Welcome

This is the start of what will hopefully be a mutually beneficial and enlightening relationship between you, reader, and me, writer. I'm setting out to learn some things about the world and the way it works and you are coming along for the ride.

Most of my friends call me Chen; from this day forth, consider yourself an honorary member of that group. I'm a 17-soon-18-year-old from a quiet suburb of Chicago, ready for college to start but not ready for high school to end. What qualifies me to write this blog? Nothing. If you've come for a Harvard-educated sociologist's thoughts about the effects of modern American sports culture on young males, look somewhere else because you are painfully far from being in the right place. As mentioned above, this will be just as much a learning process for me as it will be for you. That being said, I'd like to think that I'm of at least average intelligence. I will discuss current and past world issues, relevant literature, and whatever else I feel fits the focus of this blog.

And what, you might ask, is that focus? To put it as generally as possible, I will be examining the content of the world through the broad and flexible lens of competition. Sprinters dashing to the finish line. MNCs scrambling to seize new markets. Candidates frantically campaigning for votes. Competition has been an integral component of the human experience, contributing even to its biological evolution. We will look at this driving force in as many ways as possible. We will examine its nature. How do the individual perspectives of competitors meld into a system with dynamic parts? We will examine its effects. What circumstances cause competition to drive a group as a whole towards progress? Does it always do that? We will apply these ideas to the real world. What constitutes the rules of competition in our steadily globalizing world? When examining the international system like this, we will often touch upon economics and politics. These questions describe the general direction I plan on taking this venture. They are flexible. Changes of course will likely occur, but the general lens will remain constant.

Hopefully this introduction has incubated at least a minute growth of excitement within you. If not, I apologize. Carry on with your life and forget about this dusty little corner of the web. But if indeed you feel even a hint of a flutter of interest in your chest, then I cordially invite you to stay, and to listen, and to speak. Rest now, for much lies ahead of us.

"In the clearing stands a boxer and a fighter by his trade,
And he carries the reminders,
Of every glove that laid him down or cut him 'til he cried out,
In his anger and his shame,
'I am leaving, I am leaving,'
But the fighter still remains."

-Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel