Write out in the open
Reasoning ‘A Site Four Sore Eyes’
This is place where I can publish my ideas for the audience of me. I have an ever growing number of thixotropic reasons for setting up this platform. Probably the greatest overarching argument is to give me a place where I can air out my most persistent ruminations. This, in my fuzzy uncheckable logic, might - just might - provide some time and virtual space between my, in-this-moment thoughts, and my many-later-moments reconsiderations, allowing me to take them in with fresher, or simply differently focused eyes. In support of that objective I hope this platform will also allow me to write and publish more freely, with the only critic I might choose to answer to being that one (or small set) that resides in my mind, wherever that lives inside of me.
Subject Matter
Also in support of the aspiration of being free to think out loud, this pseudonymous space will free me up to voice my thoughts on matters which I haven’t a great depth of understanding, but do nonetheless compulsively give inordinate consideration.
I have other platforms where I do write about subjects which I’m expected to have some at least above average level of expertise. In those domains, I need to maintain a level of professional decorum. It is particularly important that my voice in those areas is perceived as level and objective.
It appears that we are in a period (hopefully just a period) where all topics of any societal importance get saddled with sometimes bizarre and most often inappropriate political or otherwise dogmatic baggage. This coupled with the internet enabled democratization of journalism and its light-speed distribution, make very murky the veracity and utility of much of modern media content.
Areas of intrigue
With the above in mind I will make every effort to identify and take ownership of my biases on the topics explored in this site Four Sore Eyes. My thinking right now is that I will categorize topics into the following areas:
Personal - Posts labeled as such will focus on my subjective relationship to extrinsic (natural and social) and intrinsic (physiological and psychological) aspects of my identity. This category is entirely for my own indulgence in pursuit of better self awareness. There may be relatable content to a happenstance reader, but I’m exceedingly skeptical when it comes to prescriptive actions based on another individual’s experience, including my own. My intention is to make that very clear when sharing my personal experiences.
Science - I do have some expertise here in a few topics, namely specific narrow areas of biochemistry and molecular biophysics. Nonetheless I give quite a lot of mental energy to many other areas of science, particularly in subjects that I perceive might intersect with my topics of expertise. That is not to say that I also don’t find myself in many other, sometimes extremely, unfamiliar territories.
Technology - My occupation is primarily as a technologist. I spend the bulk of my paycheck earning time as a superficial engineer working with degreed engineers, and occasionally scientists of varied disciplines, to identify and solve technical problems that someone feels they have a sufficiently critical need to solve such that they are willing to pay to do so.
Health and Medicine - These areas may deserve to be broken out, but for now they will remain associated. Much of my passion driven work (as opposed to paycheck driven) is in matters of health and medicine. My apprehension about categorizing these together stems from the fact that I see Health and Medicine as different from one another as Science and Engineering. Clearly they are related, but one is descriptive and sometimes aspirational and the other prescriptive and sometimes impersonal.* I’m going to put a pin in this because I don’t feel that’s a sufficiently precise or even accurate capture of my sentiments. Maybe I come back and correct it here, or more likely I’ll let it stand and clarify in future posts.
Humanity - This is domain where I admittedly have the least understanding. But I’m not sure my understanding of existential human matters is any less astute than many of the more prominent philosophical talking heads. No matter, my writing on topics related to the human experience may help me better understand and appreciate how we are all connected and what if any purpose or meaning there is to it all.
I think that covers it for what I wanted to convey with this introduction to a site Four Sore Eyes.
Thanks for reading.
With kindness,
Barry