Hey everyone,
So I came here today to make a confession: I just can’t keep up with Atomic Robot right now.
I loved the idea. I loved exploring different topics. What I didn’t love was realizing at 5PM on a Wednesday, after trying to crush it to get through the workload for my day job, that I hadn’t even started on Atomic Robot yet.
When I first came up with the idea for Atomic Robot, I still had an editor over at 1P5. I was also not podcasting, having taken a hiatus. I was desperate for a break from that world, but a writer is still a writer, and I wanted an outlet for the cool things I came across.
But I took back over editing duties at 1P5 in August due to seriously flagging traffic (good news, it’s way back up!) and I not only started podcasting again, but at a more brisk pace than usual.
Frankly, the past few months have gone by in a blur, and even without Atomic Robot, I’ve worked a lot of late evenings.
I’m not killing this project, because it’s still a neat idea. But like a good robot running off of a radioactive isotope, I can put it into hibernation indefinitely. He’ll still power right back up as soon as we need him. (So don’t unsubscribe if you want to know if and when that happens!)
Until then, I started another Substack under my own name.
I can practically hear you rolling your eyes.
Here’s the thing though: with things going on the way they have the past couple of months, I’ve felt the need to veer more towards general societal and political commentary in a way I just can’t continuously do at 1P5, which is focused specifically on internal aspects of Catholicism and the structures of the Church.
I need some place to put that other commentary, so I’m sticking some of it over at my personal Substack, which will eventually be tied to my personal website, and I will hopefully be starting my own personal podcast soon as well, to tackle topics outside the realm of 1P5.
I think it’s likely that the energy I was going to put here at Atomic Robot will be subsumed into my personal brand. I almost did it that way in the first place, but I was grasping at straws looking for any opportunity to do something a bit different for a change. But the AR ethos was skewing heavily towards tech and general geekery, and I need broader parameters to work with.
If you haven’t figured it out right now, I’m a bit arbitrary, capricious, and random. I (sort of) apologize. It’s just how I’m wired.
If you feel like subscribing to my writing at my other Substack, with no promises of how often I’ll post there, you can do so right within the confines of my first post, which just went up this afternoon.
And if you don’t, that’s OK too. I know this was a bit of a disappointing experiment, but I have a tendency to overcommit sometimes. Mea culpa.
Hope I’ll be seeing you around.
Best,
Steve