Well, if you're reading this and you've stuck around on the Patreon page for all these many months, you are truly too kind. For those of you who have continued supporting me on Patreon all this time with no output from me, I don't know what to say about such generosity other than I am so grateful. And for those of you just finding my work on Substack, welcome. I hope you’ll find my contributions worth your time.
It has been 22 months since I was diagnosed with Stage 3 kidney cancer and went into surgery. I did a full year of immunotherapy (July 2023 - July 2024) in addition to other medication as part of a clinical trial in which I'm still a participant. By late 2023, in the midst of the treatment, I began to slide rather quickly into depression.
As the months wore on, that sinking feeling, that inexorable slide into the darkness only grew deeper and deeper. All the "feelings of gratitude" and the desire to "live life" that I was supposed to experience post-cancer felt like little more than empty clichés as my daily existence was structured mostly around muttering to myself about how much I hate my life, the choices I've made, and the fact that I'm stuck in every possible way.
To be honest, I still do a lot of that.
But in recent weeks, I've also noticed something else, something far more profound for me personally than anything that can described with asinine TikTok psychobabble about "lived experience" and "manifesting good energy"... I've noticed a mental clarity, and growing energy, for the fight. That is to say, I'm once again feeling able to examine events happening in the world and to engage in meaningful analysis of them. This is in stark contrast to the last 18 months or so where even a glimpse of news from Gaza or the Harris-Trump campaign or Ukraine made me instantly wish for a world-ending asteroid strike, a proverbial deus ex machina to resolve all problems, if only with collective, shared destruction.
Somehow or other, it feels like I'm coming out of this. I resisted antidepressants forcefully despite recommendations from doctors, therapists, etc. and may, in fact, be coming out the other side with my mind entirely intact. I'll have to elaborate on my feelings on antidepressants another time.
All of this is to say, I feel ready to start doing this political work again. I'm not sure exactly how much or how often, and I'm definitely unsure about whether I will return to social media in any capacity, but new material from me is coming very soon.
I’m still figuring out the ins and outs of Substack, and how I will be integrating it into my years of videos, articles, etc. on patreon and elsewhere. I think Substack will remain free for all for now, with any subscriber-only content to be on patreon, but I’m still deciding on that. Either way, follow me here and you can stay informed.
Thank you all so much! Together, let's tear the fascists down!
Very happy to see you back. You are inspiring to me.
Very glad to see you back..