This website is a direct extension of my personal studies. It’s one of the places I come to think.
The world we occupy, with all of its modern amenities and varying luxuries, actively works against our ability to think about much of anything. Nearly every aspect is curated to offer us ease, to help us avoid having to think about it, whatever it might be. We’re forced to set our payments on auto-pay; our services are all subscriptions; we find in many cases that we’ve been automatically included, offered only the opportunity to opt-out—something we rarely do, because what is out of sight is almost always out of mind.
When I was a kid, I remember chuckling when I would hear older people talking to themselves. At the time, I thought it was funny; occasionally I wondered if they might be losing it a little bit. But looking back, I now think, in almost every instance, they were doing the exact opposite; they were using all their mental energy to lay hold of whatever it was that was eluding them in their minds. It wasn’t losing, but was an attempt at grasping. It was their way of cutting through the accumulation of concerns, of pressures, of loud and unwelcome voices dominating the dialogue of their own minds; and so they spoke. They were just trying to think.
I totally get it now.
Much in the same way, I’ve learned that the most effective way to think about anything—to slow down, to sift, to digest, to internalize, to work through and to unscramble things—is to write. It affords me the opportunity of organizing, at least in part, the messiness of my own mind. To me, writing is an extension of that self-talk already mentioned; it’s the hard work of inaudible thinking. And I think it’s the best available means for cleaning up a crowded mind and bringing some semblance of peace and tidiness to an overwhelmed soul.
The question, then, becomes this: to what end? What is the point of spending the time to think? And what should a person be thinking about? What is the aim of it all? After all, we are very much creatures who take good things and—through our own weaknesses—use them for the wrong ends.
The aim, above all else, is wisdom. It’s to learn and to grow, to become useful, to honor God by stewarding the time well, to be a blessing to spouse, to children, to friends, to family, and to society as a whole. It’s not to become a self-satisfied, proud, and, therefore, self-deceived person. It has to be a practical aim, ultimately having a practical application in mind.
I don’t think it requires a great deal of living to see and experience the reality that much of what we prize in life—all those things the world holds in high esteem—are nothing more than empty promises. All idols are. They are dead end streets; they are vanity—a chasing after the wind, as Solomon might say1. If the real path to a fulfilled life was the path of wealth and acclaim, the majority of us are stuck playing a loser’s game. But I’ve come to believe with everything in me that the only things that matter in this life, are a devotion to Jesus Christ and a commitment to seek wisdom.
The Bible says rightly about wisdom:
Blessed is the one who finds wisdom,
and the one who gets understanding,
for the gain from her is better than gain from silver
and her profit better than gold.
She is more precious than jewels,
and nothing you desire can compare with her.
Long life is in her right hand;
in her left hand are riches and honor.
Her ways are ways of pleasantness,
and all her paths are peace.
She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her;
those who hold her fast are called blessed.
Proverbs 3:13-18
So this website is intended to be just that: a codification of thought and a pursuit of wisdom, so that if anyone should stumble upon it and read it, it will hopefully be to their benefit. As they say, one can “pick the meat, and leave the bones.”
- Ecclesiastes 1:14 ↩︎