Introduction

Hello.  This is my first blog post ever.  I am interested in a wide variety of subjects.  I am a musician and a software developer.  I am a former Mormon, and now a practicing Catholic (practicing as in trying to get better).  However, I do not define myself by my career or my religion.  I insist on deciding what to think for myself rather than parroting some organization.

Although I am a registered Democrat, I do not define myself by that party's platform.  I used to be a registered Republican and my current views overlap both parties.  I decide what to think on an issue by issue basis.  On a great number of topics I have no opinion at all.  I don't have enough information.  I have some strong opinions and many non-opinions.  I do not feel compelled to have an opinion on every subject.

I love learning and never plan to stop.  I have two bachelor's degrees in unrelated subjects.  I also have a master's degree and almost a second, again unrelated.  I have studied other subjects in enough depth to have other degrees, which is not hard in today's free information climate.  The more I learn, the more ignorant I feel.  Not all learning expands the mind.  We can become so wrapped up in what we think we know that we close ourselves to other possibilities.

Max Planck, one of the founders of quantum mechanics, said "science advances one funeral at a time."  This is a testament to the difficulty we humans have of changing our minds and letting go of dearly held beliefs, regardless of how much evidence mounts against them.  I aspire to try to buck that trend, but who knows whether or not I succeed.  I am too close to my own thoughts to perceive them objectively.  Probably the best I can hope for is to know that I know nothing, as Socrates did.