Every Journal, or Blog, has to start somewhere. And, that first entry is always the hardest. So, perhaps its best to start with why I am writing anything at all. Starting a new Blog suggests some purpose. So, the question is relevant: why write … why blog?
First, I suppose, I write to think… As Socrates is supposed to have said ‘The unexamined life is not worth living’. Humans are meaning making beings, and even if the universe is absolutely arbitrary, no one has yet found a way of living without meaning. Humans are also social beings and meaning (and the thinking that underlies it) seems essential for any sustainably social living. So, we need to think, and certainly I feel that I need to think.
Writing as a Conversation
But, thinking is much harder just in my head, writing seems to help getting the thoughts in order and, sometimes, discovering what they are. I am very conscious that I don’t know things well enough – what I don’t know is probably more important than what I think that I do know. So, thinking requires engaging with the ‘other’; it involves conversation – and writing is for me the minimal form of conversation, as I converse with the words that I write. I have often thought of this as ‘thinking with my mouth open’, or thinking aloud.
As a Christian, I see this also (at least potentially) as a conversation with God, but even then I recognise the need for something more. In my experience, God often uses other people in this conversation. Whether you share my belief in God, or not, therefore, this is a recognition of the need for real conversation with others as I seek to think better.
And there is another level to this conversation, as I recognise that thinking seems to require something beyond the abstract – beyond mere theory. Thinking that makes life worthwhile always seems to need to be embodied. When people teach, it does not seem to be enough to convey facts or theories, people need illustrations (concrete, embodied examples) to really engage with thinking and understand. Historically, mankind’s shared intergenerational thinking has always been expressed mostly in stories.
Which all means that thinking is best done in company with real people and real lived experience; in company with the past and all the wisdom that we have inherited in great literature and history; and in company with the present, with others who are seeking to engage in the search for wisdom today.
I have been writing most of my life, for all the reasons above. As an avid reader and listener to those who are thinking aloud, I have been a passive part of this conversation. Putting my writing in a public Blog offers the opportunity to engage more directly. It’s a start.