Beginning

I’m starting a new blog today.  If you’re reading this, that’s probably self-evident.

Blogging – like most public presentations of the self – creates a warped perspective.

In my other blogging lives, I have been limited by the narrowness of the topic – when I was writing for a specific purpose.  I would never want to detract from that purpose or distract a reader with things that seem irrelevant.

It is also an unavoidable reality that speaking publicly has consequences that creep into your non-internet life.  The combined effect of these interferes with complete honesty.  Though I’ve never intentionally misled anyone – ahem … online at least – I’ve always felt that something rang false:  the voice wasn’t truly mine, wasn’t the whole story.

I dabbled for a while in anonymous blogging.  I liked that better because it eliminated self-conscsiouness.  You know the sort of thing:  people who know you read what you write and then never look at you the same.  But I still found myself burdened by consistency – once you establish a persona, you suddenly become concerned with the total picture.

Yes, I know … “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds ….”  Of course, I didn’t encounter that Emerson quote reading Self-Reliance; if I remember rightly, I saw it on a Reebok commercial long ago.

The thing is, I’m not consistent.  I have a wide range of conflicting impulses and priorities.  It is true, some features of my personality have been present since I was two – since my earliest memories – others are variable and even self-contradictory.

Additionally, my interests and beliefs do not seem to the outside observer to always go together.  By my own internal logic they do.  If pressed, I could probably explain that logic – but not across the board.

Topical blogging leaves out most of who I am.  Awareness of potential consequences prompts me to censor myself.  Anonymous blogging still feels false.  And I’m most intrigued by honesty and full disclosure.  It doesn’t come easily – either for me, or I suspect for others.

This is a blog about my disparate interests.  The long and short of it is, I decided to start this blog in an attempt to be as honest as I am able.