After more than one solid year of thinking and procrastinating, we’re birthin’ a blog baby here. A major obstacle/excuse? Choosing the “niche” topic for the blog. You see, we are not supposed to be “about everything and anything.” If I wanted to write a successful blog, I was told, it would need to be about something very specific, like swimwear or weightlifting or financial independence or some similar topic that you, Dear Reader, would have entered into a search engine and would have expected to find, ready and waiting for you, instantly improving your quality of life (and enriching mine).
After much soul-searching, we (my Much Better Half) and I decided to forego the aforementioned and forge our own way forward – a blog about everything – well, anything – useful.
“Useful” comes from an e-mail signature I devised as a way of apologizing for and explaining the value of my job as a teacher of history and English: “Instructor of History, English, and 1000 other useful things…” I’d said – because they really ARE useful, and most Americans don’t seem to think so. We never know what will happen tomorrow. Recognizing that singular fact means gaining the wisdom to approach the day with humility (if not fear and loathing). Being prepared for the day – any day – means having a background of truth and principles upon which to draw, no matter what “life happens” event comes our way. For at least 500 years, and really for nearly 2,500 years (since the Greeks), Western people have had the idea that studying the lives and thoughts of other people – often-times people long dead – might provide us the everyday examples, good and bad, by which we might learn the art of skillful living. I claim to be a purveyor of that art – the art of skillful living. The most useful thing we could ever do? Learn from the wisdom and folly of others so that we might make our own way by a better light than they had.
In this blog, I’ll strive always to provide “Useful Things” – in love, life, and learning. I hope you enjoy, and I thank you for visiting.