  Getting started is never easy, unless you know exactly where you want to end up and how to get there. However, the whole point about wandering around with no particular destination in mind is about the journey. Everyday I read a ton of material online from Bloomberg, Reuters, the New York Times, the Financial Times, and many other sources, such as The McKinsey Quarterly, Harvard Business Review, and, of course, The Economist. I would read more, but I am limited by how much I can read in a day, and still work, and also by how much eye strain I can stand. However, all this reading tends to make me think as well. One conclusion is that there are a lot of smart people writing about many different fields and it is a full-time job just to keep abreast of a hand-full of topics, much less all there is to learn. Duh. Also, there is a lot of garbage written and passed off as journalism. You soon get a feeling for the right- or left-lean of an editorial.
I prefer well balanced views and not urlLink personal opinion masquerading as unbiased fact. Now your probably wondering why do I read the New York Times then, which is almost always biased by their social agenda? Well, it is always useful to read other points of view, and on occasion, they can write some interesting stories. However, given how much I need to read, I really do not have anytime for 'news lite'- something that takes time to read, but doesn't give me any new or interesting information.
A lot of daily newspapers fall under this category, which is why I rarely read them. Pick-up a copy of any Daily Telegraph, the Sun, the Daily Mail (just because I have access to UK papers here in Cyprus), and they have absolutely no news in them. Just photos, gossip, sport, poorly written editorials, and other garbage. What is really scary is that these are the only sources of news that the average person reads, if they read, to help them form their views on politics and economics. No wonder politicians pander to the lowest common denominator when making policy. The electorate is ill-informed and uninterested, unless it affects them directly.
However, mainstream publications can be equally bad. Compare the Economist to Business Week, News Week or Time Magazine, and you will see the latter are 'news lite'. It is not real journalism. It is a form of entertainment for when you are sitting on the thrown and have nothing better to do. If you are lucky you may learn some little known fact that you might otherwise not have seen, but they are hardly a serious medium for stimulating thought or discussion.
By now, you are thinking I am a pretty serious guy? Sometimes, although I tend to read everything I can get my hands on, including the not so serious. One of the things I like to do when I read an article is to think who might also benefit from it, and then I send them a copy of the article via email. If I have already read it, the marginal cost in terms of time and effort to forward it is not zero, but close to it. I am kind of like a spammer, except my aim is to entertain and enlighten with humorous and thoughtful articles, to fight against intellectual atrophy. It is an excellent way to keep in contact with friends, family, colleagues &amp; ex-colleagues, ex-classmates, and ex-professors, if you take time to send them something worthwhile to read. Better than just sending jokes all the time. I save them for Friday afternoons. eRelationships are just like the real ones.
They take a lot of time and effort to cultivate, and I send more emails than I receive. Just like friends drift apart with time and distance, online friends seem to come and go depending on what's going on in the rest of their life. I really do appreciate real friendships and work hard to maintain them. An added problem with online relationships is that they are so easy to disrupt. I have spent months corresponding with someone, getting to know them, and then they just lose interest and start to slip away. Perhaps they get bored or just have other things to do. Not that it was a waste of time, but just a real shame. Just like meeting people, getting to know them, finding them interesting, and then never seeing or hearing from them again. Old friends are the best friends. They have survived the ups and downs, and still managed to keep in touch.
When you have only the written word to communicate with someone, and only inhabit a virtual word, you have to be very careful what you write and how you write it, not to offend anyone. That often means not having any controversial opinions. However, that is dull. You have to learn to argue online without getting offended. You may have your opinions and others theirs', but unless you can argue persuasively you are not always going to convert everyone to your own point of view. And, rightly so, because over time if you are thoughtful and intelligent you may change your stance as new information becomes available. Shame if you alienated someone in the meantime just because you were inflexible and quick to take offense.
So what do I hope to achieve with this blog? I just want to practice writing and expressing my thoughts. If I go back in a few weeks or months, and read what I have written and don't like it, then I will know I have to write better and with more purpose. Other than that, it is a way to verbalize in print my collective thoughts about what I have read and what I am thinking at the moment.
Hopefully it will help me organize my strands of thoughts and give them a voice. At least clarify the jumble of ideas currently bouncing around in my head. If someone enjoys reading what I have written, that would be an added bonus. I like constructive criticism, but I am not interested in defending my opinions from those who will never agree to disagree, as I have seen in so many forums and chat rooms. If you do not like what I write, don't read it. There are many other places you could be expressing your own thoughts, or lack of them, as the case may be. Have a great day and speak to you soon. Bill. 
