But wait. You’re a moron
Hear me out though... yes
Ok fine maybe I’m not a moron exactly, but I’m far from an expert and self-deprecating humour is how I deal with feelings. This is a frustratingly tricky post to write. It’s difficult to formulate it without making it sound like a hit-piece on myself. Then again, they say you should do what you’re best at…
This is more for me than you
Why should you listen to me? Truth is you probably shouldn’t, and I won’t make an argument that you should. I’m hardly an expert at anything and I’m wrong more than I’m comfortable admitting. Here’s as much of a pitch as I can muster: I have a certain set of interests, I explore these interests far more than is healthy, and I’d like to share what I find with you. I also enjoy blasphemy and photoshop, so you know it might end up being a good time.
This isn’t meant to be an official anything, but rather a silly blog of odds and ends. It’s all just an enjoyable hobby that needn’t grow or become anything more than what it is. Perhaps it will evolve over time. What sort of thing it evolves into remains to be seen. Something successful? Useful? Grammatically correct? Likely no to all 3. But it will probably be something.
Experts: What Are They Good For?
Turns out quite a lot, but there is one problem with them: it’s impossible to become an expert at something while retaining the beginner’s perspective. On the expert’s journey, they’ve travelled too far and seen too many things to fully recall what it was like to stand at the base of madness and wonder how anybody could climb such a mess. Well friend, this world is quite the climb. I think if we climb it together we will die, but there’s fun to be had before we do.
One of my favourite authors is Michael Pollan. Sometimes he writes about food. Sometimes he writes about taking acid. It doesn’t much matter what he writes about, because he’s that damn good. What I value most of all though is his approach, whereby he takes the position of a layman, curious about the topic he’s about to tackle, and he drags you by the ankle along his journey. He asks the types of questions any of us might ask from a position of ignorance. To an expert in the field, such questions may have been answered so long ago they aren’t even worth asking anymore.
How to get good at both things and stuff
This silly blog you find yourself on began as a singular problem to solve: how to remember what I was reading. I began journaling about topics that spoke to me, and it became my favourite part of the day. It grew from there into a creativity outlet, and things have ballooned into… well… whatever this is.
Regurgitation can be a fruitful learning strategy, so hopefully you can forgive me if this little project remains more for me than you. Along the way hopefully I can bring some great thinkers or authors (like Michael) onto your radar. Highlighting some of their incredible work is another primary hope through all this.
Summary
So hopefully you’ve read my disclaimer for why this all might suck and you feel better about spending some time with somebody who is both:
- Not qualified to give out advice professionally and;
- is clearly making it up as he goes along.
As long as you’re cool with that, welcome aboard. It might get weird.
