Yes. This is a Stop Sign.
Soooooooooooooo. I posted this message on the blog’s Facebook page back at the end of January, but I (very) belatedly realized that I never actually put in on the blog itself. Because why would I do something like that…
Anyhoo, if you like reading this site, my apologies, but see explanation below.
Attention: I’m going on hiatus. Dear folks who read That Devil History. If you’re out there (and I know there’s a few of you!), you may have noticed that the posts on my site have been fewer and far between of late. This has largely been due to a general dearth of time on my part, not a lack of inspiration. Being in charge of a two-year old full-time is intensely rewarding but also rather time-consuming, and coupled with the other obligations of life, squeezing out the temporal space to write the kind of in-depth, long-form essays that I enjoy creating has become more and more difficult.
But there’s another reason I haven’t been writing as much. Frankly, I’ve grown rather weary of a lot of things that I’ve spent the better half of a decade pursuing, from the academic grind, to chasing after the ever-elusive ghost of monetarily compensated writing, to covering the increasingly mind-melting stupidity of modern American politics.
I’ve been writing at That Devil History fairly regularly since 2014, and I started this site specifically as an outlet to discuss intellectual and academic themes in a way that was unshackled from the constraints of academic writing. Basically, what you read on this site are my thoughts in my language, and it’s been a real joy to write for anyone out there who would listen.
Over the course of the last few years, however, I’ve undergone a series of personal changes that have led me to shift my interests elsewhere and away from regular writing, and with an already limited time schedule, pursuing these other interests means that I need to give writing a break. Moreover, I’ve become exhausted with American politics and culture in the age of the Great Orange Moron. As much as I enjoy writing about politics, the current American political situation has left me drained of much of my vitality and interest. Basically, life is too short to spend so much of your intellectual and emotional energy trying to understand the many facets of idiocy, and I just don’t want to bother with said task anymore, or at least for a while. I’m plain tired of it all.
So I’m taking a break from putting so much of my attention on the public sphere, and I’m going to purposefully retreat inwards for a while to focus on some things that I’ve neglected for years under the mistaken assumption that following insisted paths laid down by others is the best way to curry favor in this world. But let me make it clear: I’m NOT going to stop writing at this site forever, I’m merely going on hiatus. I may even write the odd new piece here and there if the time and the mood strikes, but it’s likely that you won’t see any new pieces on That Devil History for a while.
I really don’t know how many people out there have read my stuff. Sometimes it feels like I’m just screaming into the primordial internet void, one inconsequential drop of moisture in the vast cyber sea. Moreover, devoting hours of time and research to uncompensated writing doesn’t exactly help pay the bills, although I had no false illusions that it would. I know that I’ve had a few regular readers who enjoyed and shared my content, and for that I’m deeply grateful. Thanks so much for your attention, it truly means a lot.
For now, I’m signing off. I’m sure I’ll be back in time, but I’m not sure when. Stay positive out there, and, above all, resist.