Well, I'm finally on Substack

Peer pressure is good, also how dare you.

I don’t want to keep slacking on this task too long after signing up. The truth is, altogether too many people have been telling me to get on Substack for a long time, and while I’ve heard them out and considered it in passing, I never found myself all that enthused about getting on yet another platform.

After a recent trip with some of my favourite people, I finally took a peak at what one of them was sharing on her own account. The simplicity and elegance of it proved very appealing, and it was the final straw that broke my stubborn obstinance. So thank you, Adjoa, for giving me that final push.

I need to also acknowledge those others who contributed to that push to get me to sign up. My dad was one of the first voices to indicate to me that I ought to be on here. Go figure, my dad knows me! And my dear friend Ora has been regularly sharing her poetry through this medium. She is one of my must trusted literary peers and we are constantly sharing our writing with each other, offering critiques and constructive feedback, and generally helping each other to improve in our craft. Not least, my dear sis Isabelle has also shared quite a number of her excellent written pieces with me over the years and she has, of course, been using Substack to showcase a good many of those.

That being said, I do have a couple of my own reasons for finally caving and getting started here. First, I’ve been wanting to blog more via my own band’s website, but most of my ideas end up not being exactly relevant to the band as a whole and reflect more of my own personal fascinations and ideas. There will still probably be some overlap (crossposting, topical tie-ins here about music, etc.) between both sites but I’m going to use this page to highlight things that are more unique to me that might not speak for my entire band, or even be relevant to music at all.

This brings me naturally to my next reason: I need an outlet to talk in a more structured way about the religion and philosophy side of me. I recently start a broadcast channel on Instagram (Mind Mystics) where I’ve been sharing resources I come across that I find interesting as it pertains to religion, spirituality, philosophy, and related topics. It’s been a great experience for me when it comes to sharing and collecting all my fascinations in one place, but the tools native to IG’s broadcast channels restrict my typing space and video length, so there are serious limitations on my ability to give my audience there deep dives into the topics I care about. And they do often require a lot of detail. My hope is that the articles and reflections I write here will help me develop some of those more detailed concepts in a way that is sharable, digestible, neat, and organized.

Finally, there is an interesting opportunity here for me to cross-pollinate “audiences” from very different circles in my life who otherwise might not overlap. I exist in both religious spaces and alternative music/art/culture spaces that aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive but certainly strangers to each other most of the time. The fact that I inhabit these seemingly (but not actually) contradictory worlds has allowed me to be my own special kind of oddball, and while I appreciate all the communities that have shaped me, I would greatly enjoy sending some people in shock and horror with what I can only describe as reasonably intellectual acts of trolling and buffoonery.

On a more serious note, here are some things that I can think of at this moment that you can reasonably expect me to cover here on this platform:

• Topics relating to Christian theology, the Bible, philosophy, and “world religions.”

• Topics at the intersection of religion, spirituality, and indigenous cultures - especially as I work on rediscovering and connecting to my Okinawan heritage. This will also involve reflections on the cultures of people close to me.

• Music, creative arts, songwriting, and the way these interact with spirituality, faith, personal growth, philosophy, culture, etc.

• Personal reflections on life and experiences, obviously through the lens of someone obsessed with the other topics above.

• Maybe some music reviews - albums, concerts, etc. - again with an eye towards deeper reflection on the meaning of the culture we engage.

• Other forms of media analysis through the above lenses.

• Original song lyrics and poetry, as well as occasional authorial explanations and analysis as often as I feel so inclined to include those.

• Media recommendations and extended reflections on things I’ve found informative or interesting.

• Expansions on topics covered on Passionfroot.

• Collections or reposts of my other written work from other platforms. Self-indulgent? Yes, deal with it.

• Furious tirades against people I think are stupid morons silly gooses geese.

• Professionalism.

• Unprofessionalism.

So there you have it: a half-baked introduction based on fully-baked self-indulgence—all an appetizer for some deep-fried brain shenanigans that you can food metaphor [I have given up trying] to your heart’s content.

Here is a video of Peeling Flesh. It is not related to the blog post but slam is fun.

-Max