Prologue, Preface, Introduction

So, I'm starting another blog. I suppose it would be a good idea to give a few reasons why I've decided to try this blog thing out again, and lay out a few things readers can expect from my blog in the weeks, months, etc. to follow.

1: Why?
Why keep a blog? Why write anything? Well, a number of reasons...
First, a few people have been asking recently if/when I was going to start writing on a blog again. Blogs are very handy ways to keep in touch with people, and I've been wanting to revive my dead blog-presence for some time now.

Second, it's nice to write. It's especially nice to write things that are not directly work-related. Hawthorne said he wrote to "open an intercourse with the world." I like the way he puts that. Writing in this particular format allows me to air out some of the dustier parts of my brain, and gives me room to stretch out a bit and explore some less-trodden regions of my mind.

2:What is this blog about?
The title of this blog is "Forwarded Letters from a Stoic." That needs some explanation. Initially, at least, I mean that title quite literally. Over spring break I picked up a copy of a Penguin edition of Seneca's Letters from a Stoic. I've been wanting to get to know stoical philosophy (i.e. classical writers like Zeno of Citium, Seneca, Cato, Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus) a little better for a while now, and I'm going to slowly work my way through Seneca's Letters. This blog is, at the outset, a record of that journey. It's a place for me to forward on to readers some of the especially interesting or relevant portions of the Letters, and to reflect a bit on why I find those portions interesting and relevant.

The actual title of Seneca's Letters is Epistulae morales ad Lucilium ("letters to Lucilium concerning morality"), which gives a better idea of what these letters are all about - they're mostly concerned with moral instruction. Apparently, though, it's not clear that there ever was a person named Lucilium that these "letters" were written to, so the title (as titles usually are) may be somewhat misleading.

However, the basic form of these writings is that of a collection of letters. Each letter begins with a salutation to Lucilium and ends with the standard Latin Vale ("be well"). So these are not just a bunch of ramblings by Seneca; they carry some ostensible purpose, and they are written to someone in the hope that the person who reads them (be it Lucilium or you or I) will find them morally instructive.

In the future, the title of this blog might become less literally accurate. In other words, I won't always be forwarding letters from Seneca. However, I do still intend to forward on selections from some writer or another that I happen to be reading, unrelated to my school work. So the forwarded "letters" will not always be from Seneca's Letters, but they will always be "letters" forwarded by me, and I have been accused of being a little "stoical" on more than one occasion.

In any event, that's the basic idea behind this blog. We'll see how it goes. Stay tuned.