Why Write? For its Own Sake
My Own Objections to Putting My Writing Out There
I go back and forth a lot on the idea of whether I ought to even do this kind of writing. There are some objections in/from my own mind to my doing so:
I don’t really have anything important to say that hasn’t already been said, and said much more effectively, by someone else.
I don’t have significant trauma or special experience in my past that would qualify me to talk about most issues.
No one actually cares about the things I’d be saying anyway.
My Answers to Myself
All of the above points are true, but perhaps they need not stop me. In starting to write this here and now, I am answering the objections along these lines:
I’d rather contribute my voice and have it turn out to be unnecessary than remain silent and wish I’d articulated my thoughts somehow.
If I’m truly consistent with my moderate disdain for “Lived Experience” as the main standard of worth for a given perspective, then I shouldn’t particularly care whether I have firsthand experience of every facet of what I write about.
I should be developing this skill regardless of whether I start out writing things that anyone would care about.
(In fact, if I really think about it, waiting to write out my thoughts until I have an appreciative, invested audience would be a bit like waiting to mix yeast into a loaf of bread until after I’ve baked it in a hot oven for half an hour.)
Perhaps that third point is especially important. A high level of quality in writing is not as easy or as common as I once took for granted. It is achieved through development. Discussion of specific subject matter is only one part of what I’m after. It’s also more generally about my ability to discuss any subject matter.
Speaking of Subject Matter
For now my thought is simply to write about things that interest me, more like a true and honest blog than an “official” source. Here are some of the things I could see being included in the future:
Biblical themes and truths (what I notice from my own reading, or find compelling about what others notice)
Cooking and baking, especially the low-carb/keto kind (how appealing can you make your food without starches and sugars?)
Low-carb/keto as a general “lifestyle” that exists (the discipline involved and its existence as some sort of counter-culture)
Truth and “spin” in new media and new platforms (or the outright censorship found therein)
Current events and culture
“Geeky” interests like video games, animation, and other forms of fiction
Bad analogies like the one above about yeast (most analogies are bad, it’s just a question of how far you have to push them to discover the badness)
I want to start out broad because I don’t feel that I have such deep expertise that I can delve into a subject narrowly and have that constitute an entire blog. Maybe at some point the scope could narrow. But for now, the main thing is to write.
Why Now? Because of Truth
As I write this, I am smack in the middle of the year AD 2021. It looks like the United States are beginning to drop the most egregious parts of their theatrical, panicked responses to the COVID-19 pandemic — a response which trod upon a frightening amount of human dignity and liberty, and laid bare the inherent fragility of a liberal political system.
Can I get a show of hands as to who among us now honestly believe that our rights are seen as inalienable by modern governments?
For me it was more and more of a wake-up call the longer and longer the pandemic went on. What began as an “all in this together” sort of rallying devolved after a few weeks into the usual politicization and posturing about (put as broadly as possible) “making other humans do stuff,” and usually on the basis of weak (at best) evidence.
Perhaps the main impact on me of all this was a deeper hatred of lying, living by lies, and imposing the lies on others. Of course, I never liked the idea of lying, but I also don’t think I fully appreciated the possible consequences of it.
I read 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos earlier this year, and one of the most powerful of the eponymous rules was Rule 8: “Tell the truth — or, at least, don’t lie.” When we don’t tell the truth in the face of a lie, we enable some Real Bad Stuff™. Dr. Peterson draws a line from failure to tell the truth to the worst of the human atrocities of the 20th century totalitarian states. It doesn’t begin with gulags; it begins with telling lies unopposed.
Podcast Epistemology
Concurrently with this development, starting sometime in the fall of 2020, I became more interested in long-form discussions of ideas and events, which is to say, podcasts. Suddenly everyone had more time to produce and consume them. Many offered perspectives that too often did not make it onto more “official” platforms.
I started down this rabbit hole beginning with the podcasts like the Babylon Bee and Conversations with Coleman. I’ve since listened to podcasts by (not all of them and some more faithfully than others) Megyn Kelly, Jordan Peterson, Mikhaila Peterson, Triggernometry, Dark Horse, Relatable, Apologia, and the Dividing Line.
Why do I bring all these up? It’s not just to plug them. It’s not even to provide context for the exact thoughts and and perspectives on my mind lately. The common thread you’ll find among all of the above — and perhaps the main benefit of podcasts as a medium — is this emphasis on saying things that are not being said in more mainstream channels. Or, put more poetically, it’s about revealing. I am reminded of Heidegger’s particular use of the Greek “aletheia” to define truth as “unconcealedness.” No doubt I am misusing the idea horribly, but it’s what I’m reminded of nonetheless.
A Note About the Title
“Keto diet” is such a loaded term because of various myths and fads that have arisen around it. Frequently you have to describe a ketogenic diet beyond the popular perception of mainlining coconut oil and sticks of butter. The simplest explanation I have yet found to describe keto at its core is “unbreaded meat and non-starchy vegetables.”
Breaded meat, for someone seeking to reduce starch, is a defeated purpose. It’s obfuscated substance. Like any orthodox millennial, I have cultivated avoidance for those things I perceive to be under a pretense, like legacy media or chicken tenders. When I use the word “unbreaded” as a title, I mean that it is time to aletheia the chicken tenders (I warned you about the analogies).
Even the Small, Palatable Truths
This brings me back to Answer #1 (to Objection #1) near the beginning of this post. If I feel I ought to say something, maybe I ought to hesitate just a little less to say it. Sometimes that doesn’t even mean controversy or conflict with some other idea; sometimes it may just be sharing a recipe or an insight on its own merits. But either way, with a goal of getting it out there if I think it should be.
And, to revisit Answer #3, I believe that there may be some value to be explored in practicing how to put my thoughts to writing. Even the small, uncontroversial thoughts. That way, when the big, controversial ones need to be articulated, I’m able to do it well.
And besides, sometimes I like talking about the best way to make a sugar-free ice cream.
Maybe I’ll do that next.