I recently experienced several big, amazing life changes: a job offer that led to a promotion; a health scare that shed thirty pounds; and two adventures abroad with students that renewed my commitment to my life's work. All of this change has encouraged me to make a decision on--well, more like decided for me--a central and puzzling issue that I've mulled over for several months now: whether to retreat from the world, into what Isaiah Berlin once called the "inner citadel"; or to embrace that world openly and authentically. This internal debate gnawed at me for quite some time, for reasons that I can't quite articulate well right now. I hope one day to write about this issue more. But that debate recently ended as mysteriously as it arose.
I'm now reconnecting with old friends and family on social networks: Facebook, Instagram, the whole lot. I'm suddenly committed to helping construct the world about me instead of fearing, as I had when I righteously left most of these corporate organizations (save for Twitter, which has long been my solitary foothold in the digital world), that they would determine and control me.
I also feel that I can't stay silent in this world of tumult and change. It's an election year. A biggie, I've heard tell. Our politics, our national passions, and even our climate are aflame. A lot is at stake. I want to be part of it. I need to. And so I return.
