Interests

Bo Salisbury enters the university of life
Bo Salisbury enters the university of life

All my life I’ve been looking out the window, fidgeting in the classroom, staring at people in public places, listening to three conversations at the same time, cupping my hand to my ear to hear that familiar melody over the other sounds, looking for anachronisms in movies, wondering why people do what they do, driven to know how and, more importantly, why things work.

Hyperbole? Sure. But the truth is I am naturally inquisitive. I never needed to cultivate that quality. I’ve always been swiveling my head, squinting my eyes to see, lifting my nose in the air to catch that scent, concentrating all my mental energies to hear: I find almost anything interesting. And, those things that don’t interest me? I’ve learned that, if I stop and consider them or look at a thing a bit longer or engage something for more than a minute, I will usually be drawn in. The result is that I am often engrossed by an assortment of disconnected, eclectic, and sometimes insignificant subjects or activities.

An inquiring mind is generally considered a positive trait, particularly in our post-modern era, when radical skepticism and deconstructing everything is all the rage. But, this virtue, this craving of understanding and my predilection toward observation or analysis has not served me well. It’s made my life interesting and anything but boring, but it’s also proved a formidable obstacle to actually working out what I’m passionate about.

Over the years, I’ve had to learn to focus, settle down to get some work done, and actually finish what I’ve started. This site will help me do that. I hope to curate and culminate nearly a lifetime of out of control exploration and discovery. When I opened my mind to Jesus, everything changed and my interests narrowed into a Biblical perspective — a defined and defining worldview. Now, I’m a bit more intentional and focused.

In the coming weeks, months and years, I’ll be posting much of my past work and a number of new projects that I’ve shoved to the back of my mind back when I was looking forward to this season of life. I will be writing about those areas that have interested me over the past 40 years or, in some cases, things that have been interested in me for reasons that may emerge through writing. Example: Why the flesh-eating bacteria? I didn’t go looking for that disease, but it came roaring into my life and become an important part of who I am and how I approach living. And, I’ll be exploring why I dove into the Baha’i faith after my guitar teacher witnessed to me: I wasn’t seeking what they were offering and I don’t to this day. I do know that my life is richer because I’ve been drawn into a dialogue with people of divergent points of view and onto the sometimes obscure and less traveled paths.

Welcome to my finishing and beginning project — I’ll be finishing the projects I began years ago and embarking on others more recent that have been accumulating on yellow notepads, scraps of paper and in Evernote. Oh, and my inquiring mind is sure to turn up a few more captivating hobbies along the way. In all of this, my goal is to understand or make sense of it all within the framework of the Story of God, found in Jesus Christ.  I’ll usually leave the door open (the comments), so you can graciously let me know what you think.

 

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