I Don’t Miss Substack At All

Sometimes when you take the right steps other cogs whir into action and create forward movement. My recent exercise in paring back and returning to, what I call, the tiny web, has led to a series of interactions. 

Anton who created Alto.so, public.me, Recuremail (which drives this newsletter) and, latterly, Patronat, emailed me. He said he loved my public.me profile. He featured my Patronat page on his product account. 

Derek Sivers, who created Now, emailed.

Herman, who developed bear.blog emailed.

I’ve also corresponded with Vincent of Scribbles. 

I love these personal interactions. I love supporting real people behind apps or websites. This is the online version of shopping local or buying from your corner shop or independent retailer. They spur me on to write more. 

Stevie Mackenzie-Smith has been writing about compost and living material. A couple of weeks ago I spoke, as the Blind Woodturner’s Wife, at a women’s group. I did a Show and Tell, pulling out all sorts of ephemera including the ribbon that Oliver Tobias wore in the Pirates of Penzance, a boxing glove signed by Chris Eubank, and a folder of 120 responses from celebrities for a charity book I collated. 

Looking back, I realised I’d lived some amazing experiences, sometimes dismissed at the time as nothing special and of no interest to anyone else. But, in hindsight, amazing. These recollections tell me something of the person I was - someone who conceived an idea and went for it.

It's all simple stuff. Much of the memories are small moments. Blink and you might miss them. I feel inspired by Stevie Mackenzie-Smith's idea of a Chaotic Document, a one-stop shop for all these random, eclectic remembrances. It's kind of how I work. I'm gathering together all the ephemera I uncovered for my talk.

I love these small tools and existing in some quiet corner of the internet. Harking back (as Stevie calls it) to the weird internet of the 1990s and 2000s. I was there. I loved the internet back then. I miss those quirky, eccentric times but I don't miss Substack at all. 

I'm writing more. I'm thinking about what I'm going to write when I'm not writing. I'm capturing ideas, notes, thoughts. I'm swimming in a puddle rather than a pond. Hardly anyone is looking. I no longer have to perform. It's liberating.