A recurring characteristic in my writing that I have noticed is my penchant for the ellipsis, or dangling period…see, there it is. I will refer to it as “my three dots.”  Why do I do that? And does anyone really care?

Probably not, but I will try to cook up an explanation anyway. Could be a couple of things. First, it might be a substitute for the exclamation point. That is, that one period is simply insufficient to complete the point…I need three (oops, did it again). Or, it might be that I want the point made in the sentence to lead the reader down the path to enlightenment. I don’t want the thought to end too abruptly…so I let it linger on into infinitude (or at least for the length of those three ubiquitous dots).

Okay, actually I don’t really mean it to be any of those things. I like to think of myself as a deep thinker, but not that deep. It more represents poor grammatical habits and the inability I have to actually complete the sentence (or anything else I tend to try to start and finish in life).

So, this morning I thought I would once and for all put some emphasis and meaning, a personal trademark, behind those three annoying dots. Doing so also has the benefit of helping me think of how to add some consistency and cohesion into these rambling posts that for the last 5 years have been about everything and nothing (much like a Seinfeld episode).

So Dot 1 will henceforth represent people. After all, this blog has a lot to say about them. Sometimes not too flattering. Nevertheless, I do believe that people are important, especially since I happen to be one of them. Much more so than the stuff we tend to elevate above them.

People are important, especially since I happen to be one of them. Much more so than the stuff we tend to elevate above them.

Dot 2, planet. This Costa Rica Guy is really into sustainability, which I have arrogantly defined for myself as managing our impacts so as to facilitate ecological endurance. It is my belief that centuries of non-sustainable thinking and acting has put the first dot in jeopardy of being erased.

Centuries of non-sustainable thinking and acting has put the first dot in jeopardy of being erased.

And finally Dot 3 represents the universe (or universal glue). On some level that I could never hope to completely fathom, we are all bound together by this thing we refer to as the Universe. I can best symbolize it by a blue dot, which is what you would see if you looked down upon us from space and it also the color I see when I look up on a clear day from my humble home here in Perez Zeledon, Costa Rica.

On some level that I could never hope to completely fathom, we are all bound together by this thing we refer to as the Universe.

So, there, I have finally imbued some logical meaning for both me and my readers behind my three dots. Maybe now they will be less annoying and more thought-provoking…