After nearly three hundred essays and dozens of podcast episodes, I’ve reached a simple conclusion: I’m done writing on a schedule, and I’m done writing for platforms that confuse noise with vitality.

When I began this experiment, I thought the work would matter in the way words used to — that reason and wit might still pierce the fog. I believed there was an audience hungry for insight instead of outrage, context instead of clickbait. I believed satire could still reach the public nerve. Maybe it did, briefly. But what I’ve learned is that algorithms are not built for endurance. They reward reaction, not reflection. They count hearts but not heart.

The truth is, I built something I’m proud of. Hundreds of essays. Dozens of podcasts. Laughter carved from despair. I made a record of an unsteady republic and of a writer stubborn enough to believe that words, wielded properly, could still shame power. But the platform’s pulse beats for engagement, not endurance — and I write for endurance.

So this isn’t a lament; it’s a release. I’ll still drop the occasional piece here, but Substack is no longer home base. I’ll write when the spirit insists rather than when the calendar demands. Somewhere quieter. Somewhere less addicted to applause. Because I was never here to echo. I was here to unsettle, provoke, and endure.

If you’ve read, shared, or even stumbled into this corner of the circus, thank you. You witnessed a writer doing his best to document the slow collapse of reason and the fragile comedy of survival.

I came. I wrote. It didn’t matter — not to the algorithm, anyway.

But it mattered to me. And that’s enough.

~ F. P. Dunneagin ~

Postscript: The circus moves, the tent stays. The long archive sits on Substack; fresh dispatches land on Daily Kos (about twice a month). If you want to know where the next act opens, subscribe here.