Welcome to my world

Welcome to my Understandababel World!

To be honest, I've often felt blogging to be a somewhat ambigous activity, particularly for someone in my line of work. The better angels of my Presbyterian upbringing whisper in my ear that it merely serves to promote a dodgy culture of self-aggrandizement. I've certainly come upon much that falls into that category. Ego issues aside, I've often simply wondered whether I have very much of interest to share with Cyberworld. Frankly, I would rather not waste your time and mine. But here we are and so, once again, I bid you welcome to my world, such as it is.

And what is it? Well, I've decided that it can only be my Understandababel World. The picture above is, of course, The Tower of Babel, (1563) by Pieter Brueghel, the Elder, (one of his two Babel paintings). It vividly captures the hubris of the engineers who seek to design a structure which would match anything the gods could come up with. Unfortunately, according to Brueghel's depiction, they clearly haven't built it very well, and the whole enterprise seems on the point of collapse. But nonetheless the structure remains fixed, as it were, in Brueghel's canvas. This painting is really telling us that humanity has the unique knack of consistently kidding itself that it is all-conquering. We consistently misinterpret our ability to master our universe. We overreach. The irony, of course, is that the painting, itself, remains. Brueghel's picture in my mind at least represents the Understandababel World - a world of contradictions and ambiguities, a world where all of life can be appear permanently on the point of collapse, but nonetheless, remains. This is the world in which we live and love and struggle and grow. We try to understand it but are reminded daily of the tremendous challenge that such a task involves. But we don't stop trying. The Understandababel World is my world and I'm more than happy to show you around and let you see what I've found so far...