The Ghost of Man's Past

In July 2013, I decided to start writing a blog.  I have no idea why.

That's right, I just sat down and started writing one day.  And it was largely stream of consciousness, un-reviewed first draft bullshit that I exceeded in quality when I was 14 years old.

But it was an exercise in what it means to pick up a skill that had been languishing for many years.  I love writing.  I love organizing my thoughts in text, spelling out my emotions on paper.  Because writing, more so than any other form of communication, is inherently indicative of the author.  Not only because of the creation of the words recorded, but also because of the choices made in every step of the process.

THE GHOST OF MAN'S PAST

I decided to call my blog The Ghost of Man's Past/Unconventional American because these are fragments of thoughts that permeate every one of my ideas and creations.  

The Ghost of Man's Past refers to all of the cultural, evolutionary, and other anthropological baggage each member of Homo Sapiens carries around in and around their bodies every minute of every day of their lives.  It is the need to find other members with whom to connect.  It is the ineffable gravitational pull between a male and a female.  It is the hatred that we place on outsiders, warranted or not.  It is the barbarous violence that has led to the deaths of many and the glory of few.  It is the warmth of a new life on a mother's bosom, and the coldness of life lost as sons and daughters weep.

All aspects of life have ties, strong and loose, to these ghosts.  So ubiquitous are these spectres hiding in our DNA and language, that people seem to discount and ignore them.  

So my goal is to highlight them.  Much like the Hawthorne Effect or the Observer Effect, ideas and concepts tend to take on different properties and manifestations when observed.  And that is what this is: an observation.

UNCONVENTIONAL AMERICAN

For most of my limited time on this Earth, nearly all of it has been spent in the United States of America.  However, I don't think of myself as a "Mainstream American".  The irony of the nomenclature "Mainstream American" is that it is implicitly contradictory.  Throughout the history of the United States, progress, change, and culture has been wrought in the furnaces of the periphery.  Music, science, poetry, athletics, invention; all have their roots and branches tainted with the stains of us who are by many, considered outsiders.  

As with the ghosts of man's past, my goal is to highlight the unconventional.  To show to the world what it truly means to be an American.  Because even the conventional American is affected by this unconventional environment.