In Defense of Everything Else

Several people have asked me what I mean by writing a blog. I don't know that I mean anything in particular. Lots of people write blogs (and some of them have even fewer hits than this one).

A word about the title; Ivan Karamazov (from Dostoevsky's book The Brothers Karamazov, the greatest novel ever written), in my opinion, is a man who has many ideas floating around in his head, who is interested in all of these ideas, but believes none of them. He loves to construct an intellectual apparatus, and then mercilessly destroy it. I think that a lot of his attacks on Alyosha's faith, for instance, seem to stem more from a desire to tear to pieces an idea to which his brother clings very tightly, rather than from innate atheistic tendencies.

I envision this blog as a place for me to lazily post ideas, thoughts, arguments, complaints, rants, and, when the mood strikes me, cute videos of cats.

This seems an appropriate time to thank you, the reader, for frequenting my blog. I refuse to do so. You're the one presumably profiting from my time and effort; why should I thank you? You ought to be thanking me; preferably in the form of donations, which would eventually enable me to quit my day job and live off of the public's patronage.

Until that day comes . . .