Beer is an alcoholic beverage produced by the saccharification of starch and fermentation of the resulting sugar. However, we can arrive at a much simpler view if we look at what it’s made of.. at the essence of the ingredients.
Reinheitsgebot – The German (or Bavarian) Beer Purity Law of 1487 dictated that beer could only contain water, malted barley, and hops. The yeast that produced fermentation was implied and either taken from sediments of a previous batch or allowed to find the raw wort through natural airborne transmission.
Today we have an incredible variety of beer. The rules regarding ingredients have been relaxed to allow other grains and adjunct ingredients such as fruit, and finings such as Irish moss and gypsum. But at it’s core it’s still just water, malted grain, hops and yeast. Simple.
I like to keep this type of simplicity in mind when I’m contemplating the question of who I am. Whether it’s to answer my own query or someone else’s. It’s the KISS principle in action. One that I violate regularly. I’ll grab an idea, thought or concept, follow it to an absurd and extreme level of detail, then realize what I’ve done and back out, finally arriving at simplicity.
Maybe it’s not so strange. I’ve spent the last 26 years of my career engaged in the art of technical troubleshooting. The process has always been a natural one for me, although I realize it’s not so natural for many others. It’s the Sherlock Holmes method in practice.
When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
Eliminate what can’t be causing the problem. Eventually you’re left with few enough alternatives the solution will emerge.
Perhaps that’s the best way to tackle the big question too. Eliminate the impossible. I’ll start by determining who I am not and hope that once enough layers of that onion have been peeled away, what I’ll be left with is who I am.
the Verity Paradox 