About Me

Preamble

I come from the old days of the internet. I remember Usenet, and gopher. After quite some time, I remember Geocities, and irc. Webrings. Backing up Netscape Nagivator onto a dozen 3.5-inch discs for when I (inevitably) needed to reinstall Windows onto my father's desktop computer.

I remember, as anonymous so eloquently put it just a few days ago, the days before the "Eternal September 11" that was Facebook. I remember watching groups and sites stop updating, their members going their separate ways, and the pages, the works, languishing, half-finished. Then the site disappears, gone, and I hope that the Internet Archive has anything I might have missed saving. Sometimes they did.

I remember the disillusionment, the disgust, as the web shrunk. As everything shrunk in substance, but exploded in "style". As I was led away from dying personal websites, to centralized, homogenized "profiles". I feel like I failed the last guards of the old ways, at the same time that the rest of the web failed me.

To those, the last minority, the vanguard and rearguard: I thank you, deeply. You were steadfast while I was not, and I have no way of repaying you, aside from just trying to do better from now on. It's not enough.

Politics, Religion, Sexuality, and other Sticky Subjects

a/k/a those things you shouldn't talk about on a first date

tl;dr:

I only mention these things here, so that there is a one-stop shop for anyone who has a problem with what I have to say. This section is to explain my biases and viewpoints, so I don't need to continuously mention them in everything I post. Feel free to pick your preferred boogeyman (or boogeymen) from the following and blame me (and, transitively, it) for all your woes.

I'm a straight middle-aged White male of European and Caucasian (as in, the mountain area) descent. I live in the continent-wide strip mall known as America.

I suppose I'm "politically neutral", le heckin' based centrist. That's true, but only in the sense that I would shed no tears if every politican ("politician") from local school board chair to president all contracted terminal ass-cancer and died tomorrow. My political views can be summed up in the two mottos of New Hampshire:

Live Free or Die (Official)
Go Away and Leave Us Alone (Unofficial)

I've followed many faiths for a time, but none for very long. I was raised Roman Catholic, became a fedora-tipper in high school and college, did a stint in (cyber-?)Buddhism, debated about converting to a Christ-following Jew (I'm sure there's an actual name for that but it escapes me and I really cba), went larpagan, dabbled in Hermetic magic(k?), tried Orthodox Christianity, and have settled on Gnostic Christianity. And to (briefly) make it clear what I mean by "Gnostic Christianity":

I believe that the All eminated the high-spiritual entity known as "Christ", who incarnated into this reality (what is commonly thought of as) 2,000 years ago or so as the "human" entity commonly known as "Jesus".
Jesus the Christ acted as a exemplary template on how we, fellow-incarnates, should live in order to achieve our best lives and advance along our journey to return to the All.
Aside from Jesus the Christ's own words, essentially exclusively limited to the Gnostic and Orthodox Gospels, all other codified religious teachings, including the rest of the Bible, are irrelevant (to me) at best, and actively harmful at worst.
Spiritual growth comes from deepening one's personal, intimate connection with the All. For me, that comes from communion with Christ.

I do want to make clear that if you don't adhere to the same spiritual beliefs that I do, that does not mean I wish ill on you. I don't care what you personally believe in. I enjoy talking to and interacting with spiritual beings of all faiths. Respect me and I'll respect you.

Unless you're part of Notnilc, then we are going to have a problem.