On My Blog Title

It's hard not to be pretentious when you're writing a blog. The very act of creating it is telling the world "My everyday thoughts are so profound that you should read them." The fact that my whole culture and especially my generation thinks this way doesn't help. The fact that I try fruitlessly to kick against the pricks - to try to transcend my dang generation - only makes me sound like a snob. So to soften the blow of publishing my ego in yet another format (I'm afraid I exist in numerous incarnations online. Numerous.), I've appealed to Jean-Jacques Rousseau for the title of my blog.

Rousseau was egotistical, but he was brilliant, so we forgive him. His Confessions was presciently postmodern in expecting the readership of the world to care about, much less accept his justification for, his moral shortcomings. But, to be fair, he never intended it to be on the discount rack at Barnes & Noble either. But when you read enough of him, you really do soften to the guy. Émile just tugs at your heartstrings. And perhaps his most endearing work of all is his Rêveries d'un promeneur solitaire - the Reveries of a Solitary Walker. The guy just liked to go on walks through Paris when he was getting old. And there's nothing egotistical about the random errant genius liking to take walks.

So I'll strive to keep the thoughts expressed in this blog appropriate to the spirit of the Rêveries. The title sounds a little morose, like I'm bemoaning my solitariness. Nothing of the sort. I live with a French girl who likes to talk about love, culture, and Gene Kelly. I work with fantastic, compassionate colleagues. And I also have a lawn gnome named David who travels the world with me. No - the solitude of my existence is only for literary effect.