Sunday, February 19, 2012

Intro Post

Okay, so I've decided to start blogging about more than just which tourist destinations I've visited recently. This is something I've been wanting to do for some time, but a combination of fear an laziness has held me back. The laziness, well that's easy enough to understand, but fear? I'm human. I'm concerned about what people think of me. I grew up in Toowoomba, which is a pretty conservative place, and I have many friends/family members/in-laws, who hold conservative views at odds with my own. Also, while I don't really consider it likely, I have a niggling fear that going public about some of the topics I wish to cover may negatively affect my career or other opportunities in the future.

However, despite these fears, and in a way because of them, I feel that it's time for me to give this a try. The numerous blogs I follow and books that I read have inspired me to develop a voice of my own, and add it to the causes I feel passionate about. While I intend to remain respectful to those I love who have differing opinions, I cannot let my respect for them silence my own voice. Hopefully, if people that I know come across what I write, they can still accept me knowing what I believe.

My intention with this blog is multi-purposed. Primarily, I wish to use this blog as a way for me to explore some of my ideas and principals, and see if they hold up to scrutiny. Other posts may be an extension of those primary ideas into waters that are muddier, but I want to see where the ideas take me. Other times, I may just write about something I find interesting or challenging. Overarching all of this is a desire to get people involved, to get people thinking, to challenge other peoples basic assumptions as I challenge my own, and to generate discussion. Topics I expect to cover include atheism, feminism, environmental issues, politics, philosophy, and anything else I happen to feel like blogging about.

I reserve the right to change my mind about anything I write. Writing this blog is intended to be a learning experience. If something I write contradicts something I wrote previously, then I've grown, learnt, and changed my mind. If something I write contradicts something else I've written, in a way that appears hypocritical rather than a change of mind, feel free to call me out on it. Lively discussion and stimulating debate are desirable; dogmatic statements of opinion without data to back them up are not.

With that, I should stop over-explaining what I'm going to do, and get on with doing it!