Dear Joy! Thank you for sharing about your journey! I have been a silent reading supporter and I have been following your newsletter and cooking videos. I have been through similar tough times and it definitely resonated with me! I also learned to stay away from social media like Facebook to feel less miserable. All types of work be it with immediate monetary value or not has value! There is a beauty of creating things with your passion. If you are a tree and when you fell, there's a big bang for sure! Your work is relevant and it has been such a joy to watch your videos and read your updates. I have become a foodie as it turned out past the days in Philly lol. Your posts have encouraged me that I am not alone in my struggles, thank you for being so brave to share those with us.
Serena, thanks for your faithful readership and kind note of support. I'm glad I can encourage and inspire you, and it encourages me to know that we're growing and learning together. :-)
I'm just going to add a random thought, though I had many while reading through- I just came to check on you because I had wondered what happened with your food science videos. I never learned to cook anything properly (and find it a struggle, I always want to spend as little time as possible to get to eat well, but am so frustrated with the results of experiments), so... most of your posts had been a bit too high level for me. But I check in, because I had many times wished that someone could just help me troubleshoot daily life questions with a bit of science. Like how to make something crispy at all without failing, why wrapping stuff in rice paper and putting it in the oven doesn't work for me though instagram says you can, or the chemistry of homemade cleaners and shampoos, whether I can trust that new idea of dental care that's kind of out there but also not, and many other slightly-science-y questions I knew I wouldn't likely get to. So it had occurred to me a few times that I would have loved an "ask Joy" edition, maybe because you seemed somehow more poised to answer the questions. And on that note I'm gonna add that I kind of think science and philosophy can/do merge a bit when applied to practical questions. I think I noticed that during a few of the nuggets you shared in this post.
Thanks for your feedback—appreciate that you shared so many good thoughts. There's a long story behind why I stopped making the food science videos, but the gist is that I felt what I was doing wasn't really aligned with the direction I wanted to take my career. It was great helping people see how useful science was, but there were lots of questions, both professionally and personally, that I needed some space to explore. And I felt that writing/Substack was a better medium to do that. That said, if at a later point I decide to go back to making videos, I'll keep your suggestions in mind. :-)
Sounds good, or, if you’re up for it one of these days, maybe we can catch up? I do know you back from the gel pen era. It’s been what, 20 years or more. Can you believe we’ve lived so long?
Dear Joy! Thank you for sharing about your journey! I have been a silent reading supporter and I have been following your newsletter and cooking videos. I have been through similar tough times and it definitely resonated with me! I also learned to stay away from social media like Facebook to feel less miserable. All types of work be it with immediate monetary value or not has value! There is a beauty of creating things with your passion. If you are a tree and when you fell, there's a big bang for sure! Your work is relevant and it has been such a joy to watch your videos and read your updates. I have become a foodie as it turned out past the days in Philly lol. Your posts have encouraged me that I am not alone in my struggles, thank you for being so brave to share those with us.
Serena, thanks for your faithful readership and kind note of support. I'm glad I can encourage and inspire you, and it encourages me to know that we're growing and learning together. :-)
I'm just going to add a random thought, though I had many while reading through- I just came to check on you because I had wondered what happened with your food science videos. I never learned to cook anything properly (and find it a struggle, I always want to spend as little time as possible to get to eat well, but am so frustrated with the results of experiments), so... most of your posts had been a bit too high level for me. But I check in, because I had many times wished that someone could just help me troubleshoot daily life questions with a bit of science. Like how to make something crispy at all without failing, why wrapping stuff in rice paper and putting it in the oven doesn't work for me though instagram says you can, or the chemistry of homemade cleaners and shampoos, whether I can trust that new idea of dental care that's kind of out there but also not, and many other slightly-science-y questions I knew I wouldn't likely get to. So it had occurred to me a few times that I would have loved an "ask Joy" edition, maybe because you seemed somehow more poised to answer the questions. And on that note I'm gonna add that I kind of think science and philosophy can/do merge a bit when applied to practical questions. I think I noticed that during a few of the nuggets you shared in this post.
Thanks for your feedback—appreciate that you shared so many good thoughts. There's a long story behind why I stopped making the food science videos, but the gist is that I felt what I was doing wasn't really aligned with the direction I wanted to take my career. It was great helping people see how useful science was, but there were lots of questions, both professionally and personally, that I needed some space to explore. And I felt that writing/Substack was a better medium to do that. That said, if at a later point I decide to go back to making videos, I'll keep your suggestions in mind. :-)
Sounds good, or, if you’re up for it one of these days, maybe we can catch up? I do know you back from the gel pen era. It’s been what, 20 years or more. Can you believe we’ve lived so long?
Yeah, would love to catch up! Let's arrange this off this comment thread...I'll send a private Substack message.