INTRODUCTION

In the play, The Ruling Class, the protagonist is quite mad and believes he is God. One inquisitive relative asks, “How do you know you are God?” He replied, “When I pray I find I’m talking to myself.”

The risk of writing a blog is the risk of talking to yourself and, well, I think you get the picture. Blogging is something that did not even exist a few years ago but now represents a new form of communicating ideas.

I enjoy telling a story, sharing an opinion and advocating a position. I intend this blog to be something of a personal magazine. It will consist of material of interest to me and, hopefully, to you. I hope to touch on many topics but the one I will come back to over and over again is politics. Politics is a lot like dirty dishes – the task is never done. However, there can be fulfillment even in unending tasks.

Are you familiar with the Greek myth of Sisyphus? Sisyphus defied the gods, put Death in chains, and when he found himself in Hades, managed to talk his way back to this world because he preferred life in the here and now on earth over some other kind of existence.

He was captured and condemned by the gods to roll a boulder to the top of a mountain. Upon reaching the top of the mountain the boulder would roll back to the bottom. He would then begin the process of rolling the boulder to the top of the mountain again. The gods felt this eternal effort to be punishment. However, Albert Camus in his famous essay, “The Myth of Sisyphus,” states that this was actually a victory for Sisyphus because “the struggle towards the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart.”

There is always frustration in life in general and in politics in particular. However, it is the struggle that keeps us motivated. If it were easy and simple it would not be interesting. There is much to do. Let us begin.