I sometimes wonder why I keep writing articles or persist in uploading photographs. It’s been a while since I started this blog, and I think it’s worth giving this question, which I ask myself every so often, a few minutes’ attention and thought. Ultimately, the answer has to be: because I want to do so. As such, there is no higher purpose than self-gratification, and there is no wider purpose, hence it is pointless for all intents and purposes. Yet, I probably will keep going.
Part of the problem is I have not given this blog a character or a central theme, something that ties all the posts together. Instead, I have had (vague) notions of using this blog as an aide-mémoire, a scrapbook of impressions and thoughts. It has turned out that way, though I’m surprised how much ignorance I have displayed about economics, and fancying myself as some sort of a clairvoyant political pundit. Neither as economist nor political pundit have I been particularly successful, but then I hadn’t expected much.
There has been one revelation. I have come to realization how much of my memory consists of series of pictures: photographs are really good trigger for memory, not only distant, in my brain manner, but they remind me or let me delude myself of reliving the smell and the sounds.
If I were to keep writing – it’s always possible that I suddenly stop as I suddenly started – then what shape will this blog take? This blog will probably remain an odd mixture of reflections, of no interest to most people. But there are things that I don’t want to write about, things that seem too close, or I’m too scared to talk about. Perhaps that will change. There are other themes which I would like to pursue in a more coherent manner. For example, I would like to delve deeper into language and how that shapes personality (I have first-hand experience and also a vested interest). Another example would be a move towards broader understanding of humanity. Studying history has taught me that so much is unknowable in the past and in the present, let alone the future. When I can be free of worries that beset me now, I’d like to explore how my training in history could, in combination with other disciplines, lead to a more rounded understanding of what is happening and what ought to happen. They are very grandiose ideas, but I hope some frivolity in the form of blogging will be allowed.