Recently I’ve felt the impulse to return to journaling my experiences as a blog. I once kept a blog years ago, but eventually shut it down in favor of Facebook. At the time, social media felt like the easier, livelier place to share updates.
Over time, though, I discovered that Facebook didn’t give me the freedom I needed. I kept my posts limited to my circle of friends — and as that circle grew larger, I found myself holding back. Writing about politics or personal reflections became difficult, always shadowed by the thought of how it might affect my family or career.
So here I am again, ready to write more freely. And I’ve found that my cocktail hobby has become the thread that ties these thoughts and experiences together.
For years, I drank mostly mediocre beer and even more mediocre wine. Over time I settled on “drinkable” brands — budget friendly, and safe enough to serve to guests without embarrassment. When I did have a mixed drink, it was usually a screwdriver, a Tanqueray and tonic, or the occasional frozen margarita at a Mexican restaurant. I knew other cocktails existed, but I had no interest in trying them, much less learning how to make them.
Since meeting my wife several years ago, we’ve started exploring cocktails as a craft and a culture. That shift has given me both a hobby and a new way to anchor my writing, to mark experiments and discoveries, and to reflect on my conversations and experiences, and the questions they leave behind afterwards.
Eventually that means brushing up against topics like politics, religion, or health — the very things I eventually had to avoid posting about on Facebook.
In etiquette there’s the admonition: “Never discuss politics or religion in polite company.” It’s pragmatic advice, given how quickly both subjects can devolve into heated arguments and spoil the occasion. Haven’t we all seen how unchecked repartee can leave behind suspicion, or even injure friendships?
At first glance, the rule makes sense. Protect civility. Keep it light, keep it safe, keep it polite. Often the best thing you can do in a social setting is to leave certain subjects alone — or just leave.
But G.K. Chesterton inverted that cliché: “I never discuss anything else except politics and religion. There is nothing else to discuss.” Even if the exact wording varies, the point holds: faith and politics aren’t to be avoided; their importance in human affairs requires us to examine and debate them.
And then there’s another voice, often attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt:
“Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.”
Roosevelt reframed the issue. For her, the question wasn’t whether to talk about politics or religion, but how. Conversation could sink into gossip about people, hover at the level of current events, or climb to the discussion of ideas.
Three perspectives, three different barstools, if you will. So where do I sit?
I fall somewhere in the middle. For me, politics and religion will eventually show up here. You can’t talk about rum without brushing against the history of slavery and trade. You can’t write about jazz without the church sneaking in. And if you sit at a bar long enough, you know how it goes: someone will bring up the news or the afterlife, probably both.
Here’s how I handle it: what I call the two-strike rule.
I welcome conversation, but not dominance. If a commenter tries to “king of the hill” a thread by changing the subject to one of their own, by pretending to listen, or by insisting on always having the last word — I’ll cut it off.
And if I find myself in a debate with a commenter, I’ll do my best to find common ground. If after two exchanges I can’t, then I’ll stop. That’s not conceding; that’s maintaining civility. This is a blog. My blog.
So, here’s what you’ll get from me. You won’t find manifestos. You won’t find attempts to recruit or convert. But you will find glimpses of my politics and religion. They leak into the stories I tell, the music I mention, the rules I keep for myself.
If that leads to agreement, wonderful. If it leads to disagreement, that’s fine too. And if it leads nowhere after two strikes, I’ll bow out and leave space for the conversation to return another time, in another form.
In the end, my aim isn’t to avoid serious topics, chase every argument like Chesterton, or even simply to raise every exchange to Roosevelt’s “great minds” level.
It’s to cultivate conversations that endure — ones that come back again and again, that grow richer over time, and that occasionally reach toward something higher.
Because that’s what makes a good conversation different from a shouting match or a polite nod. It’s not about winning or avoiding. It’s about sustaining the thread long enough to glimpse something that lasts.
My aim here also isn’t to prevail in arguments. It’s to reflect. To share what I’ve noticed, what I’ve learned, what I’m still puzzling through.
I care about what endures:
- A good story.
- A thoughtful exchange that doesn’t collapse into a shouting match.
- The human tendency to consider the big questions.
Because in the end, this blog is about savoring what lasts. And some of those things — awkward as they may be to discuss — last longer than any cocktail recipe.
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