IDEASTHAT BLEED.

Hi, I'm Josh, and I've got a confession to make. I know, we just met, but I've never been interested in competing in someone else's game.

See, I've spent my life watching people fight each other for seats at tables that weren't their own, stab others in the back for a title they didn't even understand, and measure their success based on standards nobody questioned.

But I'd rather build my own table. I'd much rather let my title be earned by the fruits of my labor because I don't measure success with borrowed yardsticks.

Because I'm insatiably curious, insufferably skeptical, and pathologically incapable of accepting "that's how we've always done it" as a valid response to asking why.

I believe no institution is too sacred to question and that authority must never be allowed to develop immunity to critical examination. That includes me because I will never claim I have all the answers. In fact, we should all be especially suspicious of anyone who does.

For the last three decades, my work has been fueled by a stubborn refusal to believe we've asked all the questions, which has provided me with two major reasons why I write...

The first is the ruthless war I feel compelled to wage on the insidiously ignorant. There are few things in this world that make me contemplate the therapeutic benefits of taking up serial killing more than the grotesque spectacle of those who would choose to suspend critical thought.

The mind is the only weapon that becomes substantially more dangerous when we refuse to sharpen it. Anyone who celebrates their own stupidity with the glee of a toddler who just discovered bubbles is the same kind of person who would sooner watch a library burn than confront the possibility that something inside might prove them wrong.

The second reason is because I find joy in inspiring the audacity of wonder and infecting others with their very own case of incessant curiosity. Because everyone deserves to discover life's everyday miracles, They happen all around us, 24/7.

So I write, hoping that someday the second reason will force the first into obsolescence.