I created this Substack account almost exactly six months ago, on January 31, 2024, which is really hard to believe. If Substack’s analytics tools can be trusted, over the past 178 days, I’ve published 74 posts that have been viewed 3,026 times by 963 people, and I have 12 subscribers.
Those aren’t huge numbers, but I am very grateful for being able to make a little splash in the world. I am flattered that even one single person would subscribe to hear from me more than once!
I started writing online in 2008 and started blogging somewhat regularly in 2010 (you can still see some of my oldest writing on my old WordPress blog). That is totally crazy to think about because that was 14 years ago.
Man, time flies!
Since those early days, I’ve written a few hundred blog posts there and elsewhere that haven’t really done a whole lot… mostly because I wasn’t sure exactly what the purpose was.
Why was I writing? What was it all for? Who was it for? What did I want people to do?
I never really knew. It was mostly just spur-of-the-moment content, like sharing my thoughts on when I pitched an idea for a birth center at a startup event and what I learned from it. Very few people read it, and almost nobody ever commented.
That was fine because what I was really focused on was writing books.
For over a decade, I’ve been writing two books: a business book about how websites work and a personal memoir. But since I never shared any of it publicly, it’s all been sitting on my computer, never seeing the light of day.
This unbelievably frustrating reality has made writing feel like a Sisyphean task, almost oppressive in how pointless it is. It usually goes like this:
Feel a burst of energy or inspiration.
Open the manuscript.
Write a few hundred words.
Add a few more pages.
Read what’s written.
Decide it’s awful and that I hate it.
Walk away and say, “I’ll get to it later.”
Rinse, repeat. Ugh.
For so many years, looking at my scratch notes, collections of photos, and multiple revisions and drafts scattered all over the place, thinking—hoping—someday I’ll finish this gets really depressing.
So, toward the end of 2023, as I thought about what I wanted to do differently in the new year, I finally decided to take writing seriously and start publishing it. Even if that didn’t mean “publishing a book” in the traditional sense, I wanted it to mean making what I was writing public at a minimum.
As a perfectionist, this has always been very difficult for me: I want everything I say, write, record, sing, perform, and do in public to be completely polished and perfect.
But (without spilling even more ink here needlessly), let me just say this: it’s obvious that this kind of obsession with perfection is the reason why I still have two half-finished books that haven’t seen the light of day, a decade and a half later.
So, in November of last year, as part of my decision to finally take writing seriously, I signed up for a writing group called The Fearless Writer Challenge (which I highly recommend, by the way). This gave me the hugely needed critical step of forcing me to write on a more consistent basis and making it all public.
Mostly, I’ve been writing on Twitter/X since then, but I know that a big percentage of the population is not on there and never will be, so at the suggestion of some of the writers in my group, I created an account here on Substack.
When I did, I was faced with a challenge: what did I want my “publication” to be called?
Hmm… that was an interesting question.
The default URL was just ronstauffer.substack.com so that was simple enough, but that’s boring. “Ron’s Stauffer’s Substack?” Lame. There are plenty of people here who choose that, and I guess it works for them, but unless your name is Donald Trump, Paris Hilton, or Britney Spears, simply using your own name isn’t enough to make people pay attention to you.
I thought about it for a few days and decided to call it: “Intellectual Vagabond.”
Why? Well, I wrote a whole page explaining why here, but long story short, it’s because I’m writing about things like reflection, reason, and philosophy, and using my intellect to try to “think out loud” about life, living, and the things that are meaningful to me.
I picked “Vagabond” as a metaphor to explain that I’m not firmly anchored in one place: I kind of move around from time to time, both literally as I explore and travel the world around me and also figuratively as I learn more about myself, the universe, and how I fit in it (or don’t!).
If someone ran a publication called “Right Wing News” or “Left Wing News,” it would be very easy for a reader to know exactly what kind of content, worldviews, and political perspectives it would have.
But I’m not a hyper-partisan guy, and, like most people, I don’t fit neatly into such a stark left/right binary. …and I think that’s pretty boring anyway.
Why would I subscribe to something that’s so patently skewed to one side that I’d already know what’s going to be said before I even click on the link? That’s lame, and it doesn’t require any critical thinking.
So, anyway, I picked “Intellectual Vagabond” because I think it’s a perfect metaphorical picture of the kind of person I am (or aspire to be): open to debate and discussion, constantly exploring, always learning, eager to engage on a variety of topics, and willing to change my views on things when persuaded.
On Substack, like most other people here, I’m just kind of openly ruminating on topics that matter to me… and inviting others to come along for the journey and comment as they feel led.
But, upon reflection after doing this for six months, I’ve decided to change the name of this publication. Not because I don’t like it—I do—but because I just have too many names for too many things out there right now.
I’ve got too many irons in too many fires, and I’m getting spread too thin. The number of “brands” I have right now include:
Lieder Digital: a digital marketing agency where I work full-time.
Free Soloing: a resource for freelancers and solopreneurs.
Micron: a podcast that focuses on life experiences and the things I’ve learned over the years.
Ron Voyage: a travel blog, podcast, and channel focused on traveling and exploration over air, land, and sea.
Intellectual Vagabond: this Substack account, which I use to write about anything and everything that comes to mind that’s longer than a “Tweet.”
Looking at that list, I decided that one has got to go. There are just too many.
I still like my original publication’s name, and I like the imagery that comes to mind… I don’t think it’s a problem at all that some people don’t get it.
Like the time one writer told me, “That’s not a good name because I can’t figure out what it means, and you don’t want to make people have to think.”
That doesn’t bother me at all: if you’re the kind of reader who can’t understand what the terms “Intellectual” or “Vagabond” mean (or can’t be bothered to look into them), I’m clearly not writing for you.
I’m not writing for people who only have 13 seconds to skim through an article, look at one or two pictures, and then click on the next thing: those people are welcome to scroll right past me, and I wish they would even sooner. Most of the stuff I post here takes between 8-20 minutes to read anyway.
But having said that, I recently interviewed one of the employees who works for Substack (I’ll be sharing the video of that here soon!), and in our discussion about writing, publishing, media platforms, and podcasting, I was reminded of how much I like creating audio and video and was feeling sad that I’ve almost completely neglected my original podcast, Micron.
Looking at it now, I realize I’ve only published one episode this year and only two episodes last year. So, this week, I decided that it only makes sense to combine my writing here at “Intellectual Vagabond” and my podcast, “Micron,” and merge them into the same publication.
At the end of the day, they’re basically the same: it’s just me sharing my thoughts on topics like life, death, childhood, parenting, art, music, entrepreneurship, and all manner of smaller topics that fit into the cracks between the larger issues we all struggle with.
So, I’m not exactly sure how it’s going to work. It may take a while, and it might look messy, but I’ll be renaming this Substack publication to Micron, just like the podcast I started four years ago, in the summer of 2020.
If you’re reading this particular post in your browser right now, you’ll notice that the URL has changed: all previous and future links will be redirected from ronstauffer.substack.com to micron.fm.
That keeps it short, simple, and to the point.
I have no idea how it will look when it’s finished, but I still have a LOT of ideas for content for the rest of this year, and even going into 2025. I want to add more audio, start using video, and bring in the perspectives of other people as well.
I’ve done some of that a few times already, like when I interviewed a professor at NYU about my Irish ancestors or the time I interviewed my dad about how he rode his bicycle from coast to coast across the USA as a young man, and I want to do a lot more of that.
If you like reading what I have to share or are a follower or subscriber here on Substack, please note the new name and the new links. If you have anything bookmarked, you may want to update that, although all the old links should still work in the future.
So… thank you to everyone who’s reading this! I have no idea what this will look like at the end of this year or even next year.
I’m looking forward to it, and thank you all for reading, listening, and sharing.
Just remember, follow, like, subscribe, share, and all those other things, at my new publication: Micron.fm.
You go Ron! Looking forward to the new look.