Happy First Substack-aversary

Reflect and celebrate...

A year ago today, I published my first essay on Substack. The decision to start took me some time. Would I have anything to say? Maybe I'd have a few decent ideas and then fizzle. Would anyone care? Who would subscribe, let alone read?

For several months, I tortured various family and friends with my vacillation. Yes, I'm going to do it! No -- I'm not, no one will care. Yes, damn it! I will do it. Uh -- maybe--- I have to think about it some more.

At one point, I discovered something on the Substack site that said you can publish things, but not send them out to anyone. Ah ha! I would draft some things just for myself, see how they look in final form, and then decide. In the meantime, all kinds of ideas were bubbling up, screaming to be put on paper.

So I decided that once I had ten reasonable drafts on different topics, I would be ready to go live. And the rest is history. In the past year, I published 45 essays (including this one), encompassing over 50,000 words.

The four essays most widely read (with links to each) are as follows:

Claiming My Citizenship (537 views) LINK

Mothers, Fathers, Parents (444 views) LINK

I'm Alive (430 views) LINK

Grace (430 views) LINK

I invite you to visit (or re-visit) them.

I currently have 208 subscribers, and I am grateful for each and every one of you! I know there are a bezillion other Substacks you could be reading, and I'm honored that you have chosen to spend some time with me.

Why do I write, and why do I keep at it? I wrote a full piece about that on January 27 of this year ("On Writing: How I Got Started and Why I Do It."), and it still rings true. Here's a LINK.

Sometimes, when standing back and looking at this body of work, I am struck by its various topics and intersecting themes. The researcher in me wants to launch a full-blown qualitative analysis to identify and elaborate on those themes. But I will spare us all that project.

However, a really clever way to represent text graphically is the word cloud. The input into the program that generates the cloud is simply a body of text. I copied and pasted the text from last year's essays into one continuous Word document, and then uploaded that to the word cloud generator. It generates a graphic in which the size and boldness of the words are directly proportional to their frequency of use. What you see in the graphic above (courtesy of wordclouds.com) gives you an idea of the concepts that have been running through my first year's essays.

The essay, "My Three Commitments" (Dec. 2, 2024), was my attempt to answer the question I was asking myself and others were asking me: What are you going to do with this next phase of your life, now that you have experienced the ultimate trifecta of life transitions: my wife Susan had recently passed away, I had (mostly) retired, and I had become painfully aware of my own mortality. I smiled to myself as I realized it was yet another round in the cycle of identity development -- something I had studied all my career as a developmental psychologist, but not usually with people of (ahem) more mature ages.

My three commitments are to singing, writing, and deepening relationships. The writing is primarily what I am doing here on Substack -- so the word cloud can help me see whether my writing is reflecting those commitments, or whether other things are creeping in, asking to be elaborated.

The biggest and boldest words relating to singing included music, choral, singing, together, health, grace, experience, and one. I've written in several places about the physical and mental health benefits of making music with others. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Out of many, one. And oh, the joy. I'm surprised not to see "joy" represented in the word cloud. Here is my recent ode to joy.

Writing was represented by its own set of big, bold words: story, book, substack, think, writing, reading , thoughts, and said. Substack has indeed become a wonderful platform for all kinds of writers and all kinds of writing. Although I'm sure there are trolls out and about, in my experience, it's nothing like other forms of social media. In general, I have found the community of Substack writers and readers to be very welcoming.

Which feeds directly into my third commitment: building relationships -- represented by big bold themes like family, community, living, love, we, many, grace, people, friend, and together. For anyone keeping track, I have not yet published that detailed piece about relationships, but it is simmering on the back burner and will make its appearance in due time.

In addition to illustrating my three commitments, the word cloud illustrates three other themes which give me some hope that I am navigating my current waters with some degree of success: engagement (shown through words such as experience, also, together, can, meaning, life); life as journey (time, life, experience, hope, times, today, years, remember, journey), within an overall spirit of positivity (good, hope, grace, just).

As with other forms of qualitative analysis, people can quibble about the interpretation of the pattern of results. But I found it satisfying to see this product and feel that, in large part, my writing is staying true to my commitments, experiences, and feelings. Several times in earlier essays, I have mentioned the importance of authenticity in my writing. Seeing shockingly authentic writing initially drew me to this platform -- it felt risky, but also very worthwhile.

I'm excited about what year 2 will hold. I have a bunch of essays in various states of preparation, and I look forward to bringing them to life on the page. Although most of last year's themes stuck pretty close to my commitments, maybe next year will be one in which I color outside the lines a bit. I am open to that. I'm finding that openness to life and new experience is a great gift.

These days, we don't have enough excuses to celebrate -- so I invite you to pause today -- whenever you read this -- to exhale and smile and know how appreciative I am of your being on this journey with me. I hope you consider me alongside you on your journey as well.

I hope you feel that my writing is relatable. I hope it is showing that people can bounce back from crisis and experience profound kinds of positive transformation. Interesting things can happen, even in one's later years -- development is a lifelong journey.

I love hearing your stories about topics my writing has opened up for you -- and any ways in which my stories have made your life a little easier or clearer. Feel free to leave a comment below, or if you'd rather write privately, send me an email to halsubstack@gmail.com

In closing, I wanted to mention two friends of mine who are just getting started on Substack, Yvette Perry and Leigh Closser. I hope you will give them a look and consider subscribing. Click on their names to go to their sites.

Until next time, cheers!