Welcome to The Library, a new section I’ve created for personal essays of a more structured nature than my normal ramblings. While I can’t guarantee that I’ll be very prolific here (Constitution 3.0 has moved to Jira, by the way, so that I can more flexibly interrelate all the concepts), the goal is for me to get my voice out there on things that matter to me, things important enough that I’ve spent a fair amount of time thinking about them and that I’d welcome others to chime in on.

First off, “The Library”—the name, that is. I have not made much of it online, but I have been in the process of having a house built since December of last year. The bricks arrived today. The metal building that will act as a barn and carport is finished, save for running the electrical. The framing is done, as is the spray foam, and they’re starting the sheetrock. The house is much-scaled-down from earlier iterations of it, but it is much more practical. And, the first thing visitors will see when they enter is my living room, which I have modeled after an old English library: rich leather; dark wood; cozy, warm lighting; and lots of books. This room is—if I could just find someone willing to participate—the place where I would host my own modern-day salon—groups of curious, intelligent people all sitting around and discussing interesting topics. I might have mentioned a concept years ago called The Forum, a public third space deliberately set up for the same purpose. Well, I couldn’t justify paying prime real estate prices to set it up in the city, so perhaps my home will have to do instead. In any case, between the living room / library / smoking room (if we’re using the traditional English estate architectural term) and the dining room (which I’ve modeled as a combination of a medieval tavern and a Victorian apothecary), my hope is that my friends and I will have many interesting conversations. But, since I live in the middle of nowhere, it might be a while before there’s anybody to have those conversations face-to-face, and so I am hoping that this nook of my website will act as its surrogate in the interim.

This will not be the typical blog that covers a specific niche of topics. This is not, for instance, a treatise on systems engineering, a cookbook of firmware design patterns, an Ode to Gay Horses (unless you’re into that) or even a dissertation on proper horse care. It is not a series of reports or reactions to the books I’ve read or a rant about politics (though both of the latter have occupied a lot of my time lately). No, this is a series of unrelated articles about things that I thought were interesting and wanted to share.

Importantly, this is also not (meant to be) a one-way channel where I expound from the Bully Pulpit. I welcome y’all’s feedback and interest. Maybe we can discover some interesting things together. But please, be respectful to me and to other commenters, and please handle disagreement and misunderstandings charitably. Topics might get passionate, but they must remain civil. In an age of increasing polarization, the most defiant thing we can do is refuse to buy into it, to hold ourselves to a higher standard of civility.

It’s The Library
The topics: picked from thin air.
Discussions abound.