Random MishMash

I'm not writing much these days, as should be quite apparent by now. There are many reasons for this, many having to do with the notion that "discretion is the better part of valor," which to take the true Shakespearean meaning serves as an indictment against the type of man I think I claim to be. I could say I am busy, which would also be true, but even this does not tell the whole story. I could say I am concerned with the Orwellian trends in our discourse, and that some exercise of caution may be warranted, particularly with respect to future employment given the public nature of our social media, blogs, and the like.

Needless to say, I've been doing some soul searching as to what I should be writing about, what I want to write about, and whether there is much to be gained by writing at all. (Hey, if I'm going to have a crisis of faith, better that it involves something like this than anything else more important!)

Below are a couple of nuggets, bite-size rants if you will, that are standalone thoughts I've jotted down or copied off over the last month or so, but never developed into anything more meaningful. They are generally devoid of context, so I'll leave it to your imagination what drove me to put them down.

• I am forever amazed at those who believe progress means nullifying history rather than learning from it, and each other. And yet I shouldn't be, for this is a tale as old as civilization itself.

• Willful blindness and the inability to accept the humanity and fallibility of our forebears for what they are makes my head explode.

Key quotes:

"Everything is permissible"--but not everything is beneficial. "Everything is permissible"--but not everything is constructive. - 1 Corinthians 10:23

“For under the smooth legal surface of our society there are already moving very lawless things. We are always near the breaking-point when we care only for what is legal and nothing for what is lawful. Unless we have a moral principle about such delicate matters as marriage and murder, the whole world will become a welter of exceptions with no rules. There will be so many hard cases that everything will go soft.”- G. K. Chesterton

And finally:

• If a fool happens to speak the truth, that a fool said it makes it no less the truth.

• Truth is more about what is, and less about what you think it is, or even who said it. Objective truth matters.

I also have a story about a bison, that perhaps one day I will put to print. I've started the composition several times, but end up marveling at the idea that perhaps I am more like the bison than I would have ever imagined. When I get that figured out, I'll have a story worth telling.