I like all things pithy and beautiful.

No, I’m not talking about a nice olive, though I like those too. I mean pithy as in having brevity, that proverbial soul of wit, and beauty as Plato meant it — almost. His preferred beauty was probably singular, transcendent. I’ll settle for abstract, but not entirely rational.

I like lieder, poems and short stories; electro and animations. I love the not-quite art, the not-exactly-deep, and the hopefully-not-too-shallow.

I like an opera or a novel once in a while, but that can get overwhelming. It’s not that I don’t have the time to brood over seven volumes of some French guy’s insights (though honestly, I don’t). It’s just that even a 5 minute fragment of German sentimentality (though honestly, it’s more than that) is enough to set my neurons off on a conflagration of sparks for a week. I don’t want to blow any fuses.

Eye candy. That’s the word for it. Amusing. Some image that jogs your pleasure receptors but not much more. Perhaps unsubstantive, but certainly too brief. I like all the different kinds — ear-candy, brain-candy, tongue-candy, or I suppose, just candy.

Is this a problem? Is there some kernel of universal pathos (for example in a Tolstoy novel, sure to have me fidgeting before I even open the cover) that I’m definitely not getting from watching internet videos? Even if it’s a meditation on 20th century conflict and suffering? Do I have aesthetic ADHD?

Or maybe I am asking too many questions. I’m probably just a symptom of an era, at that point in life when I’m looking for inspiration anywhere I can get it, and avoiding perspiration anywhere it becomes necessary.

By now I’ve realized that blogging isn’t about articulating my views or having a thesis statement, even if by some miracle that happens. It’s more about the ADHD aesthete in me — procrastinating, deferring, being impatient, being too analytical. It’s also about being exuberant. This blog is revelry: in art, science, music, programming, whatever you call it, sometimes none, or better yet, all of the above.

There. I could probably use this as my About page if I didn’t know that my mind will change in a couple weeks.