03 May 2007

Why I write

Before I get off the ground, I would like to explain my motivation for establishing this blog and why I write. I primarily founded this blog to deal with serious matters, especially those related to contemporary politics and society, theology, and my academic pursuits. In other words, this is for the topics that I know will receive little more than a disinterested glance from most readers of my personal blog. I would like to try to tackle controversial and difficult issues, especially those of religion, and for some of these topics, I would like to do so without openly revealing my position. This is more an exercise for me than anything else; an attempt to articulate my thoughts in a more considered and objective sense instead of a persuasive and biased manner. I'm unsure whether this is a very realistic goal though. I suspect it is not.

I would like to make it clear that even if I am completely unable to disguise my stance, my goal with writing in this blog is by no means to persuade. It is firstly for self-expression and to help order and articulate my mental processes on issues that are often complex. It is to discuss issues, to connect both with like-minded individuals and to encounter and learn from opposing viewpoints. I cherish every opportunity I receive to listen to someone calmly and rationally present a viewpoint with which I do not agree, as I feel it is important to not only know where you are coming from, but to know where others are coming from as well. Recognising that individuals all start from completely different contexts is a valuable step to mutual understanding, at least in my opinion. Accordingly, I do not want to try to persuade anyone of my opinion. I realise people rarely change their opinions due to online discussions; my cynical side would like to argue that people change their opinions most readily when a strong appeal is made not to reason but to their self-interest, and I have no motivation to even try to guess the self-interest of any reader, let alone a desire to appeal to it. So I would just like to discuss, to raise topics, to articulate and justify my thoughts, and to hear what others think and why.

So if anybody out there does in fact read this, please feel more than welcome to leave comments. I love to read comments and to engage with other people. A monologue can never be as interesting as a dialogue.

Have a good one.

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