Bluebells!!!
OK, so I was going to say we're off on the Substack Train, but that felt a wee bit too corporate, despite being true. But Bluebells are SO much more inspiring for this first Substack powered edition of my newsletter. We’ll come to them in a minute.
Why Substack, why now?
I’ve been writing and blogging for a while now at my website alastairjohnston.com where I’m interested in exploring what “living well” means. To me, it’s summed up like this:
How many times have you sat in your car, on a train, in a stuffy office and looked out of the window to a beautiful sunny day, or cold crisp frosty morning and thought "I don’t want to be here."
Since I was in my 20’s I’ve often experienced that awful gnawing sensation in the pit of my stomach as I thought “Is this it?” Work, eat, sleep - rinse, repeat. 4 weeks holiday...
This is a blog about life and living. About finding ways to have more time, more freedom, better health, more happiness, more contribution and more fun!
So have you ever had the thought that “There’s more to life?”
Yeah, me too.
Finding that “more”, well that's what this whole blogging and substacking thing is all about.
Let’s talk “community”
Newsletters are cool. They’ve survived and thrived in this mad mad social media world. At their most basic they give a bloke who likes to write stuff (me) a way to ask permission to let someone else who is interested in what they write (you) that they’ve written something new. Maybe they’ll add in a few things they’ve found on the internet that they found interesting too. It’s a tried and tested system that works because there’s no algorithm deciding whether you’ll actually get to see what I send.
I started a modest newsletter a while ago and loved (and still love) doing it. I sent out emails, people read them. Occasionally they wrote back to me about something I’d written which was lovely. These emails began conversations. Thoughtful, genuine, human conversations as opposed to the point scoring, shouty, self-promotional exchanges that I’d noticed more and more on Twitter, Facebook etc that I hate. I loved these conversations.
But I realised that I’d quite like some more of these. I’d quite like to see if Substack, with it’s ability to add comments, notes and aother gizmos may help me to build what I’d really like to build - a community. So that’s what I’m hoping to do here. Connect with like-minded souls who kind of get where I’m coming from. People who want to live, love and leave a legacy. People who are interested in living well, living small, learning, sharing, having fun and hopefully making the world just that tiny bit better.
OK, so what’s the deal here?
What should you expect from this newsletter / community thing then?
Short answer is “I’m not entirely sure yet.”
Longer answer is this. To begin with I’ll be sharing a newsletter every week or two. My newsletter has always included new essays that I’ve written over on my website, together with a handful of other interesting snippets I’ve found worth sharing.
As a free subscriber you’ll get my newsletters sent to your inbox, together with the ability to comment and join in on the conversation on Substack. Pretty much the majority of what get’s posted.
What about paid subscriptions? Good question.
I’ve ummed and ah’d a lot about this. And I’m still finding my way. Here’s the thing. I want to earn income from my writing in order to be able to spend more time doing it. But I’m also aware that there are many different ways that these models work. Some very talented writers I know provide extra stuff for paid subscribers. Some provide nothing based on the model that paying subscribers help to provide great writing for everybody. I don’t know where this will go yet, but I do know that I’d like to earn some more regular income, in addition to the kind folks who buy me coffees.
For now, I’ve just left things free, with an option of people who would like to become paid subscribers or supporters to indicate they’d be interested.
But what about the Bluebells?
Ah, yes, the bluebells. Well it’s that time of year again, and in thinking what I wanted to share on my latest newsletter I came across a bit of a theme. I’ve been writing about and photographing these beautiful little harbingers of spring for a number of years now.
And this is what they’ve made me think about. Time is short. We don’t have for ever, we don’t have very long. So imagine being at the end of your days and ask yourself,
“What would you pay to walk through Bluebells one last time?”
Don’t delay. Don’t leave it till next year. Get out of your house and set yourself afloat on a sea of Bluebells
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