I'm back

Explaining the unexplained hiatus

Hello again.

Sorry to everyone for the unexpected prolonged absence. Good news is that I’m alive and well. Honestly, life and the pursuit of procrastination has just that way of keeping people (me) away from typing for Substack. No real excuses on this beyond a deep and sincere apology to everyone subscribed and patiently waiting for the next editions of Hidden Japan, but I’d like to at least briefly explain what I’ve been busy with in these past few months. For people who are more keen on Japan and its goings ons, today’s post won’t really touch on that. Past and subsequent posts will!

The Non-Excuses

Perhaps most pertinent to mention is the planning, attending and hosting of my own wedding. So it is entirely without excuse and not justifiable that marriage has briefly stood in the way of this digital publication. Thankfully, even as this Substack has stalled, the wedding and marriage has gone great thus far.

Other non-excuses start reading as a list of far flung exotic locations that, with one exception, don’t end in “apan”. Through both personal and work reasons, these past few months have sent me to all sorts of places; since we last corresponded, three continents, by way of seven countries. Their relevance to this particular Hidden Japan endeavour ranged from flying out of Haneda Airport (and noticing airport based items to write about) to “oh look, there’s samurai armour after I leave the Sistine Chapel”. Really all this travel has been such an enriching experience, more of which I’d love to share in relevant sections. Yet every second you spend traipsing the globe is another second not writing… world travel is so time consuming. I have yet to work out a balance of how to meet the consistency expected, but will quickly aim to remedy that.

I also don’t want to blame everything on OpenAI, although it certainly didn’t help. Or rather, the perception that more and more was written by the overlords in the AI sky didn’t help. For me, this perception was an extra barrier to returning to the platform. I didn’t want to be that one human running against other, more powerful robots. Over the weeks and months though, I’ve come around.

The final non-excuse has been navigating changes at work (the job that actually pays the bill) which has pulled my focus away. That is in between the whole wedding season and travel, it’s pulled that little voice that was telling me to get back to it. Finally, that voice has won out and these fingers have started typing again.

The Future

So the goal for me is to be back as per normal. Those weekly if I’m ambitious articles ready for reading with special articles still for my premium subscribers. Thank you again for believing in the writing and valuing the work that’s been done.

To those who have supported at that level, I would love to extend all premium subscribers to an additional year subscription and I’ll be getting into that back weeds a bit of Substack to make that happen.

There will be a proper article about Japan upcoming. I’m sure everyone can tell I’m a bit rusty writing this piece because the title more or less says it all.

I’m back.