Starting Over

I've come full circle.

When I first began blogging, I used Blogger. It was a wonderful tool for sharing and it served me well. Later, when I was looking for more robust features, I turned to Wordpress. I was satisfied with it for quite a while--almost 5 years. Yet, here I am again, cranking up another blog with Blogspot in its address. Funny, really, when I think about it.

Recently, a lot of things in my life began to go through some interesting changes, one them being the Wordpress blog that a few others and I had been maintaining. It was a useful blog that had a great run. All good things, it seems, must come to an end. One day, not long ago, someone hacked our site, infected our archive of posts and left us with a deviously malicious code that redirected visitors elsewhere. After talking about our options (i.e., should we try to work our way through 5 years of daily posts in an effort to remove the offending code or should we just hose everything and start again), it became clear to me that none of my fellow contributors felt the same sense of urgency that I did. That's okay because, well, we're all different people with individual goals and aspirations.

I've held out as long as I could. I've tried to keep busy doing other things. In an effort to keep my mind distracted, I started tinkering with some of side projects. I plinked around with Python, checked into a few, new Linux applications, and took apart and reassembled a few old PCs. During this interval, ideas began piling up in my head. Usually, I share them, via the web, just to get them out of my cranium. For two whole weeks, I stayed away from my old Wordpress login screen. I told myself, no blogging for a little while.

Not anymore.

I have to share my ideas. It's what I do. Judging from the reactions I've been getting from a few faithful visitors to my old blog, they'd like access to the kind of content I was posting. In an effort to be a useful person and partially to get some mental relief, I'm going to start over. I'm going to take a whack at reinventing myself. Everyone should undergo a personal renaissance from time to time. It looks as if I have an exciting opportunity to dust off the remains of failure and start again...with a little more perspective. That why I'm starting this new blog.

I've always tried to approach life in an eclectic manner. I look for the best ideas from all kinds of sources--literature, the Arts, Science, technology, other people--just about anything. Why? Everything captures my attention, a condition that is simultaneously something of a curese and a blessing. I'm curious and love to learn. I try, as much as possible to glean the most useful, intriguing, and puzzling aspects of each experience I encounter. I like to think that I'm gathering a wealth of handy concepts--new, innovative, creative ways of seeing hidden or obscure leverage--that'll eventually be applied to problems and challenges I'm likely to face in the future.

I think of my approach to life as being eclectic before I'm forced by circumstances to be eclectic. In fact, I've coined a word that describes people who share my outlook. The word is preclectic. This term describes the quality of assembling the best ideas from many systems, disciplines, sources, people, et cetera long before they needed. It's a blend of responsibility, lifelong learning, advanced problem-solving, and fun that I'd love to help others crave in the same way I do.

So, I've created a blog--this blog--to help me in my endeavor. In the days to come, I hope to use this blog as a means of collecting, categorizing, and cataloging useful ideas and resources that I discover. I also want to use this blog a tool for collaborating, actually applying what I've learned and helping others to do the same. I know it'll take a lot of work but that's fine with me. I thrive on a good challenge. If anyone out there reading this would like to experience a little (or lot of) personal growth, feel free to join me.

Let's be preclectic!