Introduction

This has been a long time coming.

"Start a blog" has been among the self-suggestions bouncing around in my head for a couple of years now, as something that appeals to my desire to write and be read. We'll see how that works out, of course, but by this point I believe I've got a few thoughts worth putting out there.

The first blog idea I had, back in 2010, was to be called "the Humanaut." Perhaps it's my seafaring-norwegian ancestry, but I've always liked the suffix -naut, coming as it does from the greek nautes, "sailor," and consequently showing up in the term "astronaut" (star sailor). Younger words like psychonaut or gastronaut use the same suffix to evoke the sense of adventure and exploration associated with astronauts, adding new meaning atop the old sailor bit.

Being about to embark on a journey of indeterminate length, with no fixed route nor official home to go back to, "Humanaut" was the term I felt best described my aspirations: my motivation for leaving was quite simply to broaden my experience of being human, both in developing myself and meeting new people.

If that sounds like I went out wandering to "find myself," then the end result must prove the phrase that "you are what you eat." I ended up back in the town I grew up in, pursuing an opportunity to intern on a farm, beginning my DIY-education on how and why food matters. Matters surrounding food have come to dominate my life in the time since, as food seems to be related to nearly all my other points of interest- human health and disease, the capabilities of the human body, our relationship with the rest of earth's ecosystem and damage that is presently occurring, etc.

Food, then, will probably be the dominant topic of this blog. But I couldn't title it "gastronaut," because there are so many other topics I want to explore- human-powered transportation, psychology, social issues, art, photography, media bullshit, education, music... there's a lot in the world to be interested in. But "humanaut" seems to broad and vague to really mean anything anymore, and while I'm largely a humanist my view of reality has become a lot less human-centered.

So just the suffix itself, then, seems most appropriate, and of course I made sure to work it into a bad pun. Not that it's a meaningless pun. Given the issues I care about and groups I identify with, the views I hold and things I do truly do often seem... naughty. I'm an environmentalist who eats mostly animals. I'm a farmer who believes agrarianism is at the root of a lot of our problems. I think Michael Pollan's a good guy but is barking up the wrong tree entirely. I have wheat-related health issues but I don't think wheat's the villain. And I hold that "Forks Over Knives" is the worst "documentary" since "What the Bleep Do We Know?"

Like I said, naughty. But I think I have good reasons to be, and I intend to discuss them right here.

First, though, I'll post some food. Corazon, anyone?