My name is David Campbell, and this is my personal blog, RandomDave.net. I have invited other people to contribute guest blogs.
The blog goes online June 17, 2024, features a new essay each Monday, and will run until April 2025. Insofar as possible, I prefer to avoid getting embroiled in partisan politics, but I will discuss topics like global warming, racial justice, and immigration, which should influence our political choices.
Another focus is personal topics like growing one’s food, cutting one’s hair, and riding a bicycle for transportation.
The third major focus is random incidents that either have larger significance, such as an event I witnessed while riding with the police, or are just fun to look back on and think about.
Writing helps me examine my own views. When I see an idea staring back at me from the page, I’m in a better position to spot the contradictions in my thinking. A major challenge in writing about political topics is to keep a broad perspective on rapidly changing situations. Conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza, and elsewhere cry out for attention. I accept that I may publish an analysis on Monday that becomes obsolete by Friday.
I’m trying to encourage long term thinking. Early in my working life I told my boss that what he proposed to do was fine for now, but would cause problems in four years. “So what?” he replied. “None of us will be here in four years. All the problems we have now were caused by the people who were here four years ago.”
By offering you my best thoughts, I hope to encourage you to do your own independent thinking. Start with your own life experience, and build your opinions based on factual information. We each have different viewpoints, our minds follow unique pathways, and by reasoning together we reach more robust conclusions than we could by ourselves.
So my main purpose is to stimulate a constructive exchange of ideas. Please respond with comments that focus on the particular post. I will potentially edit (to save space) every comment before putting it up on the site. Write in either English or French. Feel free to disagree agreeably. I hold that each person is entitled to her/his own opinion, but not his/her own facts.
My model for this blog is the French essayist Montaigne. He lived outside Bordeaux in the 1500’s, and after an active working life, retired to the top of a little tower where he wrote about whatever interested him. He thought of his writing as conversations with a friend.
I was born American, to loving parents of European ancestry, in 1947– I’m humbled when I contemplate my good fortune in the birth lottery. I studied engineering and liberal arts in public universities. I taught English conversation in Rouen, France, and physics in high school. I have worked for oil companies in New Orleans, and technology companies in Austin.
The essay that motivated me to produce this blog is titled, “Do What You Can.” Its intent is to encourage you to make a little effort in support of the common good, and to help you to feel better for doing so. To get comfortable with being uncomfortable.
If you like what you read here, please tell other people.
Most people consider me a decent writer, but the launching of this blog has been delayed for months because I have no talent for website design. On June 17, I realized that I can publish the website and continue to improve it. I don’t have a working Archives page, but won’t need one for at least a month. You can read everything I have published so far on the Posts page, with my newest essay at the top.
The ideas in this blog are free for the taking, but please express them in your own words. The actual text is protected by copyright.
NOTE August 10,2024: The list of posts is getting rather long, and since the few comments I’ve received so far all pertain to the serious posts, I just took down several non-serious ones. I will continue to publish fun posts occasionally, but not leave them up very long. Eventually I hope to figure out how to activate an Archive page, but for now everything has to appear on the Posts page. I currently have a total of forty posts ready to publish, so please stay engaged.