I am a philosopher, a historian, a musician and a wordcrafter. I am a student, and a bibliophile. For many years I have been toying with ideas, mixing them together to make something new. I often come up with things I wish I could write down to preserve them, or tell people just to see what they think. I have been considering doing so in blog form for quite a while, but not having a strong online presence, I have decided not to more times than I remember. However, after a particularly interesting conversation one day, and another the next, I finally set this up and started posting what came to mind.
The title comes from an analogy I thought up a little while ago. I am particularly fond of analogies, as they communicate meaning in a wonderfully efficient manner, and can be extended almost infinitely. I have explained the idea in an early post, but the essence of it is: knowledge is like a piece of string - easy to throw away at first glance, but with uncountable hidden uses. I have also explained the second part of the title - that "philosopher" originally meant "lover of knowledge", which I find a particularly apt phrase when describing myself.
My posting will be erratic, as the final year of high school has a highly unpredictable workload, and more significantly, my ability to deal with said workload is changeable. I suspect posts will tail off as the year goes on, but I hope to keep the blog going beyond my final exams next October.
I am not planning to share much about my life in the blog, although it will probably leak through a little, and I will reveal correspondingly little here. Instead I'm just going to write up the miscellaneous ideas that reveal themselves to me through conversation or my own musings. Please comment! I would love to have other opinions on the various topics that may turn up. I should also mention that I rarely keep track of my sources of information, although I try to read reliable ones for the most part, so anything and everything I say could be absolute rubbish.
I would like to add (writing about a month after I started posting) that I am very excited by even the small number of visits I have had, particularly that this blog is being read not just by people in Australia, who could know me, but also people in America, whom I have never met. My thanks to you, whoever you might be, and I hope I continue to be interesting enough to hold your attention.
A Piece of String: The ramblings of a philosopher (in the old sense of the word)
