The problem is, of course, that any fascination worth having at all tends to reward deep involvement. History, geology, astronomy, biology, music (especially Wagner), Icelandic (and other) literature, Eastern Orthodoxy, all such friendships blossom sportive and run wild once the first seed has infiltrated. A branch of knowledge you once thought you could hold in your hand and admire as a fine but small adornment to the world, you now see broad beyond fathoming, permeating the world everywhere you look. Every minute of continued study rewards you with further unveilings; the impossibly strange becomes familiar and the familiar so wonderful you can scarcely remember how it looked on first acquaintance. Certainly such passions endanger your relationship with other realms of reality, and can even imperil the necessities of life (ahem, falconers!). But these subjects don't bloom in any other way, don't fully reward balanced, sober, non-obsessive study. If your intellectual passions aren't bearing such dangerous fruits, consider well that you may be wasting your time.
All this is apropos, I guess, in that my own deep engagement with one of the above-named fields has, to be honest, left me with very little interest in blogging. I'm sorry, readers, and I especially hope Odious will forgive me. But I just don't miss it. You haven't heard the last of me; I'm definitely not vowing never to post again. If I'm inspired to write a post then I'll write it. But it may not be very often.
