Well, I’ve now polished off the latest series of posts. What next?
In posting those reviews from the conference, I discovered that even after long periods of neglect, this blog retains some readers who come back for more as soon as there is more to be had. This is unexpected and tremendously encouraging, and I thank all of you for sticking with me.
Looking back, this blog has tracked through some interesting developments and transformations in my life. I started it in the early blush of learning about Humanism as a philosophical and practical outlook on life, when I was still working out how it fit me as a personal identity.
Since finishing my PhD, I have become more involved in research and teaching, leaving less time for writing.
Although the research and teaching continue today (and, I hope, will do so for many years to come), I find myself entering a new phase, where I write not because life is unsettled and I need to process it, but because life is becoming settled and I need to make the effort to keep my mind active in those areas that are important to me.
And so Deena and I went to the Alberta Secular Conference. We listened, asked questions, talked. I wrote a series of posts on it (indexed here). A couple of other developments came out of the conference that I may share with you before long.
In wider news, this year has seen a left-leaning party (the New Democratic Party, or NDP) given a majority mandate in the Alberta provincial government, and a centrist party (the Liberal Party of Canada) in the Canadian federal government – both replacing conservative governments that had become complacent and abusive in their exercise of power. I grew up in this province, in a rural community with conservative leanings. This May was the first time in my life that the Progressive Conservative Party was not in power. It is an invigorating time, here at Friendly Humanist headquarters.
I still find that I really enjoy writing – to crystallize my thoughts, to trigger discussion, dissent, and possibly even reasons to change my mind.
I am also, for the first time since high school, working on a long work of fiction. I am currently in the middle of my first ever crack at NaNoWriMo.
So, back to the opening question. What next?
Well, I am currently in a glut of creative outpouring – blog ideas, novel writing, the odd poem. So I suspect that you’ll get at least a weekly post for the foreseeable future. (Currently, my foresight has about a 2-week horizon, in case you’re wondering.) I am contemplating some more book reviews, as well as some local activism-related things (growing, at least in part, out of the conversations at the above-mentioned conference).
If any of my other creative bears fruit – published fruit, that is – I promise you’ll hear about it. I’ll be shouting it from the rooftops, including the rooftop of FH HQ here. (Oh dear. I think I’ll need another acronym for my headquarters. I just sounded that out in my head, and it wasn’t what I expected. Not Friendly at all. Oh dear.)
If there is anything that you, my loyal readers (or you others, my random wandering-in-off-the-Internet readers), would like me to tackle here, please let me know. Nothing motivates me like knowing someone is already waiting to read what I’m about to write. (That’s what got me started on NaNoWriMo this year: my wife asked for a novel for Christmas.)
Until next time!
Friendly Humanist 
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