Hello again. It's been a while. I know I haven't published here, but I have been following along with my original goals to clarify my thoughts. I've been keeping paper and offline journals (semi-regularly for at least the past two years), and have been doing a fair bit of reading and thinking (never as much as I should like). Thinking back on my mindset in that first post, I had an expectation that I would figure things out—that I would hone in on true beliefs. I wanted to iron out the wrinkle...

Why am I writing a journal? And why bother posting it? Well, first, this isn't going to be a true journal (the daily self-reflection kind) as much as it will be a dumping ground for my thoughts. See, writing a journal forces me to take my dynamic, spaghetti-ball thoughts and organize and structure them into something logical and orderly and concrete. The effect of this, I hope, will be that I explore my thoughts, morals, and beliefs to their logical extremes as I try to express them. This jou...