Meditative Prose
Wednesday, 5 December 2007
Not till we are lost, in other words not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations.
— Henry Thoreau
No website is an island, entire of itself — and neither is this one. I realize now that one of the reasons my previous websites failed is that I treated both my life and my space on the web as somehow wholly separate from other people’s lives and other websites. I wanted a desert island website where I could write sad, beautiful prose in the sand about my lonely life on the island Ego. Now, a little older and wiser, I want a website that reflects the infinite extent of my relations: to culture, through books and art and music; to other humans, through sharing ideas and visions; and to the rest of the internet, by linking to other sites and allowing my content to be freely redistributed.
What that means to you, dear reader, is that you can expect me to quote and link to smart people frequently, to post images (paintings, photos, or drawings by myself or others) alongside entries, and to extol the virtues of important things that did not originate in my own head (like yoga, or free software, or Vermont secession). You can also expect me to remain meditative at times, observing the world and myself, and treating this site more like a journal than a blog.
I used to think those two modes — introverted and extroverted — were incompatible, but now they seem like two sides of the same coin. Both are necessary to my continued well-being, and this website will reflect that balance.
