A segue of sorts

Hello there, all 21 followers I’ve accrued over the past year. It’s a source of pride that I haven’t relied on spamming my Facebook and bugging my friends to get these few hits. Writing for strangers is difficult, but it keeps you from being lazy.

This will be the 50th post in the history of the blog. Though there were sparse times, I never thought I would stick with a writing project and end up with a post a week. A dozen other posts never quite saw the light of day, though I hope their content will find a home sometime soon.

This blog emerged in the aftermath of large-scale Occupy activities. Not to say the movement is dead- Hurricane Sandy showed the connections and mutual trust created in late 2011 can save lives. My mood was restless, and I was producing polemic after polemic with a mix of pride and anger. A state of mind that seems alien now.

Like many politically-minded people of my generation, the aliases of Demosthenes and Locke in Ender’s Game were somewhat of a role model. The two siblings of the protagonist, Valentine and Peter, see deep problems in their future Earth. By entering cyberspace and using eloquent and persuasive rhetoric, they eventually come to hold immense real-world power. The idea that blog posts could influence global society is a powerful concept, though xkcd pointed out how absurd it would be with the modern internet. However, it’s still a motivation.

Recent posts had changes. More reservation, fewer absolute statements, and a bigger interest on proving things through evidence. In the continuum between political theory and political policy, I see less of the former over time.

I have a half-dozen scraps of fiction in my writing collection; I’m attempting to build them into a cohesive story. The next year will have more variety. More poetry, and an infusion of visual media- photographs can speak truth when words are inadequate.

A bit rambling, I know. I have high hopes for this site in the next year.

To 100 posts and beyond.

Author: AJM

Writer, sociologist, Unitarian Universalist. View all posts by AJM