Hello everyone,

I can vividly remember laying on my parents’ couch with my laptop, writing the first scripts of my newly launched YouTube channel. My stepdad was sitting behind his computer, probably roaming beating up some fellow WoW-players. My mom was busy taking care of ten (!) new born puppies; the living room was turned into one big maternity room for their Swiss Shepherd. I was just visiting, though. It must have been a month since the bank I worked for seven years threw me out, allegedly because of a reorganization. I had all the time in the world.

For some reason, the beginning of a successful project is beautiful. There’s just a vision. An idea you’ve chosen to pursue. You don’t know what’s going to happen and if it’s even going to work. Yet, something inside you tells you to do it nonetheless. It’s very exciting; this not knowing where your efforts will lead combined with the will go for it. That’s where I stood when I began creating videos for Einzelgänger.

I won’t bore you with the whole background story of why I created Einzelgänger, as I’m flashing forward to more than six years later: early 2025. My life has been completely changed. Einzelgänger has gained over two million subscribers; way more than I expected. I’ve spent lots of time abroad, published books, even wrote a novel. Over the years I received many emails from people telling me that my content has helped them.

Looking back, it was totally worth it. But six years later, I also found myself in a crisis. An existential one. Where’s this channel going? What’s it actually about? Why am I so tired? Why have I lost the drive to create?

I was exhausted. I had been grinding for a long time. And lately, I had been making content for the sake of making content. It had become robotic. I was tired thinking of topics that’s I would find interesting enough to explore and would also do well with audience and algorithm. I felt like a cook tired of inventing a new and original dish every two weeks.

Moreover, there was a new kid in town: AI-content. Content farms started to crank out videos in a rate no human being could. And guess what? The faceless-channel-philosophy-niche got hit hard. On my channel, people learn how Stoicism could help achieving more inner peace. On these new AI-channels, people learn how Stoicism can help them get any woman they want. (Yes, really.)

With the emergence of such channels, many established human content creators began to suffer. Personally, I got hit in the ego, thinking: Are my formula and content really that simple to reproduce?

Today, new channels still pop up doing the same thing: They publish faceless video essays about all kinds of topics, usually in the same niche: from lessons from Marcus Aurelius to Albert Camus to Taoism. They’re doing what I’ve been doing for years, and they’re many.

Having seen what was happening on YouTube combined with the feeling I had been slipping into a mode of creating content for the sake of content, noticing I was repeating myself, rehashing old topics, while, with difficulty, trying mix in original topics (which usually didn’t do well), and getting more exhausted doing so, I thought to myself: What am I even doing? Combine that with Sartre’s concept of ‘bad faith,’ and I saw no other course of action than quitting.

During the last couple of months I did a lot of thinking. I reflected on Einzelgänger, on what went wrong, what went right, what I still liked and didn’t like about it. I concluded that I’m still very passionate about philosophy. I’m also passionate about religion, history, and writing. I’d still be down for creating more content; just not in the same way. It should be radically different.

I began imagining a new project. As I’ve traveled a lot in the past, which had been life-changing and enjoyable, I figured my new ‘thing’ should be a journey of some sort. A journey of ideas? Yeah. That’s it. So, what’s next? Shall I just abandon Einzelgänger and start a new project? Not so fast.

Starting with a clean slate surely can be a nice prospect. You start fresh. You leave old stuff behind and move on unencumbered. But do we ever really start with a clean slate?

I’ve nurtured Einzelgänger for more than six years and amassed an amazing amount of followers and still gets tens of thousands of views a day. I won’t forsake it. I’ll continue publishing videos on it in the near future. However, it will in a completely new format that’s definitely less ‘mainstream’ but more fun and challenging for me to create.

View Journey of Ideas as an Einzelgänger-spinoff; a deeper, slower and more introspective journey through philosophy and more. Oh, and I won’t be YouTube alone. I’ll be publishing in podcast format (on Spotify, Apple, etc.) and on Substack.

I hope you’ll join the journey! To stay updated, subscribe to my newsletter on Substack.

Take care and thank you,

Einzel