Dear Reader,

Who are you? Where are you? When are you? Are you in a different country, of a future century, on another planet? Or are you just me?

Not many people read this blog; so you, Dear Reader, are probably me.

Dear Reader, what brought you here? How could you have found this particular spec in so large a dustball? What exceedingly unlikely series of events conspired together to land you on this bit of flotsam in the never-ending deluge of information? Statistically speaking, Dear Reader, it’s impossible that you’re anyone but me.

Dear Reader, why would you be interested, even fleetingly, in something I’ve written? Could my words really touch you? I’m no expert or celebrity or brainiac. I haven’t authored a Nobel Prize-winning blog post. Every thought that scrolls through my consciousness is possibly grossly in error. Do I know anything at all of interest to anyone? Or are you only reading this, Dear Reader, because you wrote it?

Is it really possible I could launch these words out into the infinity of time and space and someone staring back into the void could catch them as they float by? Could my writing–though far from extraordinary, and riddled with errors, and sometimes hard to follow, and limited in perspective, and self-absorbed, and flawed in a thousand other ways–could this blighted writing of mine reach just one person? If it could reach just one person, I think that would be enough. Could that person be you, Dear Reader? Perhaps you and I, Dear Reader, are more similar than the expanse between our chairs suggests. Perhaps we have some point of connection, some shared experience, some common ground that can bridge the gap between our blinking screens. Maybe we are more alike than different. Maybe we are the same. Like, literally the same person.

If this writing means something to you, Dear Reader, that is enough.