Written In The Sand

We are going to start off this episode with a bit of an embarrassment for me. I’m going to announce a correction. Two episodes in and already having to do this. But, that’s okay because it offers me a great opportunity. In our last episode I talked about accepting mistakes, and then I proceeded to make one – and a very stupid mistake, at that.

This episode we'll be looking at a very small section of Dune chapter one, and that is the opening quotation. Yes, really. This is something of a foundation episode. Last episode was to set the stage for the podcast. This one is more about setting the stage for the actual material. The quote itself opens up with the idea that beginnings are a time for balance and there are certain things I think should be emphasized in the beginning because we don't know each other. We can assume quite a number of things with varying degrees of accuracy. I can reasonably predict that we are all human, beyond assumptions like these everything gets a little fuzzy, doesn't it? It's because we have different backgrounds we need to go over this. We need a common baseline, and that requires a certain mode of perspective and that is what this quote is about and therefore what this episode is about.

WRITTEN IN THE SAND Episode 1: Introduction Beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct. -Dune, first sentence And what better way to begin? Welcome to the introductory episode of Written in the Sand. This episode will be about explanations and backgrounds because that is what introductions are for. I would like us to explore some concepts and ideas. And I'll be following a rough foundation set by Frank Herbert's Dune series. There will be more to it than that, but that is the basic platform I'm working from. The first thing in the beginning is to ask the question: “why? And why is an interesting question. As Douglas Adams wrote, why is so important it has its own letter. Why explore these ideas? Why Dune? Why would I attempt to do this? The best answer is to say keep following the podcast, 'cuz it'll be a short series if I can totally answer that right now. The answers to all three aren't separate. And so I will present an brief overview. Brief is relative, there's a