My name is David, and this is my personal blog. I started this blog during the COVID lockdown in early 2020. At the time, I was going through a divorce, I had lots of free time on my hands, I was stuck at home, and I was lonely. So I started writing because I knew how to write, I had time to write, and I had things I wanted to write about. And I decided, perhaps foolishly, to put that writing on the internet, and here I am. I jokingly called the blog "David Does Quarantine," a reference to how I chose blogging as a way to pass the time in social isolation.
My writing spans a wide array of topics and subjects. I've written essays on philosophy, religion, music, politics, pop culture, literature, art, self-improvement - really, anything I feel like writing about. My focus isn't on any one topic, but more on finding new ways of seeing the world. I like to write what other people are not writing. If I can, I like to write what other people are not even thinking.
Besides just passing the time, there are several reasons why I decided to blog and why I want to keep blogging. First and foremost, I use writing as a way of examining my own thoughts and beliefs. I am a firm believer in the Biblical proverb that we should "always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who calls you to account."(1) Speaking for myself, I am aware of a great many thoughts and opinions I have that were formed so slowly and over such a long period of time that I cannot reconstruct precisely where or when I made up my mind regarding them. I do not like the feeling of walking around with beliefs in my head that I cannot fully account for. I consider it almost a moral obligation to examine those beliefs in detail, and writing is the discipline that best suits me for this.
Still, there is more that I love about writing than just exploring my own beliefs. Writing is an opportunity to say things I don't believe: to say things I would never say and to do things I would never do. There's something about putting words onto a page, reading them back, and getting that wonderful sensation that somebody else must have written them. It's a feeling I assume all artists must have when viewing their own art. To see thoughts on the page I didn't know I had, phrases used I have never used before, descriptions of things far too detailed for me to have come up with - I can understand why so many people throughout history have said, and really believed, that their writing was inspired by God. How many false prophets have become so enamored of their own words that they were convinced God wrote them?(2)
Perhaps this is why I want to share what I write; because writing is always an exchange, even if only with oneself. There is something thrilling about putting ideas out into the world and letting them live their own life. What's more, I am convinced that what this world needs is the same thing I need: a good self-examination. Today's climate of political, cultural, and social factionalism is overrun with tribalism and groupthink. Our thoughts are cooked up by thinktanks and served on the platter of social media. "Prechewed chewing gum" is what Professor K. would call it. As I see it, if we are going to make any progress as a society, people need to start speaking their beliefs, especially their misfit beliefs. We need to hear the ideas that nobody wants to hear because they don't fit neatly into their prelabled categories.
I do not consider any of these short essays I put on this blog to be finished products. Though I do put a great deal of time and thought into what I write, my goal is not to achieve a publisher-ready quality. Most of what I place on this blog is either a first or a second draft. An astute reader will probably be able to tell which essays I spent time revising and which ones I did not. In either case, my goal for this blog is not to reach an end draft here, but to keep myself in the habit of examining my beliefs and to keep myself somewhat accountable by sharing that examination here. I have, on occasion, changed my mind about a topic after posting an essay about it. I do not consider this a failure. If we were never allowed to change our minds, there would be no use for essays to begin with.
In the spirit of moving past the age of COVID lockdowns, I have renamed this blog "David's Post Quarantine" as a bit of play on words. I don't exactly do quarantining these days, as the old blog name had it. With the days of social isolation behind us (hopefully for good), I am looking forward to living a post-quarantine life.(3) At the same time, this is a nice little place for me where I can quarantine my internet posts. I can place my thoughts and ideas into this neat little zoo exhibit. I promise, my beliefs are not contagious. They are hermetically sealed in this blog. You can peruse and read as much as you like. There have been no known ideological leaks or indoctrinations at this facility.
Footnotes:
(1) 1 Peter 3:15
(2) It is commonly believed that false prophets are proud and arrogant, but I suspect that false prophets are in their own way quite humble. They are so humble, in fact, that when they produce a great work of fiction, they cannot accept the fact that they produced it. Being enamored of the art they know flowed from their hand, yet too meek and lowly to accept that such masterful works were their creation, they concoct a myth that it was God all along who wrote the words, and they were merely a humble tool, a mere instrument in the hand of God. Beware of how deceitful humility can be.
(3) Ironically, in the middle of writing this post, I contracted COVID for the second time and am currently isolating. Reality has a way of ruining my nice and neat metaphors.
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