Once More Unto the Breach

     I've always been a poor diarist, and over the years I have been incapable of finding the presence of mind to write an entry for every week, let alone very day.  My efforts at blogs, plogs, notebooks, and all the rest have failed as well.  Something always managed to interfere with the routine I was trying to establish, which is of course another way of saying that I lacked the discipline and attention to write my entries in spite of the disruptions and distractions.  But I've always been impressed by people who've kept diaries.  It's not just the act of writing, which requires time and effort, nor need it be the style, or even the content.  It's that they managed to preserve, however busy or chaotic their lives were at the time, a few minutes in the day simply for themselves; that during these minutes they could calm their minds enough to reflect on the day's actions or thoughts, explore a subject that interested them, or simply to indulge in fantasy or speculation; and that they considered their own thoughts and comments, serious or idle, worth putting to paper, perhaps worth rereading and reevaluating. 

     It's this last point, as much as all the quotidian impediments, that has kept me from writing down what I think and think about.  My inner monologue has always seemed too unimportant or senseless to preserve; doing so would be almost presumptuous, regardless of what it actually contains.  In consequence,  I have no record of the evolution of my thoughts or imaginings other than my memory, which cannot preserve many of them for future consideration.  I sometimes find myself thinking in loops, revisiting the same ideas without carrying them further, and letting my interests and mental pursuits get stuck in the mire of under-use. 

     Apart from it being useful and helpful to write about what one thinks, I hope that by keeping a record of my thoughts, interests, and speculations I will be able to detect when they are stagnating and, by extension, when I myself stagnate mentally or fall into the patterns of thought that hold me back.  And the habit of consciously setting aside time for thought is one I'd like to acquire.  I flatter myself that anyone who reads this blog will find it diverting and worthwhile, though I can't imagine very many people will come across it; in any case I must and do write for myself and not for an audience.

     And so, in Gottes Namen, as my father sometimes says,  I begin.