On the Strange and Subtle Process of Beginnings

I am fairly certain – at least in the sense that I can be certain of little else – that I was born. And yet I have known others, met and spoken face to face with reasonable human beings who are willing to doubt their own existence. Perhaps it pleases them to throw out the only belief all sane men have always hither to agreed upon. More likely, they believe that we do not exist, not for their personal pleasure, but rather, for their personal rebuke. That is, they would rather live in the pain of willful disbelief than the pain of willfully believing anything – they confront the discomfort of uncertainty by giving up on anything certain and everything comfortable.

And so I begin with this – that I do believe in my own existence. Even if it seems silly, even if I seem in this moment to be merely sounding into this rough new world like a boy shouting “I am here!” into a canyon, I feel it is very important to say something. I am here – even and especially if I cannot be sure of why. Descartes would agree with me, I believe; but it must be noted some modern philosophy professors wouldn’t.

The point is that I am sitting in front of a dimly lit computer screen, which nevertheless rests un-contended as the brightest object in the room, and I sit typing at a quarter to two in the morning. The point is that I can’t sleep; and in the darkness of a noise-filled summer night in Texas, I have only my thoughts to rest upon.

That is why I begin – it is because I think. For the same reason, I believe in my own existence. From this vantage point, I might yet look past my dim computer screen and into the darkened rooms of human life, and from them, peer into the steely heavens, and look over all the slumbering earth, and find in these the answers to many questions. It is more possible that I will only find more questions to ask. But these are the risks. From this point on, I will write of things the way I examine them; all of these things I come across must be seen in the light of stable reason – and we will come to see, where reason fails, what follies are most noble – and we will see how far some common sense might take us. Come, then, and let us reason together – let us reason toward the places it may truly lead us.