I wanted to change the course of Western Civilization.
Yes, I really did, with the callow expectation of actually doing it. It was a phase.
Now, I write to share things I find interesting, which is almost everything. My goal here is to communicate, entertain, and to provide an escape from the ordinary, an exposure to the unusual. Having a venue to share my obsessions is an added benefit. Helping people learn valuable things they would never have spent two seconds on, maybe by presenting them differently, is also a worthy task.
I’m William Serad and I’m interested in too many things to list here. My compulsion is to learn about everything:
What America was and could yet be. History and the future. Mahler and Brahms. Mozart and Bach. The Phillies. Tennyson and Roethke, storytelling, philosophy, understanding, searching, mercy, God. My family, joy, love, intimate friendships, worship. Cello, opera, public policy, economic theory, mathematical models, children and grandchildren, ancestors…
Here I publicly admit I have started at least a book a year for 15 years or more. Most of my many thoughts are stray. My wife and children think I am the font of knowledge, and they want me to write it all down before I die (a family joke). I offered to do it on the handy 3X5 cards I usually carry.
Yes, when I was younger, I wanted to change the course of Western Civilization. That was given up long ago. Changing the course of my day is enough for me now.
Yet I still believe Art is to be experienced, and I want to see it treasured and taught. That would change our civilization. The value of music education surely must be at an all-time low. And we English speakers are so gifted with a rich history of language, but few read and fewer write as in the past. Art of all sorts has diminished value today, a tragedy. I would speak up for publicly held values, Art among many. So I will here address public values, and Western Civilization in a very small, cranky way.
There is so much unkindness in the world. Life is hard enough without adding to another's challenges. I have inadvertently been the source of plenty of additional challenges for many, but I really can't think of purposeful unkindness on my part. I am just a dope. At this more mellow point in my life (I was a youthful curmudgeon, an unconscious practitioner of lifemanship), I would really like to lift other's burdens. I rely on my wife to help me recognize those occasions where I can, since I am somewhat oblivious and she is sensitive and kindhearted.
Before the last leaf,
I will give a song, a poem,
just to make love known.
Now, I write to share things I find interesting, which is almost everything. My goal here is to communicate, entertain, and to provide an escape from the ordinary, an exposure to the unusual. Having a venue to share my obsessions is an added benefit. Helping people learn valuable things they would never have spent two seconds on, maybe by presenting them differently, is also a worthy task.
I’m William Serad and I’m interested in too many things to list here. My compulsion is to learn about everything:
What America was and could yet be. History and the future. Mahler and Brahms. Mozart and Bach. The Phillies. Tennyson and Roethke, storytelling, philosophy, understanding, searching, mercy, God. My family, joy, love, intimate friendships, worship. Cello, opera, public policy, economic theory, mathematical models, children and grandchildren, ancestors…
Here I publicly admit I have started at least a book a year for 15 years or more. Most of my many thoughts are stray. My wife and children think I am the font of knowledge, and they want me to write it all down before I die (a family joke). I offered to do it on the handy 3X5 cards I usually carry.
Yes, when I was younger, I wanted to change the course of Western Civilization. That was given up long ago. Changing the course of my day is enough for me now.
Yet I still believe Art is to be experienced, and I want to see it treasured and taught. That would change our civilization. The value of music education surely must be at an all-time low. And we English speakers are so gifted with a rich history of language, but few read and fewer write as in the past. Art of all sorts has diminished value today, a tragedy. I would speak up for publicly held values, Art among many. So I will here address public values, and Western Civilization in a very small, cranky way.
There is so much unkindness in the world. Life is hard enough without adding to another's challenges. I have inadvertently been the source of plenty of additional challenges for many, but I really can't think of purposeful unkindness on my part. I am just a dope. At this more mellow point in my life (I was a youthful curmudgeon, an unconscious practitioner of lifemanship), I would really like to lift other's burdens. I rely on my wife to help me recognize those occasions where I can, since I am somewhat oblivious and she is sensitive and kindhearted.
Before the last leaf,
I will give a song, a poem,
just to make love known.