Aaron Adams’s Blowhard Blog

I’ve posted here in the past about the HBO mini-series from this past spring, John Adams. I’ve also said that I’ve had a deep interest in the American Revolution for quite some time now, and that series finally motivated me to begin a more serious study of the topic in my free time. I believe I’ve also stated that I’ve formed a great number of thoughts about the perspective this particular part of history provides which applies to our situation today, and likely every period in American history, because we live directly under the words and actions of that period more so than any other. But I’m not sure what to do with those thoughts. Regurgitating the facts and stories researched by others certainly isn’t appropriate for this space, but I’m unsure how to organize my own conclusions (and anti-conclusions) into something coherent to present to all three people who read this page. I’m not sure that information means anything to anyone except myself, and I’m not sure it would be interpreted as much more than the lunatic ravings of a fly-over country simpleton without the brainpower to fully comprehend the subtleties more sophisticated minds find obvious. I disagree with that characterization, but I’m aware enough to know how anything I post could be viewed.

I’m learning as I go. I’m realizing things I was not aware of before because of the shallowness of my American history education during my time in government schools and my apathetic sentence in state college. As I realize things, I have the inclination to present them here as a way of alerting others to the lessons I’ve learned in the hope that I can perhaps spark the desire to acquire a better perspective in someone the way John Adams, the mini-series, sparked it in me.

I suppose I’m thinking of this like writing a term paper or a thesis, except publicly, for an audience whose composition I have only the vaguest idea of. Is not the process of learning a major part of the lesson itself? Would sharing that process and sharing that lesson with others, whoever they may be, be pointless and pretentious, or would it be a curiosity, an entertainment, something of value to others in some way? Would my impressions and conclusions initiate serious thought and reasoned debate with others, or would they cause a lot of eye rolling and hurried clicking over to something more engaging, like XTube? Can any kind of meaningful dialog come from a blog’s comments section or a forum? This assignment would have to be self enforced. There is no teacher and there are no grades and there is no deadline at the end of the quarter. Will I have time to keep up, or will I be overwhelmed by day-to-day life (as I usually am) and let this fall by the wayside? 

Perhaps I should start with a reading list of what I’ve digested so far. I’d be interested in re-reading many of these books and posting a summary and my thoughts every few days or few chapters. Would such a task be worthwhile?

• John Adams by David McCullough
• 1776 by David McCullough
• A Magnificent Catastrophe: The Tumultuous Election of 1800, American’s First Presidential Campaign, by Edward J. Larson
• Duel:Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, and the Future of America, by Thomas Fleming
• Washington’s Secret War, by Thomas Fleming
• John Adams: Party of One, by James Grant
• Washington, by James Thomas Flexner
• His Excellency George Washington, by Joseph J. Ellis
• George Washington: A Biography, by Washington Irving, edited and abridged by Charles Neider
• Miracle at Philadelphia: The Story of the Constitutional Convention, May to September 1787, by Catherine Drinker Bowen

This is the problem with blogging: I have a platform from which to speak my mind, but limited time and an unknown audience to which I speak. Am I spinning my wheels? Am I over-thinking this? Should I quite fretting and just do it, or spend my time doing something more productive? Am I paralyzing myself by analyzing this? Can you tell I’m running in a mental hamster wheel here?

A couple of years back, I looked at the sign at the Shell station on the corner and thought to myself, I never thought I’d live long enough to see $2 gasoline. Holy shit.

This week, I looked at the at the sign at the Shell station on the corner and thought to myself, I never thought I’d live long enough to see $2 gasoline. Wow.

It’s funny how expectations change.