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On Trying

"Such an argument is necessarily an essay---a trial or an an attempt. It risks error all the time; it is in error, inevitably, some of the time. The idea that it could produce a verdict is absurd, as is the possibility that it could be concluded. I am never completely happy with this project, and sometimes I am not happy with it at all. I dislike its necessary incompleteness, and I am embarrassed by its ceaseless insinuation that it is a job for somebody better qualified. I keep returning to it, I think, because the study of connections is an endless fascination, and because the understanding of connections seems to me an indispensable part of humanity's self-defense."
                                                   -Wendell Berry, Preface to Home Economics

I haven't kept up with this blog, not because I don't want to or don't have ideas, but because I'm scared.  I'm scared to put my words out there.  But today I saw these words by Wendell Berry, and they resonated so deeply. Berry is a prolific writer and I realized that in order to be prolific while feeling these feelings of unhappiness and embarrassment, he has to be brave. He continues to write despite these feelings.  He tries. He essays. So I'm going to take inspiration from Berry yet again, and commit to trying to write here more. I also want to use these words of Berry's as inspiration for my blog: that posts are essays or attempts to work out the understanding of connections, and that they risk error, they won't produce a verdict, and they won't be concluded.

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