Hello!
I've had the account for this blog for probably six months now, and I haven't written a single post. That changes today!
In this, and in many other endeavors in my life, I struggle to put my work out there for others. I'm certain that's a defense mechanism so I can avoid judgment. I'm afraid readers will find my writing boring, inane, inelegant, or worse. The only way to push through that discomfort is to lower the barrier to entry.
One of the ways I might use this blog is to write about what I'm reading. I just finished "Crime and Punishment" by Fyodor Dostoevsky and "Konfidenz" by Ariel Dorfman. I'd never read anything by Dorfman before. The vast majority of the novel is a single emotionally fraught, hours-long phone call between its two protagonists, who are political exiles. Trust--how we can really know someone else is telling the truth--is a principal theme.
In some ways, Konfidenz shares a lot in common with "You Can See Everything," the documentary from Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim that seemingly everyone in my life has watched recently. How do we know when we can trust someone else, and whether that person is being manipulative or sincere? Does it matter if this person has lied before?
This was an extremely short post, but I've got to start somewhere, so I'll wrap things up now. In the future, we'll see how my posts evolve: I might try to talk more about books I read or other media I consume. I'll seek to improve the quality of the writing and my ideas as I get more posts under my belt. Thanks for reading, and to the next one!