"I want to let you know I’ve decided to stop blogging in the near future" — Andrew Sullivan, today, to his readers.
I can't say I'm surprised. Sullivan mentions health issues: "not HIV-related," but rather the "result of fifteen years of daily, hourly, always-on-deadline stress" — another way of saying, mental bombardment. My daily routine isn't nearly as unforgiving as Sullivan's; I've no million readers or 30,000 subscribers to please every day, and candidly, I've never wanted that many. There's a heavy and brutal price to be paid for what's called online "success," which Sullivan is now paying. I'm poor but mostly content in my meager ways. Could I stand to triple my readership and thus at least crawl out of poverty? You bet your ass. But even at that, I'd still be the master of my domain, rather than the slave of a relentlessly demanding site.
Sullivan's had enough of those relentless demands. He's pulling out, and one could read this development between his lines for the last few weeks. Something just seemed, well, off. Although his writing remained top-notch, it seemed infused with a certain yet inexpressible discontent. So I'm not surprised he's hanging it up. I wish him all the best.
I'd also like to thank Mr. Sullivan for his past "Blog Love" link to this site and his occasional linking to particular pieces here. I have heard from many of you that you found my site through The Dish, and I must say what's unique about that is rarely do such major sites acknowledge the small ones. Sullivan and his staff never played the insider-bloggers' "club" game; if they found a piece interesting or worthy of note, they noted it, and it made no difference that its author was not of national notoriety. That helped my overall readership a great deal, it was damned refreshing, wonderfully democratic, and just plain decent of them.
I shall miss Andrew Sullivan.