Where I've Been, and the Current Project

Returning to public writing after a few years...

Many people visiting The Weltgeist this summer are first-time readers of my work. To the new readers, I say “welcome,” and check out my recently-finished About page. I hope you enjoy what I’ve been doing here for the past two months. There will be more to come.

And then, there are the rest of you. A lot of y’all have read my work before. I used to have a blog called The Hirsch Files—which was a simple Blogspot outpost where I started bouncing ideas around. But then, I shifted into a higher gear and created an official website that I called The Forge and Anvil:

Forge and Anvil is about purifying and hammering out ideas, hence the name.
- Twitter Pontifications July-October, October 18, 2019

Long ago, when I was younger, a mentor and I dreamed up the idea to have a blog. We would discuss right-wing Catholic ideas–or just expound on whatever we wanted to in a public venue. Our name for it back then was The Anvil, but it never materialized.
- Welcome to The Forge and Anvil, November 7, 2017

It's more of a kind of "outlet" and an experiment house for my thoughts. I suppose, though, it's also grown to become a kind of an apostolate of some kind---although, in that regard, I've only considered myself a banner waver and a rabblerouser.
- I’m Closing The Forge and Anvil, August 20, 2022

I closed up shop for a lot of reasons in 2022. I moved into a new job position, and I had to train for two years. The whole process of learning a new modality was very taxing on my mind and nerves, and I “had nothing left” at the end of the day. Plus, we just had some additions to our family—and let me tell you, they were the wildest babies in the bunch. Especially when they hit their “terrible twos.”

Was I Being Watched? Falseflagging Copycats?

But also, as you might have known, I was getting more paranoid. It’d just come out that the FBI (and who knows who else) were spying on Traditional Catholics, preparing to label them as extremists. Biden stood behind his podium and delivered his angry “red speech.” Already, I’d seen my name in a lot of weird places on the internet. I witnessed weird local events I will not talk about publicly. And there was even an account by the name “Forge and Anvil” on YouTube, claiming to put out content similar to what I was putting out. They used a version of my logo, and everything. They had hardly any traffic.

Fake “Forge and Anvil”

I’ve never run a YouTube page. This was NOT my channel. Either these guys were trying to pose as me, or they were outright stealing my name. They also ran a Locals page and an X account. On X, a man calls himself as “Connor B (Forge and Anvil)” with the handle @ForgeandA. I have nothing to do with “Connor B” or any of these guys. The views on their videos number in the tens or the hundreds on a good day. It seems completely suspicious to me. It also looks like they formed a Substack page—all of this around the time I was packing it up and getting ready to shut down. Looking at his current Substack page, it appears he’s moving on to make a new “media company” called “Jettison Entertainment.” So whatever, good riddance.

(Also I want to say that I do NOT have a YouTube channel called “Weltgeist.” That is someone else.)

Get a load of that stock photo. That was NOT me, people.

The Next Chapter

Well, whatever may have happened at that time, life has moved on. In fact, so much life has moved on, that I’ve been sort of struggling to pay for it. What I mean to say is, the kiddos are bigger, they’re eating more, they have more needs, and there’s more of them. Two years ago, I’d heard of people having to buy groceries with their credit cards, but I thought we were okay. Now, I’m finding I am one of those people paying for groceries with their credit card.

We’re holding together. I try to do overtime and bring in extra cash. The new job’s helped out a lot. But something more had to be done.

Recalling that I had certain skills, I decided to take to writing once more this summer. I’ve heard and read so many inspiring stories of people becoming successful by making content. (I really like this most recent interview with AJ of The Why Files.) “Perhaps I can bring in a little extra cash so we’re not drowning,” I said to the wife.

So that’s the mission, folks. I’m no longer just piddling with writing or on a quest to tell the world something. I’m neither trying to be an apostolate, nor am I using public writing as an outlet. I’ve “left the workshop.” I’m no longer “hammering” ideas and concepts together in preparation for battle. I left that forge and anvil behind. I’m now in it. I’m in the world. I’m leaving the nest, and it’s time to try and make things happen.

So, if you want more of my writing, come here to my new site on Substack, The Weltgeist. Before, it was a hobby for fun. Now, it’s for survival! The stakes couldn’t be higher! Life or death, people! I hope to provide authentic, sincere articles that’ll help keep you anchored and sane in these crazy times. I’ll do what I can to give y’all interesting perspectives on this crazy world we’re all living through.

Most importantly, if you like what I’m doing, and you want to support me and this work, and you’d like to help out financially, please consider a paid subscription to the blog. As as perk for my paid subscribers, you’ll find that I include archived articles from my former blog, The Forge and Anvil. And let me know what you miss from the old blogs, so I can bring it back up here on this site. For now, I’m posting about two articles from the archive a week—though I can increase that number if I get more subscribers.

And if you want to make a one-time donation to show your appreciation for what I’ve been doing, please click on THIS HYPERLINK, and it’ll take you to my traditional donation page.

Thank you for reading my stuff, folks. And thank you so so much for your support in the past. I’m hopeful we’ll get this project off the ground again, and put out even more interesting stuff than ever. The journey continues.

-Laramie