Welcome to Cogitatively

Welcome to my new blog Cogitatively.

What is “Cogitatively?” Cogitatively is a blog about living in a thoughtful way. Perhaps, at some point you have heard the Latin phrase, “cogito ergo sum,” which means “I think, therefore I am.” Descartes is credited with the phrase (or as he probably said it, Je pense donc je suis), from which I have derived this blog title. I have chosen the adverb to qualify the way I want to live; that is, cogitatively or thoughtfully. Another way of saying to engage in deep thought or to meditate is to cogitate. My blog will be the space wherein I do my cogitating. It seems a shame to waste the endowment that separates us from other species—or the ability to use our higher order thinking for our own good and those around us! However, speaking for myself, far too often I either follow the crowd or allow my thinking to languish at a superficial level. I will change this in a material way through this blog.

That leads me to my primary goals. 1) To use writing this blog as a way to be more thoughtful, and 2) To hopefully inspire others to think more carefully, even if they do not agree with anything I say. Said another way, I care much more about the way we think than what we think.

I will write about what interests me like philosophy, art, music, design, politics, soccer, people and society, and random musings that do not fit neatly in any one category. However, my lens will almost always be to analyze thoughtfully, or cogitatively.

Lastly, I am a perfectionist. My typical way of approaching a blog would be to spend hours reading and re-reading “On Writing Well” and “Elements of Style” to deem myself worthy to write. Then, I would obsess about countless other peripheral details before ever writing a single word. That stops here. So, I do not claim to be a masterful writer (YET!). However, that leads me to a final critical element or theme of this blog. I genuinely believe in the value of practice and simply putting in the time to improve and grow. Underlying this is my belief that there is no “end” or “arrival,” but that the process itself is where the true value is found. I will be putting in the time to think and write better. It would be a most welcome byproduct to influence this world for good, but I have to start within first.

And so begins my quest for more thoughtful living. I hope you will find it valuable to join me on this journey.

Let me know what you think via Twitter. My handle is @cogitatively.