I tend to overthink things. Creating a website and starting a blog is a classic example. I’ve been considering it for years. I’m not exaggerating. Years.
A long list of concerns held me back. I worried about the annual fees and subscription costs of independent proprietorship. (Free options or social media platforms were not for me. I wanted my own piece of internet real estate.) I fretted about the opportunity costs. Wouldn’t my time be better spent on other things? And don’t get me started about the bevy of other decisions–domain names, hosts, designs. Did I mention I tend to overthink things?
In March I decided to cast my fears aside and just do it.
The Backstory
Back in my heady undergraduate days I often enjoyed deep conversations with friends, sometimes over coffee and other times with colder libations, about current events and historical problems. I mean, come on, have you even been an undergraduate if you haven’t railed against injustice or passionately defended a position at 1 a.m.?
One of my more sardonic friends diagnosed my penchant for letting my emotions guide my thinking. He said, “If you were a hacker your screen name would be fuzzy_lojik.” The jab was playful, and I appreciated the clever diagnosis. I sort of adopted the moniker as a badge of honor.
Life got busy after graduation. So busy, in fact, that I have spent a couple decades feeling like there was never enough time to get everything done. My wife and I raised our two boys. I earned a PhD in History and then tenure, published a book and a smattering of other things, taught eight courses most years, led an MA program for twelve years, became a grandfather, and so on. Two casualties of this lifestyle were time to think and time to write.
Why Blog?
What does any of this have to do with writing a blog? Everything, actually. I felt like the frenetic pace of life and the jumble of work and personal obligations stole the time I needed to think. I learn best through writing, and writing in public raises the stakes in a helpful way. Knowing that the words are discoverable provides a motivation to represent my ideas in a slightly better way than mere scribbles in my notebook. Using some of my limited financial resources to host a site adds proverbial skin to the game, which I hope motivates me to write.
At the same time, though, this will not be a site that contains only well-developed arguments or polished writing. I want the blog to be more a laboratory of ideas, a space I feel comfortable sharing thoughts that are in gestation or are not fully formed. Most posts will probably be in the spirit of my younger self. The logic will most certainly be fuzzy more often than not.
Therefore, if I gave the blog a formal title it would be the Fuzzy Logic Blog. Ideas may be half baked. Emotion might overwhelm evidence. Things may get real and cringe-worthy for my future self. To my present self I say, “Go for it.” To my future self I say, “Lighten up, dude.”
Parameters of the Experiment
I’m going to blog for a year and reassess in March 2025 when it comes time to renew my domain and whatever else needs doing to keep the site live. (I have so much to learn about maintaining a website.)
Here are some general use cases and intentions.
- Deliberate practice. Writing is a craft that requires practice. Drafting blog posts of any length will be a form of repetition that will help flex my writing muscle.
- Think and learn through writing. I want to test beliefs and hold certain ideas to the light of scrutiny to better understand different viewpoints and perhaps arrive at my own conclusions.
- Document fleeting thoughts or things that have my attention. These types of posts might be the equivalent of putting a flag in the ground or to timestamp a thought. I might develop it over time or not.
- Link to articles or posts to provide short reflections or signify them as things I thought important in the moment.
In general, my goal will be to post once a week. I might muster more during some seasons, but there will also be times when the blog goes quiet because of other responsibilities. It will likely be difficult to post anything during the last two weeks of any semester, for example, when I need just about all of my available time and brain power for grading and other end-of-semester tasks.
So, whether it is short- or long-lived, welcome to the Fuzzy Logic Blog.
michaelrosenow.com 