All Apologies

What else could I say?

Begging your forgiveness, dear reader, for the lack of updates the last few months.

2026 has been unkind to many, myself included, and I am in bad shape. There were times years ago when I thought I could help fix some of the world’s problems, or at least make it a better place in some small measure. Now it’s clear the world has little use for me after chewing me up and spitting me out. A quiet life keeping to myself seems like the best way to play out the rest of my days, if such a thing is even viable anymore.

After being laid off a month into the year, I waded into the barren job market. Lots of wasted time, automated rejections, rounds of interviews for part-time positions I didn’t want and wouldn’t have paid my bills anyway, and still eventually getting turned down. It’s as bad as they say. Without connections, one is vying for crumbs, and my social circle is hardly robust these days.

I had to do so much DoorDash over the span of three months that I hit Platinum status as a delivery driver. That’s right: the loser elite! An S-tier serf! I’m now at over 3,400 deliveries since the start of 2023, which is depressing to think about. I also made the mistake of visiting the DoorDash subreddit, which is full of entitled piggies who openly hate and disdain all the delivery drivers, yet cannot stop ordering.

I did eventually find actual employment. It’s not a glamorous position, nor is it a pathway to riches, or even affluence. It’s what you might call honest work. Let’s put it this way: I’ve done worse. The downside is it requires paying dues before it becomes a decent job so I’m still in a rough place for the time being. I hesitate to say what the work is because, as I saw about six months ago, there are still those who seek to ruin anything positive I might have, no matter how lowly it is in the grand scheme.

For what it’s worth, I’ve likely put out more personal info than I should have in the course of my online writing career, and most of that has only been used against me.

This new work is pretty stressful and doesn’t afford much downtime. It’s not a desk job, so there’s no excuse for me to be online. Considering my last whatever job could be fairly chill at times, I guess that’s a rough transition, but I welcome the opportunity to focus on something other than what I’ve been through and the various axes I have to grind.

For the time being, I’ve hit a dead end with this project. There are certainly more angry rants I could compose, or culture war screeds with well-worn points I could beat further into the ground. I don’t think that’s a great use of my time, nor yours either. The assholes won. Maybe forever, maybe not, but resoundingly enough for now that it doesn’t make sense to keep ramming my head into the wall.

For the first five or so years I was combating this, I think I held myself together fairly well. Something happened around 2023 that sent over the edge. Maybe it was being attacked for speaking up about what happened to me in media, maybe it was getting rug-pulled by jobs in other sectors that promised a path forward only to renege after I jumped through all their hoops, maybe it was the fact that I was racistly bullied at several consecutive shit jobs. However exactly I got here, I know I’m not well but I can’t count on anyone else to lift me out of it.

This isn’t to say I regret confronting this false allegation publicly. I haven’t covered myself in glory every step of the way, though had I stayed silent, that would have been true victimhood, rolling over and acquiescing to obvious injustice. Those responsible would never even have been named publicly. Instead, I fought back.

That I did not make those who wronged me pay, it’s a severe disappointment, but if you look at what I was up against, and what little institutional support I had, I think I did alright. Hell, the people who destroyed me wouldn’t still be monitoring me and targeting me if I didn’t get under their skin.

Ultimately, it’s the damned numbers game. That kind of thing has never been in my favor. I’ve always been a bit of a loner. I’ve had my smattering of friends but never truly a circle. That manifests poorly in the current job market where connections mean everything, even more so than before. It also meant no one felt compelled to stick their neck out for me at the most critical time, since tight-knit social dynamics and career pressures did not compel them to do so.

Now I’m at the point where I’m teetering on the edge. If I don’t get on a path that leads to some semblance of a decent life, things will be over for me soon in a way I will likely never recover from.

As much as I appreciate the kindness from those who have shown it, this is my way of saying I’m not sure when I can regularly write here in the foreseeable future. If that means you no longer wish to financially contribute, I more than understand. It’s tough for lots of people these days. Plus, I haven’t been keeping up my end of the bargain.

I’m sorry I let you down. I don’t really have my finger on the pulse of culture to riff on anything these days. Judging by what I do pay attention to, what happened to me has largely been memory holed. I realize there’s a lot going on in the world, much of it alarming, so I certainly don’t expect people to talk about this 24/7, but even when related controversies spring up, where discussing this would absolutely be relevant, it doesn’t seem to get any traction. There are powerful interests that don’t want it to be discussed, sure, but they don’t control everything. On some level, a lot of people have decided they’re fine with this. I’m not sure why. One-on-one, individuals will admit what happened was horrifying and unacceptable. But try to get them to complain about it publicly, they won’t and possibly never will.

I’ll leave the Substack up. Might as well maintain some record of what has transpired. Perhaps in time, I can make my way back and start writing again. For now, I have other work to do.