Saturday, March 14, 2009

What's in a name

I just want to dwell on another three things that are interconnected for a moment. The name of this blog is English Alphabet Derivative which is from something that one of my favorite comedians ever Eddie Izzard, who I've talked about before. The full saying is "A collection of letters, derived from the english alphabet, signifying all that is me." I named my blog that because I believe with that to some degree all of life's experience is in some way derived from something else. That seems a bit of a jump to go from the english language to the meaning of life, but stay with me here. As humans we learn by association, babies actually start with their strongest sense, that of smell, to associate the scent of their mother to their presence. We build on this experience and very basic others, like being hungry, or sleepy, and as we grow older, the experiences (tend to) grow more varied and complex until we are adults and there are so many things that seem so basic a part of human life that it should be universally known, but if a person's experiences have generally differed from most people's from birth and even times before that, then they can percieve that basic fundamentality of human life as totally foreign. In the english language very few sentences have never been said before, despite it being a complex language and possessing seemingly useless variations at times, in order to truly be unique, you must include some complexity of the your human experience in your expressions. Saying "I am hungry" is nearly meaningless by itself. Saying "It's 5am and I'm hungry because I stayed up with a friend who was in trouble and we've been on the road since 9 o'clock yesterday morning on a road trip" actually expresses a small something, in my estimation. Of course, if your reading my blog, you ought to be assuming that everything here is in my estimation, unless disclaimed otherwise.

Secondly, I had trouble coming up with a screen name after cycling through a lot of garbage for my Myspace account. I settled on "A Collection of Letters Signifying All That is Me" as a shortened version of that Eddie Izzard Quote, because that's all that would fit in the space they'd give me. Mr Izzard was talking about how names are really just a bunch of letters people stick together as they name their children, or themselves that are supposed to give a glimpse of who that person is. I guess that it does give the most minimal of glimpses, but the name becomes more meaningful with life experience associated, ie you get to know the person. I found it far more interesting to give a long drawn out explanation up front of my name, as a name, rather than one or two words that I have a couple of personal associations about random stuff most people wouldn't know and even more people wouldn't care about if I took the time to explain what the hell it meant. I've never had anyone ask me what my name means, just a couple who tell me that it's way too long., to which I respond, then Myspace should shorten the number of letters available to use.

The last is a phrase which I have grown increasingly fond of since I started this Blog. My blog URL, if you've not noticed, is HTTP://polymathendeavor.blogspot.com/ and I decided on the phrase polymath endeavor because it desribes my aim in life since I was a small boy. For clarity's sake, I'll define the phrase. Endeavor is the better known word of the two, meaning by it's simplest definition is to make an effort or strive. Polymath means a person of great and varied learning. I've always been on a ceaseless journey to learn, a great deal of which many people have judged as useless. I've disregarded these judgement and believe I will continue to do so, as this so called "useless" information has countless times proven related, valuable in some way, or the journey to discover/use it in life has provided numerous worthwhile experiences. I know that it really comes down to the journey of learning is always worthwhile, even if the end result may be worth less than expected.
I can find no further words that would further my meaning.
love ya

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