I think labyrinths make a great metaphor for thinking about life.
A good metaphor—for me, anyway—is one that helps me think about problems or planning effectively. Thinking of life as a chess game doesn’t work at all for me, for instance, because it implies a)an adversary I have to beat, and there usually isn’t one; b)a series of tactical moves and counter-moves with nothing left to chance, which isn’t at all like life; c)me above the board moving other people to my will, which isn’t much like life either.
Mazes and labyrinths work quite well, on the other hand. Consider
•A maze can be a symbol for coping with problems (find the path out of the maze and you’re free!) or for reaching a goal (find the way to the center of the maze and you win!) because there is always a true path—you just have to find it.
•You have constant movement through the labyrinth, but multiple dead ends. But finding a dead end doesn’t mean defeat, it means you have to turn around and try a new path.
•The paths you take may be random and confused, but if you look at the design of the maze, you may see a pattern.
•If you can’t find the path, you can always think outside the box: Cut through the hedges (if it’s a garden maze) or climb on top of the wall (for a stone labyrinth) to find a way out.
In other words, it’s an optimistic metaphor: Dead ends aren’t permanent, success is possible. That’s encouraging, which is a good thing in a life metaphor. It may not always be true—I’ve seen friends with problems that don’t appear to have solutions—but as long as it’s possible, I prefer to believe the way through the labyrinth is there.

I love looking at the old books at the back of Destin Library, the ones collected in the glass-fronted cabinets. To me, they’re like a time machine.
•Stories of Tom Swift, boy inventor back when being a ground-breaking inventor meant stories such as “Tom Swift and the Electric Locomotive” or “Tom Swift and the Wireless Message” (i.e., radio).
•A 1912 book by reformer Jane Addams on “white slavery,” the supposedly widespread practice of sinister immigrants seducing wholesome American virgins, hooking them on drugs, then forcing them into prostitution (this scare was mostly bogus, but created a huge controversy at the time).
•An 1895 Baedeker travel guide.
•A “History of the World War” from back when there was only one world war to keep track of.
•Famous authors (Dickens, Hugo, Kipling, Dumas), less famous authors (Zane Grey, Lord Dunsany) and people largely forgotten today such as Swinburne or F. Marion Crawford.
•A multivolume set of John L. Stoddard’s Lectures. Who the heck was Stoddard and why did anyone care enough to have his lectures bound?
•An 1837 edition of Moliere’s plays. Just the idea of a book close to 200 years old fascinates me.
•Perhaps the most obscure item in the cabinet (OK, most obscure next to Stoddard’s lectures) is “The Ideal Fitter,” on installing heaters (”The best and most comprehensive book ever offered the heating profession.”).
I love old books. They’re a glimpse into a time when people thought differently, kids played differently, when the horizons of what was possible and what was fantasy were different, and all of that fascinates me.

I love good writing.

Not just the pleasure of reading a good story well-told, but I like reading something and realizing it’s actually written well: The word choice, the tone, the metaphors, the pacing and rhythm can all make something more interesting to read, just as clunky, awkward phrasing and delivery can make even a good piece bad.

This is just as true when writing about issues or ideas, which is why Martin Luther King’s speeches (and some of JFK’s) are still powerful to read 40 years later. Not just the ideas they express, but the way they’re expressed.

Three examples (though not from Kennedy or King in this case)

•Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison on the fight against slavery:

“I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation. No! no! Tell a man whose house is on fire, to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hand of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen; — but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest—I will not equivocate— I will not excuse —I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.
With reasonable men, I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter, nor waste arguments where they will certainly be lost.”

•HL Mencken on then-President Warren G. Harding:

“He writes the worst English that I have ever encountered. It reminds me of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing on the line; it reminds me of stale bean soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights. It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it. It drags itself out of the dark abysm of pish, and crawls insanely up to the topmost pinnacle of tosh. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and doodle. It is balder and dash.”

•And Frederick Douglass on fighting for justice:

“If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation…want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters…. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”

Or to put it another way, why am I blogging here?
The answer—admittedly not a terribly complex one—is that I enjoy it. I already have one personal blog, and a second relating to my freelance writing and I’ve no qualms about adding a third.
Blogging for me is a lot like letter-writing, and I like writing letters (ditto email). If I’d lived about 150 years ago, I’d be one of those Victorian writers who have their collected letters put out after their deaths in three volumes (let’s assume for convenience that I would have actually accomplished enough to make publishing my letters of interest).
Posting a blog is a lot like a letter, but one sent out into cyberspace rather than to a particular person (my personal blog, with a readership of maybe a dozen, is an exception). There are pluses to this: I can blog at length about something like buying a backpack or a weekend getaway, knowing that anyone who finds it boring will just skip the post, whereas in conversation I’d be worried people were just feigning interest (”No, please tell us more about what you had for lunch in Normandy, it’s … fascinating.”).
For anyone who likes my column at The Destin Log (or hates it), this will probably turn out a lot less political; I spend enough time being outraged as it is, and I don’t need to brood here as well. Though this might be a good place to post really brief topics that deserve coverage, but can’t carry a full column.
And I won’t be tackling local politics. Since that’s my regular beat, it wouldn’t be good form to both report on it and write commentary.
I’m thinking of this blog more as a patchwork: Some personal stuff, some politics, something about writing (which I love), something about reading (which I love to). We’ll see how that works out in practice, I guess.