Introduction to Metastases the blog
I was toying for a while with starting some sort of “living with cancer” blog, but…….does the world really need another blog? Would anyone read it and if so why? If not, why write it? Then three things happened:-
(1) I read some cancer forums, and found Cancergiggles, and realised that there are probably a lot of people out there who would like to be reassured that you can do a lot of stuff even if you do have cancer.
(2) I spent some time floating around the blogosphere, finding interesting things and funny things and sometimes both at once. If I get amusement in reading about the minutiae of other people’s lives, why shouldn’t they want to read about mine? (Because they write better than me, maybe…..OK, let’s suck it and see).
(3) I worked out that a blog would be a good place to park the various half-baked thoughts I always have swimming around in my head, until I get around to doing something more constructive about them (if ever). Somehow a blog seems a more natural home for things I can’t really quite be bothered to think though properly. One thought leads to another somewhere else….and then one or other or both grow and get more complicated…..bit like metastases really…..
If you’ve got here not via the main site, see the cancer story so far here. Apart from cancer, and thoughts, the blog has a fair bit of natural history in it. It was originally in Blogger. You can see that version, with the original comments, here. The new (autumn 2006) Wordpress version has all the archive posts, but not the comments. It also has “categories”:
Being ill: stuff to do with cancer and illness
Writing about the experience of being ill was part of the original point of the blog.
Philosphising: stuff to do with Human Sciences/philosophy/evolution
I read Human Sciences at university and have continued to have an amateur and unfocussed interest in keeping up with the field, especially evolutionary psychology. I have also recently become interested in philosophy, which addresses many of the same issues, often without reference to the scientific approach. This is usually the stuff which could do with turning into a longer and more carefully-thought-through essay, if only I could be bothered.
Rocks, nature & life: stuff to do with geology, botany, ornithology and quotidian minutiae
These posts are diary type, with a lot of nature stuff in because that’s one of my interests and we live in a place with a lot of nature. The rocks are a recent interest because I have been doing this course.
Work & management: stuff to do with management/business/work/financial services
For many years, I had a very busy managerial job. Mostly I don’t think about it any more, but occasionally some aspect of it returns to the top of my mind. Usually this sort of topic ends up in the comments of someone else’s blog, rather than here.