Beginnings

I always sort of feel like beginnings should be particularly inspired things, well thought out, planned in advance, and as close to perfect as possible. Strange then, that some of the best things in my life happened from beginnings that were hardly even detectable, the accumulation of a series of small events. Indeed, I can only hope this little foray into the world of cyberspace prose is one such beginning, as I can claim no premeditation this time.

Probably the usual thing is to start with a summary of the purpose motivating the creation of a blog, and to utter a few enthusiastic intentions to write regularly and at length. I've started enough journals in my time to view such commitments with a bit of cynicism. For now, my main motivation is to add enough text so that the slap-dash formatting of this blog doesn't irritate me later when I want to sleep.

"Transient Theorist" is rather a vague title, which currently suits my mood, place in life, and certain parts of the way that I see the world very well indeed. With regards to my current occupation, it refers to ecological and mathematical theory. When not subsumed by this occupation and my day to day struggles with computers, equations, simulations and the like, the 'theory' component could expand to cover everything from environmentalism and philosophy, to theology, literature and economics. With the buzz words out of the way, I often find more the more random, particular theories of my everyday life to be far more amusing (ranging from predictions about the underlying pattern behind the lunch menu, the presence of sprinklers in diving pools, the fall of 'nifty' from lexical favor, and the merits of munching red peppers on airplane flights).

I guess that covers the Theorist part. Transient is even easier to explain... I'm well into my second month of living with only the things I could carry with me via air travel, with an unknown number of months and journeys yet to go. This represents rather a challenge for me (in case it wasn't apparent from the way that I began this post, I much prefer to plan my futures out far in advance), but I'm attempting to embrace this as a new and novel way of existing. Time will tell.

As for now, I think this is quite enough to get things rolling. Just like getting into a cold lake - I always take it real slow... To finish up with, I think I'll post a quote. I enjoy collecting them, and have amassed some substantial word files, so I intend to indulge in sharing these little gems, which I can at best take credit simply for having appreciated.


“If it should turn out that we have mishandled our own lives as several civilizations before us have done, it seems a pity that we should involve the violet and the tree frog in our departure.”

- Loren Eisley, US author, scientist and naturalist.