As I have discovered in the past three years of the “Voldemort” (as in, “the virus that shall not be named”) pandemic, I have lots to say on lots of topics. The range of venues for what I want to say is limited, and is getting shorter by each passing year. The range for me to experiment with presenting new ideas and hacking away at old ones is also limited, mostly by others’ perceptions of what someone with a PhD ought to write and how they ought to write it. The range for me to stretch as a writer is limited, mostly because of this world. The people who honor themselves and each other for knowing “the right people.” Those influencers and the big-wigs in their professions and professional organizations who look down on regular educated fools like myself with sneers and the word “No” always ready to erupt from their throats. Even when I had only four gray hairs, the gauntlet of narcissistic snobbery was enough to almost chase me out of writing. Now, I shake my head out of sheer disgust and exhaustion.

Some of you have followed me since I began Notes from a Boy @ The Window on WordPress in 2010, one that’s been around in some form since 2007. This blog will remain in operation for the foreseeable future. But it is no longer a suitable forum from which I can continue to write. Short of rewriting parts of my 2013 memoir Boy @ The Window (based in no small part on the many stories I have shared on the blog) to reflect the things I rediscovered about my childhood in the past decade, there isn’t much new I can say about my years growing up in Mount Vernon, New York and in the metropolis right on Mount Vernon’s border.

My Fool’s Gold: Confessions From an Educated Fool Substack is different. I want to hammer away at two themes, and only two themes:

1. The world’s desperate need to break free from the US and the West, culturally, ecologically, psychologically, and otherwise, and with some experimental writing, explore how that could be possible.
2. How someone with the maturity and temerity to earn their PhD before the age of 27 has also been an educated fool, and whether the middle-aged version of this once young Black man remains so.