Who Am I?
By what means to we define ourselves? Do we say we "are" what
we do for money? Or would we prefer to define our identities by the music
we listen to, our favorite movies, political alignments, religious affiliations,
hobbies, or some
other arbitrary criteria? "Are" we our past
actions and circumstances, or might we "be" the conception of
what we envision becoming in the approaching future?
Who Are You?
In the web bio I wrote a few months ago, I described myself as a
"slacker, spiritual seeker, and aspiring dropout." I then proceeded to list several activities
I enjoy, identified some sources of meaning in life, and listed a few other little odds and ends. I suppose most of that is still applicable now,
yet already, I find that if I were writing it again (as
I am presently doing), I would emphasize slightly different things.
I...
- Currently reside in Lincoln, Nebraska, but consider myself a Colorado native.
- Work at two part time, low stress menial jobs. One is at
a nice, happy health food co-op,
the other at a local gas station where the manager is super cool and the
commute consists of a walk down the block. Occassionally, I also do a tiny bit of
sysadmin type stuff when my
friend Scott needs
a hand with his servers and feels like depositing money into my account.
- Have little or no intention of returning to institutionalized school or seeking
"higher status" work in the tech sector again. If asked by people
who have trouble comprehending the possibility that one might live a
fulfilled life without "progressing" through one of these paths,
I am prone to appease them by saying that I might be "thinking about doing that at some point." But that's really a load of BS. (I'm not saying I'd totally rule it out if something fell in my lap, but I'm not actively pursuing anything in that direction.)
- Depending on the day of the week, I might self-identify
spiritually as Buddhist, Neopagan, Gnostic, or something else entirely. I regularly
attend services at the local Unitarian Universalist church, but I also find that much of my spiritual inspiration comes
from online blogs that explore consciousness-expanding ideas and practices.
- Believe that the Collapse of Civilization As We Know It is imminent. Jason Godesky has been doing a brilliant job of articulating the factual, left-brained "why"
part with his thirty theses, while
Ran Prieur's essays take a more intuitive approach. I don't consider Impending Collapse to be a cause for panic or
hopelessness, but rather an opportunity for us to learn and grow
in understanding, both personally and collectively.
And for fun, a few favorites lists.
Movies:
- Contact
- The Matrix
- Fight Club
- Mulholland Drive
- Lord of the Rings trilogy
- The New Jersey Trilogy (Chasing Amy best of all)
- Waking Life
Music... eh, too many to list, but lately I've been into...
- Sarah Fimm
- Hungry Lucy
- The Morrighan
- Collide
- Nightwish
- Within Temptation
- Edenbridge
- Ian Van Dahl
- Conjure One
- Lamb
- plus all those other better-known artists I've listened to for years.
(And yes, one might easily conclude that I enjoy female vocals.)
Memorable books I've read in the recent past:
- Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel trilogy. Luscious.
- Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath.
- A bunch of Philip K. Dick stuff. So far, I think my favorite is The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, but I've only started to delve into the later portion of his career. Valis is certainly proving to be quite a trip as well.
- Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn.
- Days of War, Nights of Love from the CrimethInc collective. Brilliantly transformative.
Hobbies:
- Hacking. I run Linux, and occassionally do a little programming,
but nowadays I mostly
surf the web and doodle around on this site. So maybe I'm not truly
much of a hacker, but I might still play the part once in a while.
- Poking out little tunes on my MIDI keyboard. I tell myself that
one of these days, I might actually compose something worth uploading as an
mp3.
- Biking around town. (Although winter tends to put a crimp in that one.)
- Cooking experiments. Bean dip. Split pea soup. Pasta sauce. Nutbar Crunch (also referred to as "cockroaches"). Anything delicious that fits in a dish.
Dreams, Aspirations, Hopelessly Unrealistic Notions:
- Travel the country. Go to every state, and even other countries,
make friends at every town I visit. Be an endless wanderer for a while.
- Run a record store.
- Find and fall in love with my soulmate.
- Join an anarchist eco-village.
- Let go of all my possessions except what I can carry.
- Change the world for the better.
Other little tidbits:
- I consistently score as an INFP on personality tests.
- Dreams often play a major factor when making life's big decisions. I would not be where I am today had I not followed the wisdom of my dreams.
- Some might call me a health nut, though I'm not into dieting or rigorous
exercise regimes at all. I pretty much agree with the principles put forward by the
Weston A. Price Foundation.
- My car, known as Tobias, has an excessive quantity of bumper stickers.
The Past:
- Born and raised in a conservative Seventh-Day Adventist environment.
- Was home-schooled until age 10, and went to private church school for a
seemingly endless period of 7 years until my Junior year of High School.
- My first job was in a preschool. I worked there for 5 years. Loved the children, mostly got along with bosses and coworkers, hated the way we were conditioning the young souls into the craziness of the machine.
- I went to college for 2 years at ucollege.edu. Educationally speaking, it was mostly a
foolish waste of time and money, but I made some good friends there, so overall, it was still worthwhile.
- After dropping out of college and spending a few months loafing around, I
got a job at a hot shot software company outside of Denver. I worked there as a mostly satisfied
employee for 2.5 years before I became fed up and got myself fired in August 2002.
- My time since has been spent in thorough self-examination, ongoing attempts
to better understand the true nature of the world, and learning to survive the proverbial Black Iron Prison.
- I moved back to Lincoln in May 2005, where I remain until the currents of change carry me elsewhere.
The rest is secrets, mysteries, or merely too mundane to mention.