OBLIGATORY PREFACE AND DISCLAIMER

Although this website (madisonsowell.com) — which I trust family and Facebook friends will  visit regularly, “Like” and even “Link” to — is entitled “The Many Worlds of Madison Sowell” and although the “about.me” page (about.me/madison.u.sowell) — which I likewise hope readers will “Like” — clarifies what many of those “worlds” are, I start Blog Post #1 with two disclaimers about my entry into the world of blogging.

Disclaimer Numero Uno:  For yours truly, “to blog” is, to quote Aldous Huxley quoting Will Shakespeare’s Tempest, Act 5, scene i, to experience a “brave new world.”  In writing this initial blog, I feel like Dante the Pilgrim lost in a “selva oscura” (Inferno 1.2).  In my case it’s not so much the “dark wood” of error as the impenetrably thick forest of HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), which is used “for tagging text files to achieve font, color, graphic, and hyperlink effects on World Wide Web pages.”  I reject responsibility  for HTML’s complexities and plead for forgiveness if links don’t work properly, fonts appear Gothic when I intended New Times Roman, and colors are less virile than I planned.

Disclaimer Number Two: While novels inevitably begin with the legal disclaimer that “the characters bear no relation to living persons,” this blog heads in the opposite direction.  “Characters appearing in this blog often bear close relation to deceased persons.”  As a result, my disclaimer (a.k.a.my artistic justification) is that I am not responsible for the actions of my dearly departed relatives about whom I shall have much to say in due course.

HEART OF THE MATTER: WHERE MY BLOGS FIT IN THE LARGER SCHEME OF THINGS

As an inveterate researcher I know that blogs come in four basic forms.  Some are published by non-profits, organizations that seek to promote charitable acts; others constitute “how-to-do” this or that and offer tips or counsel; company or business blogs seek to sell something; and, last but not least, are the personal blogs, of which this is one.

The reasons for starting a blog are varied.  Here are ten reasons, with my top three in bold:  to share thoughts and opinions, to market a product, to help others, to establish one’s expertise, to connect with like-minded individuals, to make a difference in the lives of others, to remain active in one’s field, to connect with family and friends, to make money, and to have a good time and develop one’s creativity.  Per google search, the top five blogs are Fashion, Food, Beauty, Travel, and Music.  My blogs will occasionally touch on Travel and Food, but they more often will focus on Family and Education.

I end Blog Post #1 with a quotation from my favorite poet, the great Dante Alighieri. It embodies more of a hope than a boast.  (In Dante’s case it was a prideful boast.)  Paradiso 5.109-111:  “pensa, lettor, se quel che qui s’inizia / non procedesse, come tu avresti / di più savere angosciosa carizia” (“Think, reader, if this beginning went no further [i.e., with no more blogs], how you would feel an anguished craving to know more”; Singleton translation.)

END OF BLOG POST #1 (30 November 2016): On the “Brave New World” of Blogging