Blog Intent

This may seem a little late to be writing on what my intent is with this blog, but it might be useful to reexamine my motivations. Before embarking on writing this blog I spent several months pondering what I was hoping to do with it—what my aims were. I still wrestle with those intentions, seeking to clarify my purpose.

By dint of choosing the title “Hermit Musings” I made some decisions as to its intent. To muse is to ponder, reflect, ruminate, evaluate, meditate. My intent here is to chew over things and to write about them.

Many times I’ve asked myself, Who am I writing for? If I were describing very personal matters, I’d best enter them in a journal. In contrast, if I were writing for a wide audience, I’d try to get published in a magazine. I like to do both of those, but the blog is somewhere in between; I’m still not sure where.

As I’ve pondered my motivations, I’ve come up with a few topics that I’m trying to explore in this blog and a few topics I intentionally avoid. One area I love to explore is my interactions with and readings about the natural world. I like to ponder nature’s wonders that I see and learn about, reflect on them, dig a little deeper, and thus either seek to understand them better or have a little fun playing with the possibilities they suggest.

A second area I delve into is trying to figure out the true nature of existence—get past the immediate and surface impressions and try to get a peek at a deeper reality. How and why did things come to be what they are? How does my world tick?

A third motivation is to practice the writing art—trying to organize my thoughts and express them in a coherent manner. In my private journal I am free to be sloppy when I wish to, but the blog is written with the expectation that someone might read it, and thus it behooves me to respect their time and try to write as concisely and understandably as I can.

Threaded through all of these motivations is my basic desire for improved understanding—of my experiences, of my world, and how to communicate with others.

There are a few areas that I try to avoid in this blog: current events, politics, the very personal, judgments, and certainties. Current events quickly grow stale. Politics can be divisive. I’ll keep the personal stuff to myself. I don’t feel that I am in a position to judge anyone, and there is little in life that is certain (especially just when we think it is).

So these are my musings. I don’t claim to have a corner on the truth or possess any definitive answers to life’s phenomena. I prefer to sit with the mystery, accepting the fact that I don’t know the answers. I’ll try to keep an open mind, chew on things, and see where it takes me.