’s a lot weighing on me.

But that’s the reason for my writing of this post; it’s to provide a candid discussion as to what may be going on in the near future, but also to provide something worth considering.

Hopefully, you all notice the time and efforts taken into researching these posts. Several of these posts take dozens of hours. Each one of the Fluvoxamine posts alone takes a few days of research and a few additional days to write. I have tried to treat this endeavor as close to a job as possible to try to show my dedication to this Substack, but also to show the importance of sourcing information and continuing to learn and grow as an individual.

Now, some may ask why I don’t put posts behind paywalls to help bump up paid subscriber counts. A few months ago I made a post stating that I would attempt to post at least 2 paid posts a month. Clearly, I have not lived up to that promise, of which I am sorry for my paid members.

The reason I haven’t posted as many paid-only posts is partially because many of these Anthology series keep getting away from me. However, it’s mostly that I find the information here far too important to hide behind a paywall, even at my financial expense. I should make a comment that I was deeply considering posting my hypothesis from yesterday behind a paywall, but I appreciate that many people are engaging with the post that would otherwise be unable to if it was paid only.

All this to say that I am nearing a crossroad with this Substack and want to make all of my readers fully aware.

I am never one who believes anyone is deserving of people’s hard earned money, but I would like to encourage those with the financial means, or those who would like to continue to see the same caliber of work be put into things besides COVID (PLEASE, I think we’re all tired of COVID anything at this point and I would love to write about other things that may not remind us of the past 2 years!!).

Because of the reception to my prior post on “what besides COVID” people would want to see (although there were still a lot of COVID questions), I’m taking into consideration how to carry that forward. Also, know that I am not disregarding the comments made in those posts. In fact, I may dedicate a large portion of next month to writing smaller posts addressing some of those topics to the best of my knowledge.

And for those who may not have the means, it doesn’t mean you don’t have to engage with the posts. Please like and share these posts if you think it is worth doing (I really don’t think Substack has some type of algorithm like YouTube, but I guess it may not hurt to do so). But more importantly, please provide feedback!

I encourage everyone who has questions or would like to provide critiques or feedback to please do so. I really would like to know if there is anything, such as shorter posts or less dense ones, that people would prefer so that I know to take it into account.

And please, I hope this does not come off as coercive or in bad faith. I want to be as candid and open as possible with this community. I want people to be aware that I will not leave people high and dry, and that if any drastic changes do occur I will make sure to alert you all well in advance of any possible changes. And just for additional reassurance, if I do reduce my activities on this Substack I’ll make sure to consider annual and founding members, and will likely continue to post Paid-only posts. But again, I’ll make sure to let you all know full well in advance.

Lastly, I will make a few additional changes that I will announce either tomorrow or Sunday, so please be on the lookout for those!

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And with that, please remain hopeful and optimistic for what is to come, whether things continue to look worse let’s try to remain hopeful, but above all continue to remain sensible and rationale!

Also, as an aside, I know Elden Ring just came out and I’m sure many of you are looking forward to it! I’ve decided to try my hand at it. I’ve never been one to consider myself a Dark Souls person, but I’m willing to give this a try and suffer through it. With that, I hope you all have a great weekend!