Life Updates And Other Things

Moving, Job Hunting, And Other Stuff

Hey All,

I’m working on a post about the testimony, but I’m not sure when it’s coming out. In the meantime, I figured I’d post some life and blog updates, since I haven’t done that in a while.

I Moved To Denver; Some Urbanism Thoughts

A month ago, my wife and I moved to Denver. So far, I consider it a much better place to live than the Washington, D.C. area. Sure, D.C. has better transit and walkability, but that’s about it. As someone who lived car free for the last 4 years or so, transit is overrated.

I like Denver’s climate (though I may change my mind in the summer), that my neighborhood is pretty walkable, and that I can get 50% more space in an apartment for about 20% less cost. The people are nicer and the service workers are better. The cost of living is just more affordable. One thing I consider very silly about urbanist social media discourse is that it seems like a place is only a nice place to live if you can live car free, walk everywhere, or take transit. There’s obviously so much more to life than that.

To make matters worse, I think it’s understated how super dense cities are hard to travel around. In D.C., no matter what mode of transportation you take, it takes about 20 minutes at minimum (more often 30 or 40) to go anywhere that isn’t right on your block. In my Denver neighborhood, I can get anywhere I’d want to go within 20 minutes in a car. I’m much more inclined to explore Denver than D.C. because it’s just so much easier to get around.

Anyway, I’m still adjusting to the altitude for my workouts. A 2 mile run gets me out of breath and instills fatigue like it’s a 5 mile run at sea level. AI tells me that it will be few months before I fully adjust. It’s an interesting experience.

My overall impression of D.C., after living there about 5 years, is that I don’t recommend moving there if you’re over the age of 30, not obsessed with politics, and not working in a high value industry. Don’t get me wrong: There’s a lot to like about D.C., but it wears off within about 3 years of living there.

By the end, I was ready to go. All the things that suck about D.C. (too slow to get to anywhere, no good trails unless you have a car or live right next to them far outside the district, mean service workers, limp-wrist liberal white people who think crime is good, and much more) started to wear on me. I felt like it was making me a worse person. I was meaner and less social and meaner to strangers. I don’t remember feeling that way when I lived in South Carolina or Richmond, and I certainly don’t feel this way in Denver.

I don’t regret moving to D.C. (It’s where I met my wife!), it was just time to go. I’m glad I’m in Denver!

NGOs, Layoffs, And Job Hunting

For those of you who didn’t hear, I got laid off from my job as I was relocating to Denver. This was really not-cool from my perspective as I was in sufficiently good standing at work (great standing!) to be approved for fully remote work. Then I was laid off a week later, for unrelated reasons (organizational restructuring).

I’m not going to say anything mean about my former workplace, as I have no complaint about pretty much anyone I worked with.¹ I understand the decision to lay me off, even if I hate it. My experience in the NGO sphere was interesting and gave me insights into fundraising and foreign aid, some of which I may share someday. For now, I will just say that many of the things you read about NGOs (good and bad) are overhyped. And that Effective Altruists are not the high rollers in life-saving care that you’d think based on their internet posting. Wine moms are undefeated, and that’s all I’ll say.

Anyway! I’m on the job market. It’s a little annoying. I’ve been applying for jobs for about 2 months, with varying degrees of success. I’ve gotten about a dozen phone interviews, advanced once to a final round, and a handful of second round interviews.

I’m not yet depressed about job hunting yet because I have 7 years of experience and I know something will turn up. But it is annoying that these processes take about a month to complete. Interviews also seem to come in waves. When I hit the road to Denver about 6 weeks ago, I started the trip with 5 active interviews, and ended it with just one after three days. Between starting this post and publishing it, I went from 0 to 3.

It’s hard to feel too anxious about job hunting with this sort of employer interest, but man, it’s annoying to not be done with it. What’s even more annoying is my mood will be very much dependent on how many “active applications” I have at any given time. About 10 days ago I had no prospects, so I panic-applied for about 50 jobs over the course of that week, and picked up about 3 or 4 interviews since. Very little has changed other than a couple meetings and emails, yet I feel much less anxious.

At the moment, I’ve applied for well over 100 jobs. Likely close to 200. This is neither a flex, nor a cry for help. In 2026, this is how you get a job, unfortunately. I don’t blame AI, because I had a similar experience in 2018 when I was new to the job market.

Substack Changes…

Now, let’s get back to some updates for this substack…

A couple days ago, I decided to take substack off my phone. It’s not the first time I did it, and it probably won’t be the last because it’s such a great idea!

I’m a social media sicko. If it’s on my phone, I’ll check it all day. I’m that hooked.

It’s also why I haven’t had Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or any groupchat apps on my phone in years. Substack is a little different in that I enjoy it, post thoughtfully, and have had a growing presence on here and posting notes does just as much to grow following as posts do.

Still, taking substack off my phone made me realize how obsessive I was on this platform and I don’t like it. I’m keeping it off my phone so I can be more focused with my attention and cognitive energy.

This doesn’t mean I’m leaving substack. Far from it! It’s my aspiration to grow my substack to over 1000 followers eventually. I’d also like to make a small income on here talking about philosophy. If I’m going to do that, I need to be more focused on producing quality posts. And to do that, I need to write high quality posts, which means I need to get back to reading, writing, and focus. Being laid off knocked me off my psychological feet, but I finally got back up.

One other thing I’ve done to help my focus (that I’m not going to belabor) is block a couple substack power users. I won’t get into details, but these people unintentionally ragebait me, not by saying wrong or even stupid things, but by being rude to me or only engaging with my posts to name call or enable other name callers.

In some ways, these users exploited my humility in that I’m open about not being an expert and not even trying to be a graduate student or professional philosopher. I naively believed these people knew more about, say, epistemology, than I do, only to later find out that they have as little understanding of skepticism as 2008 New Atheists did about philosophy of religion. Which is to say, not much! And what little exposure they do have is filtered through the opinions of non-skeptics or worse, people making fun of skeptics.

For a while, not-blocking these people gave me fuel to post (the decision to be a Hume-oriented substack came from being ragebaited!). But as I reflect, my best work and research is done when I’m focused on reading a primary text, secondary literature, and trying to break it down. Ragebait inhibits my ability to do that.

And that brings me to the final section…

Upcoming Posts

I’m currently working on the post about testimony. It’s my hope that I’ll return to Hume Posting soon after. I intend to write some things on Hume’s “scandal” and his accounts on Free Will/compatibilism. The latter one will probably be short, but who knows.

I’m also finally getting around to reading Hume’s Inquiry. It’s a relatively short book, and also kind of dry (people say Hume is more accessible than other philosophers of his time, but he’s still kind of hard to read for me!), so I’m kicking around the idea of doing an essay or research on each chapter using some of the books I’ve already bought from the likes of Cambridge press.

My posting philosophy has constantly evolved. I used to post 2-3 times a week (really!), but now I don’t feel the need to do that. I’m opting for quality over quantity.

The other sneaky factor here is that I will get a job soon. My last job was great because it had great work-life balance. At the end of the day, and often during the day, I had the energy to think about philosophy. I don’t anticipate my next job being the same way. I’ll probably be working harder, which means less posts. Given that I have other hobbies I like to do on top of philosophy (running, some reading, watching sports, learning the guitar, going to target with my wife because it brings her joy wallet-be-damned, among others), I’m going to lean into Hume posts a little bit more, because it’s a guided study.

I’ve said on notes multiple times that the window for me to get more of an education in philosophy has passed. I have a family that I hope to grow, will need to work full time to support them, have all these other interests, and oh yeah my local philosophy M.A would probably cost somewhere between $50,000-$100,000. Given that, it’s my intention to research Hume as a hobby for the next few years. As a side hustle. For no university credit. For the love of the game!

So, as of April 2026, that’s the state of my life and substack.

I hope you’ll join me as I continue to write!

-Joe, the Hume Hobbyist

1. I also have a non-disparaging agreement that comes with my severance. Details, Details!