I'm (kind of) done.

2026 just keeps getting worse. Multiple earthquakes, heat waves, ocean temperature breaking new records, death from measles, Nepal's flash flood, food contamination, corruption, this fascist regime, ICE gestapos, ICE killings, voter suppression, gutting science, gutting healthcare, death from vaccine preventable diseases, billionaires being openly evil, tech bros being openly evil, AI slop, genocide, just to list a few. Just today, the human equivalent of rot RFK Jr. insinuated that people in hospice are not dying fast enough and is costing too much money. Conservative depravity knows no bounds.

On top of this, the media landscape is seriously polluted with slop of all kinds. There's AI slop, infinite scroll algorithm slop, social media engagement bait slop, mainstream media like NYT, WP, and The Atlantic are publishing centrist slop. On top of this is the unscrupulous actors pumping out their disinformation propaganda pieces. This is not even accounting for the deluge of commentary and opinion pieces these content ignites. There are so many podcasts that are just men talking about their opinions, some of them fully unqualified to do so. Everyone has a take, and everyone feels like they need to share that take to everyone else.

And then I realized, I'm one of those men. Maybe it's the depression talking, but amidst all these terrible tragedies happening right now, it feels icky for me to put my surely insignificant opinion out there. I'm not anyone important, who cares what my opinions are? There's an endless pool of opinions out there already.

It feels like I'm salting the ocean.

Not to mention, there are people out there with more resources and expertise who are producing better public health content than I ever could. Is it a good use of my time to burns hours every week pumping out these commentary/opinion episodes that will just add noise instead of doing other things that can actually make a difference (like, I don't know, writing to my representatives, joining a union, going to public comment meetings, donating to charity, etc.)?

But I do love podcasting. There's a part of me that enjoys the process of podcasting in an of itself, so I'm probably not going to fully eject myself from this hobby. Plus there is value in putting public health content out there for the simple reason that there aren't nearly enough. Still going to do the main series "Everything is Public Health" and will continue to work on INGREDIENTS: with Susana as long as she is keen on it. However, I'm going to stop regularly working on the Public Health is for Everyone and all the spinoff shows. If it happens, it happens, but I don't think it's worth my time to put these opinion/commentary pieces out there. It's not doing any good, and it's too selfish of me to make them because it feels good to me to rant to the world and not think about the bigger picture. Not exactly sure what the future will look like; there's much introspection for me to do. At the very least, I want to make sure the things I do put out is actually adding value to the information landscape, and not just another regurgitated commentary piece.

All in all, I will still be around, just a bit less. As always, thank you for listening. I do really appreciate every download the podcasts get. Everything is Public Health's new season starts back up in September.

Stay tuned,

MJ