Maybe once again. . .

I was beginning to write a "Farewell" post on this blog. It seemed past due for a post, and as I was looking at some of my older material it struck me just how much I've changed since starting this gig up.

But as I wrote the farewell I tripped across an explanation to keep this going.

The reason I started this blog was to keep myself sharp on the material I was learning in chemistry class, and give a resource to people who might need it to help them learn the material.

The philosophy posts were in a similar vein, in that I thought people should know more about philosophy, and writing about philosophy helped me to learn.

These are the posts that get a lot more traction on the site, I've noticed. And I have learned, since my last few posts, just how different politics and science really are. [hypothesis: why scientists are not politically involved...]

Including how each ought to be taught.

That is to say -- I began all wrong, and that wrong-ness is reflected in my posts. I was treating it far too theoretically for it to be of practical assistance to people. And people really ought to -- in the same way they ought to be familiar with science and philosophy -- know how to engage the seats of power.

Even more than philosophical speculation, there is a real dearth of knowledge or understanding with respect to really doing politics -- a kind of sense that politics is dirty, inane, or hopeless.

It is my belief that these attitudes only benefit the exact sort of people who are more than willing to make politics this kind of game -- but, even more so, that they only work to the advantage of those already in power.

How to, exactly, overcome such frustrations among the non-political, the de-politicized, and so forth -- these are questions I think about a great deal. And, unfortunately, they aren't the sort of questions which one can check against a professor or a text book. They don't even work in a similar vein to the more academic realms which motivated this blog, initially.


But then -- that doesn't make politics any less important. And, truth be told, most of my traffic [these days] comes from google searches related to either Kant or chemistry -- probably students looking for answers, and [so I can hope] getting a little direction on their questions so they can pass their exams.

And given the title, and just how many mistakes I've made [and continue to make, and think about, and try to correct] in all these various realms of reflection -- even though I'm a very different sort of person, and what I think about is very different, I came to think that I [perhaps] ought to consider continuing along this line, keeping all the embarassing speculations from before to tag along.

Perhaps you'll see that, no matter where you're at now, you can become at least passingly proficient in political matters.

I can hope.

And, at the very least, I don't have to bother figuring out all the annoying aesthetics again. ;)