Post 444: I Press On With Gratitude

Two years and two days ago, I began this little blog. It is but one voice among many; it is a voice hardly heard. But that is OK. There is comfort in some anonymity, in partial invisibility. The showy and loud are heard and seen often enough. It is no small part to be the muted tone in a garish tableau, or the soft word in the silver-bright clatter. It is easy enough to be the peacock, perhaps, although that grand bird is not known for its subtle camouflage. But those flying bits of forest you can hardly see, those warbling songs you can hardly hear: What would forest and fen be like without their hidden, secret blend?

This is post 444, and it should have been posted on 7 April 07. It comes two days late because I suffered a mild concussion Saturday in a rare but violent ski accident. I feel in many ways that had I not been wearing a helmet when I crashed, post 444 would not be here today. I have been to the doctor's, I have been through the anxiety grind. I should be fine, though I am not at all myself right now. So, belatedly and through the haze of some freaky vertigo, I want to take this moment to thank all who have visited here, all 25,000 or so "unique" visitors. Thank you for leaving comments, befriending me backstage via email, or linking to something here you thought witty, foolish or something far worse. And not a few of you have told me that you've prayed for me, which is no small gesture. Thank you all. And thank you each.

I began here in 2005 with a very imperfect essay about intellectual blindness. I do not presume that any of us is without it; I surely have it. But I do presume that many people do not know they have it; and I believe Paul Krugman, who I wrote about in my inaugural post, is not aware of his own limitations. Some people forget that under the tablecloth there is a table, one that might very well be disgustingly dirty. But a tablecloth is not a table, which is perhaps to state the obvious; but it is a veneer, a shield, a shade: it is a cloak often concealing that which needs to be examined, washed, polished and, yes, even fixed. Rhetoric and polemics have their own gauzy shawl, and my aim is to look beneath it, though not in a skirt-lifting, prurient way: I want to get to thought's firm bones and to exorcise the shimmering ghosts we've been fooled to think have substance.

I earnestly pray that I may offer intelligent and edifying commentary here. And I pray that in some small way I am a help to someone.

Again, thank you for caring. You will never know my debt to you.

Peace and mirth.

©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.