It's not that I have a problem with committment. I was monogomous when I was dating. I married after a reasonably lengthed courtship. Although I've lived in many different places, I've been "all in" at each locale, not sitting, longing for a better place. I've been an unwavering fan of the St. Louis Cardinals & Green Bay Packers my entire sports conscious life. Even brand loyalty is important to me. It's always Coke over Pepsi, PlayStation over Nintendo, and I'm coo-coo for Co-Co Puffs.
But this is different. This is a blog. A permanent action. All my work is out there for all the world to choose, read, & judge, although that may be over estimating my readership a bit. One of the few books from college that has stuck with me is The Story of Philosophy by Will Durant. In the forward he went on about the modern world and the progression toward specialization and a focus on minute segments within one particular field. I can’t take that kind of pressure.
How do you dive in and know that you’ll like it enough to stick to it? And stay interested? And be clever about it? So, Choose! Now! Daddy blog? Sports blog? Political blog? Religion? Architecture? Village life? Sex blog? OK. Not that. Eww.
So, is it really an unwillingness to commit? Is it too many irons in the fire? Or it is cultural attention deficit disorder? Yes! All of it! Yes! I am bad at committment. Is that what you want me to say! That is why where ever I go I'm the floater? Good at everything, great at nothing?
Why not? The permanent can be intimidating. Maintaining interest is so hard when there is so much out there to do. Who’s going to read it? And when? There was this program on the History Channel yesterday that showed these scrolls written centuries ago in Egypt. I pictured some ancient scribe writing away, all the care and concentration, putting his labor, heart, and soul into this beautiful hieroglyphic manuscript. And what did it say? What secrets did it hold? It was a store room inventory. His legacy was a supply list. Not very interesting, but he must have been good at it. I gotta do more than that.
Is there a place in the modern world for a Renaissance Man? I know that I’m no Thomas Jefferson. Not even a Danny DiVito. But I can scratch out a few words that I hope are more interesting than the mausoleum manifest of some long dead Egyptian ruler with his big ol' sarcophogus, two donkeys, an asp and a freaked out wife.
So, here it is, for what it’s worth, my thoughts, rants, & opinions. The gospel of Thom.
