Now that I’ve gone down almost a neo-Luddite path with this net detox stuff, coupled with a disdain for most social media — especially imageboards — it’s natural to wonder, “Why in the world are you making another supposed imageboard/social?”
It makes no sense at all. Definitely. But you know what? The internet is amazing. The flow of information, the wires, the infrastructure, the scale. All of this information. I feel grateful that my issues are contained within my mind at best, self-mastery my aim. Anything you’re curious about, you can access.
So I want to use the internet still, or make it useful. But that’s not enough to justify making another imageboard. We’re still a walking contradiction here, I fully acknowledge that. Frankly this entire site is a contradiction.
So I wrote this out to enshrine a Principle. Because the internet is cool, and with this principle we can use it to our advantage. Just have to remember:
Embrace reality, don’t escape it.
What does it mean to embrace and not escape? Everything you do on the web is about enhancing and embracing real life. Not to advertise why my life is so cool and yours isn’t, not to craft a fake image of myself for others to worship, not to shill things I don’t believe in for profit alone, not to fish for likes by contorting who I am.
Before the net infested every corner of the world, there used to be a running stretch-goal among the previous net trailblazers — all of whom had pseudonyms, alter-egos — that they’d eventually go back to irl. That was the goal, to get back to reality. They knew what they were doing, being stuffed in their corner and so on… they knew this wasn’t it. The goal was to eventually leave the irc chat rooms, the MMO servers, all of it and start building something real. Somehow we lost that idea.
…So I’m resurrecting it.
I’m not advocating becoming a carbon copy busy person of today. No way, that’s not it either. I just mean, don’t restrict yourself. Interact with all objects and domains. The world is changeable, influenceable, programmable, and it’s waiting for your input. Not for you to ignore it, to accept it as it is, to have someone else configure it.
How can you tell the difference between embrace and escape? If you can’t take one thing away with you from your computer session, you’re escaping. If you can’t use it in real life — where it was something you learned, something that you changed — then it was escapism.
Instead of the neo-Luddite you can call me the Anti-Escapist.
This is my manifesto: enhance reality, don’t escape.