Essays
I just finished reading Paul Graham’s The Age of the Essay. I found it very interesting. I would like to to more essay writing - I found writing essays very interesting when I was in college and university. The trouble is that without a deadline, I find it hard to get started.
Mind you with three kids running around, I find it hard to get much of anything done. If you want to get philosophical about it, my life consists less and less of beginnings and endings and more and more of becoming. House-cleaning is a prime example of this. My house is rarely clean - it’s usually getting cleaner or getting messier or sometimes both at the same time.
I write a lot of mini-essays. Every night I pick a topic more or less at random and write a page about it to Jaimie. I do this as way of keeping in touch with her, of letting her know what’s on my mind. Exceeding Sturgeon’s law, I’m sure that at least 99% of what I write is crap, but every once in a while I’ll learn something interesting from what I write or end up in a surprising place.
Ideally, that’s what I’d like to do with this blog - write a pile of essays and see what I learn about the way I see the world and where my worldview breaks down.