This is my first post in my first blog. I’m using WordPress, which is a wonderful free software but a terror to set up and customize, so it’s going to be a rough start. Bear with me.

I’m retired, getting old (early 70s), don’t want to use social media (once monetized, it hurt more than it helped), so I’m trying blogging. Vox clamantis in deserto. I’ll probably post some things I’ve written before, published and unpublished, posted to Facebook (which I want to quit–but how would I stay in touch with far-away friends?) or just saved in a file somewhere. That includes newspaper articles, travelogues, galleries of photos with interpretive text, some poetry, articles, aphorisms, a book review first published in the Journal of Scholarly Publishing and other eclectica. I hope you find something that “speaks to your condition,” to borrow a handy Quaker phrase.

Of course, I’m not officially a Quaker, not being a member of a monthly meeting, but I subscribe to their version of quasi-religion. There’s no creed to avow, no liturgy to recite, no sacraments to celebrate or holidays to observe. It’s hardly a religion at all. But it is an organized attempt to recognize and respect the Light, the living mystery that lies at the ground of our being, as 20th-century German philosopher Martin Heidegger might say.

Anyway, it will be a potpourri of topics generally connected with those in the tagline of this blog. Now, back to figuring out how to make this software do what I want.