Full Definition of RAMBLE
intransitive verb
1a : to move aimlessly from place to place
1b : to explore idly
2: to talk or write in a desultory or long-winded wandering fashion
3 : to grow or extend irregularly

transitive verb
: to wander over, roam

(Webster)

Why ‘Ramblings’?
The double meaning of ‘ramble’ encapsulates my lifestyle. On the one hand, a love of country walking. On the other, a constant fascination with the various things I come across, which leads me to wander down new byways: a taste for the delights of serendipity. I love to gaze and to graze. At any one time I have a large number of projects on the go, and my library, CD collection, and bookmarks on the Web, attest to the many enthusiasms I have acquired over the years – enthusiasms that usually stay with me, but are rarely pursued singly for long. The greatest pleasure is to flit from one to the other and back again; to rediscover an old friend and then to skip lightly on to the next.

Here is one example to illustrate what I mean. I have been listening to the excellent series of Podcasts from the BBC on World War I. One program discussed Buchan’s The Thirty Nine Steps in the context of the onset of that war. That immediately led me to reread the novel and then, intrigued by the program, to download to my Kindle a sample of a biography of Buchan. (I already own, but of course have not read, his own autobiography, attesting to an earlier Buchan enthusiasm.) So I circle back to something that caught my attention many years before. No doubt I shall graze there for a while until the next thing strikes eye, ear, or mind.

Isn’t this a description of an aimless, purposeless, life? Part of me wants to say No, in loud and indignant tones. A better response might be: Yes, but not in a bad way. To explain why I think that will be the purpose of a subsequent blog.

So what will you find in this blog?
Anything and everything. My musings on the important things in life: cricket, walking, landscape, literature, biography, music, art, and – occasionally – philosophy. Or, perhaps I should say, occasionally a post explicitly about philosophy; for one of my themes will be the continuity of philosophy and life.

From time to time I hope to post invited Guest Blogs on topics that I find especially intriguing.

David McNaughton