Why Another Druidical Blog?

Why indeed?

I often find myself wanting to express troubling thoughts to friends and loved ones. Too often, the impulse is irresistible--or I convince myself I need not resist it. And quite often, the results are disappointing. I bum people out, or else trigger some negative defensive reaction.

What I need is a place to talk about the way I see the world--specifically, the troubling ways I see the world--without burdening people who would just as soon not hear it.

To elaborate further will furnish an example of what I'm talking about. One of things that bothers me is that people seem to cling to so many comforting illusions. I don't just mean the people I and my friends despise. I mean everyone I know. So much of what people say to each other seems to embody a denial of this or that (probable) truth. There almost seems to be a tacit agreement by which we help one another to maintain this edifice of denial.

There may be good reasons for this. I'm not criticizing it. But it bothers me. I'm obsessed with the idea that we on this planet are in very deep trouble and we have no hope of saving ourselves while wearing the latest designer scales on our eyes.

I would like to find a denial-free zone. And that's what this blog is for.

I'm not claiming that I am actually and entirely free of scales myself. Surely I am not. For example, I want to believe that life has meaning, and I do believe that life can at least be given meaning. Those things may not be true in any meaningful (!) sense. There are probably much better examples that I'm not aware of. I've always been acutely aware of the adage, "A skunk can't smell itself."

So this is not intended as a place to feel superior to anybody. It's a place to express my unease about the world without having to worry about distressing anybody. For example, I could decide that life has no meaning, and I could say so here, and offer compelling reasons for the conclusion, without having to worry that I was harshing anybody's trip, or puncturing their plenum, because saying such things is what this place is for.

Which is to say:  Read at your own risk.

Some of the themes I'm likely to pursue here I've already touched on in one or more of my other blogs. But I think my discussion of them there was constrained by the very concerns that I intend to rule out here. I may be examining some ideas that are near or dear to my own friends and loved ones. I suppose I will not feel completely free to do that even here. (That's what real journals are for, I suppose.) But at least I intend not to worry about bumming anybody out. Because I really don't expect anyone to read this, and if they do, they've been warned.