Why reason ye these things in your hearts?

I suppose that it would be worthwhile for me to first say why I would do such a thing as this... why I would add yet another useless blog (they're not all useless, but let's be honest, some are) to the overwhelming information on the internet. Also, it may be worthwhile to note a bit about myself, as there is a tendency for strangers to stumble on these things, at least occasionally. That is the purpose of this first post.

First, who I am, as it will make it simpler to explain the reason: First and foremost, I am religious (Christian, specifically a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, that is, a Mormon). By my own experience I have come to know that there is a God in heaven and that He has a Son, Jesus Christ, who died for our sins and was resurrected the third day. I also know that Christ's Church was lost from the earth for centuries because of wickedness, and was restored less than two centuries ago by God through a prophet, Joseph Smith. I say "from my own experience," and this is key, and will probably be the subject of my next post. But, regardless of the details (which I will not elaborate on now), it should be noted that this is the most important thing to know about me: for, having a personal assurance and certainty of something with such sweeping consequences, it is to be expected that it is the lens through which I see things. It is preeminent in my knowledge both in terms of certainty and importance.

Beside this, I am a Physicist pursuing a PhD at the University of Chicago, as of this writing at the end of my first year, possibly undertaking research in Particle Physics, possibly in Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics. I obtained a Bachelor's last year from Brigham Young University, also in Physics, working in the High-Intensity Laser Research Group there for two years with two of my closest friends. It's an experimental group, and much of what I did was experimental, but about half of it was theoretical. I'll admit that I'm proud of my theoretical work in that group, and the experimental work was really cool (sadly there's nobody around here doing anything at all similar), but the details would best be saved for another post, if anything. Since then, I worked a few months out at Fermilab on a sort of miniature project, characterizing a new detector for a dark matter search and developing data analysis tools for the search. I certainly have a scientist's mind, with curiosity, the need to test things, and all that, whether or not I ever make contributions of such significance as to be noticed.

The third thing that is closely tied to my writing is a growing interest in Philosophy. I suppose it's not surprising, being so closely tied to both science and religion. Politics has had its influence, too... I've found that I hate politics, and don't much care for the strategies of the major parties, and perhaps don't know as much as I should about candidates for election, but that I love political philosophy. So philosophy will be a central theme, sometimes political philosophy, but probably more often... not.

Three more things that may come into this: literature, music, and Romania. The last one merits a little explanation: I served my mission in Romania, I love Romania, and I've kept my Romanian at least passable (it's okay, I still talk to Romanians, but it's not what it was). These probably won't be featured extremely prominently, but I want them to come into play at least somewhat... so I'm going to try to make each post title come from one of those areas. I might put in something written that isn't technically literature (like something from a philosophical treatise, if appropriate), but, whatever. By the way, today's is from Mark 2:8.

Okay, little details: my name is Jacob, I'm the middle of five children, grew up in Washington State, and I'm prouder of the fact that I know how to love than anything else (it may well be that that comes into other posts). I've fallen in love, but things haven't really gone my way in dating, though somehow the girls that I've liked have come to be my best friends in spite of it all.

Now, the original question that prompts this post: Why? With that background, it should take me little to answer the question which is the heart of this post. I think a lot. Especially about Theology, Philosophy, and Science, and social topics (yes, the question, "Why can't I get a stable relationship?" has certainly come to mind and prompted all sorts of musings). Sometimes Way too often I want to write things down, but have nowhere to put my ramblings. So here I am. This blog is for me to put these things down. You can read if you wish, but you've been warned.

Finally, as an afterthought, there's the title of the blog: The Cluttered Desk. Well, it is what my desk literally looks like, but it also describes something of what I plan to post: my thoughts, hopefully organized into rational thoughts, but I will make no pretense of an overall organization. One week I will be discussing epistemology, the next my thoughts on D&C 88, and the next my ideal of courage. Hopefully each sheet of paper is meaningful, but don't try to get an idea of organization from the desk. If there is anything which I hope to convey (whether I succeed or fail), I should hope that it is me, my philosophy, my beliefs, as a real, living person.