This all started when a friend suggested that I blog. Normally, I would over-analyze the merits of this course-of-action for at least a day or two. Fortunately, blogs have been around for so long that I’ve had years to chuckle at the use of the neologism, blog, as a verb in the subjunctive tense, or to self-consciously pretend to have a non-snobby reason to avoid writing one. But my veneer was wearing thin, so I decided to follow her advice without thinking.

Of course, I had to decide on content. Many people will tell you to write what you know. That’s not very helpful advice for an agnostic. In addition to my inability to commit to any beliefs about the universe as a whole, my interests are so varied that I wondered how I could pick a cohesive topic for a blog. Secretly I hoped that if I followed my diverse interests down their respective rabbit holes for a long enough time, that they would eventually meet. Either my haphazard regimen of mental reprogramming and self-induced neocortical seizures has finally triggered a case of latent schizophrenia, with its requisite symptom of loosened connections, or I’m starting to find the common thread.

For me, that common thread is alchemy.  At its core, alchemy was a search for wisdom, the kind that causes profound personal transformation. While many debate the success of the endeavor, in its wake alchemy left western society a slew of major contributions. Chemistry, medicine, and psychology all owe their modern origins to alchemy. The inductivism at the heart of the scientific method was made popular by Isaac Newton, an alchemist. Alchemists invented the modern distillation process, which means that getting drunk no longer required gulping. Sipping suffices.

Wherever this takes us, I promise to try to be as entertaining and informative as possible, in these explorations. For variety’s sake, you will find essays, poems, short stories, how-to articles, and any other method I might think of to cover the variety of topics. As always, your suggestions and criticism are welcomed.

Oliver