Who’s Morfy?

I have a son in law of Scandinavian ancestry and, when grandchildren appeared, I decided to find out about grandfather name customs from his part of the world.

Turns out, they are defined by the relationship of the grandparent to the grandchild. As the father of the mother I became Morfar, now shortened by the kids to Morfy.

Until now, I have not had to think about the name in terms of changes or morphing. Not surprising because in the eight years of writing and grandparenting, there haven’t been many major ones.

My first blogging venture began when my granddaughter was born. She and LibertyPell are eight but she will continue and LibertyPell will not.

LibertyPell is morphing into the Pundificator — a rebranding, really — but why?

I have never been a sportswriter, but I can easily imagine one who became so tired of his sport that he simply couldn’t stand to write about it anymore.

At LibertyPell, the “sport” I wrote about was politics. Eight years into the mission I couldn’t stand it anymore. The ratio of narrative to reality — bad at the outset — had only gotten worse. The people I was writing about didn’t even seem to be trying.

I am not a fan of people who don’t try. The sportswriter began to hate all of the stars of the game he covered.

Surely, there is more to life than that. When you can’t stand the topic, you have two choices: change your beat; or quit writing.

I don’t want to quit writing. In fact, I’d like to add podcasts (especially as a guest) and videos. Better still, I would like to speak in front of live audiences, but if any of these are to happen, I have to change my beat.

People do far more interesting things for themselves then their government leaders do for them. Especially energetic self-reliant people. Why not write about them?

There is controversy surrounding self-reliance. Some prefer the narrative that it is everything and others prefer the idea that most things are done for us. Like most competing narratives, the truth lies somewhere in between.

I am a big fan of self-reliance. Looking backward, my life looks like a series of adventures, in many of which I tried much too hard for my own good. Prospectively, some were challenges — big challenges — but when the challenges were overcome the events became adventures. Why not look at the future as a series of adventures too?

I am interested in adventures of thought, adventures of experience and the countless valuable things I have learned along the way. Often these will be shared in the form of letters, hence the theme. My addiction to fixing things is unlikely to end and the chances are you’ll also hear about schemes to right wrongs (pipedreams?).

Fiction can be an adventure as can satire, so why not those too? This could be the moment to pre-inoculate myself against the sin of schadenfreude, which is sure to continue.

I have tried to think about how to write this transition story. Should I say politics will go from 100% to 10% but not to zero? So, what. There is no need to draw attention to what you won’t find here. Besides, I have no idea what the mix will be.

Whatever the story, I will be thinking about a Zippo lighter, popular with smokers in World War II and after. There was a grindy little wheel that scratched a flint to spark the fuel. My goal is to be the flint that sparks your flame. The thought that gives you pleasure or pause.

I thought about goodbyes and hello’s though this is not goodbye to LibertyPell. All the stories from those eight years are in the archive. It is hello to a new approach.

Hello? Goodbye? Of course, the Beatles. Take a moment to listen to that 60s throwback.

This song came from the Magical Mystery Tour and that doesn’t sound like a bad NorthStar for the Pundificator.

Fear is the inability to accept uncertainty, but uncertainty is where the adventure begins.

To find out more about Pundificator.com try the About Section. There’s even some stuff about me.

Click the Vignettes tab to see all the Pundificator stories and find all your faves in theLibertyPell Archives.

Welcome, join in, have fun.