A Six-Month Examen

More on Appeals and Futures

Perennialists and Digressers All,

It has been almost six months since my last check-in on the state of the dispatch, in which time I, on the one hand, was able to produce more in the way of writing (from January to now) than I thought I would and, on the other hand, had less time for interviews (since for k-12 teachers and academics alike the Spring semester tends to be an absolutely chaotic time of personal unraveling and existential questioning). My hope is to rectify that this month, with several scheduled and pending interviews. Probably, there will be a break on interviews in July, so that my family and I can have an uninterrupted month of time together, followed by a few more before the school year resumes in August.

I continue to feel that the experiment is going well, and that the work of APD is a worthy investment of my time and energies. If you feel similarly, and would like to see more in the way of articles, interviews, and any other endeavors, there are three huge things you can do:

1. First, and foremost, please consider becoming a paid subscriber if you are not already. The current payscale is at $5/month, $30/year, and $50 for a Founding Member subscription. For right now, and for the foreseeable future, APD will continue to be free to readers, because I genuinely believe that the work is important and should reach as many people as possible. (I’m also well aware of the rather humorous optics that would ensue if I suddenly felt I was in some kind of position to demand compensation for my words; if anything, it is probably the other way around.) But it is the case that the more profitable the experiment, the more time I can justify spending on continuing to make it better, to court new interviewees, and to think of other possible extensions of the work. Since my primary life happens elsewhere—in marriage, fatherhood, householding, and teaching—my freedom to invest here depends not insignificantly on your generosity.

2. Second, and equally importantly: if you have not already, please subscribe to the YouTube channel. I’ll cut to the chase on this one: YouTube subscriptions are free, and the more of them I have, the more eligible the channel becomes for monetization. If you’ve enjoyed the audiovisual element of APD, please consider this uncostly way of investing in it.

3. Third, and finally: please pass APD along to others. The more people reading, the bigger this thing can become—and I really rather think we could make some terrific stuff out of this, in the long run.

Εἰρήνη πᾶσι,
David