New Blog.......Why this title?

Why "The Key to All Mythologies"?

It's a reference to one of my favorite novels, George Eliot's Middlemarch. One of the secondary characters, the Rev. Edward Casaubon, spends most of his adult life collecting notes and research for a ludicrously massive work titled "The Key to All Mythologies." It's a pitiful and absurd attempt to demonstrate the existence of a primitive myth, now lost, underlying all particular religious traditions. Casaubon dies before completing his magnum opus.

I chose this title for the blog to remind me to keep in check my own Casaubon-like tendencies: the temptation to think I have to figure everything out, to anticipate every possible objection, and to have incorporated every relevant fact, before going public with anything.

This is an experiment. I am in the early stages of writing my dissertation.

So, why start a blog now of all times? My hope is that writing more in general will strengthen my writing muscles, get the writing juices flowing (whatever cliched metaphor you prefer), etc. as I get into a regular (daily!) writing rhythm.