Baxil [bakh-HEEL'], n.

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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "Baxil" journal:

[<< Previous 20 entries]

August 12th, 2008
12:35 am [Link]	Living life as a radical act Sara Robinson, ~~paraphrased~~ recast: My draconity doesn't depend on meeting the criteria on somebody else's personal checklist. Muriel Rukeyser once said, long ago, that if one dragon told the truth about her life, the world would split open. Modern draconity began with the deep insight that the personal is political -- that every act a dragon performs as a free dragon has the power to transform the culture. Draconity, to me, is not about how well one can parrot high-flown academic theories. Rather, its most radical and transformative expression lies in how we choose to exist in the world every day. And so I speak my truth right out loud in the blogsphere -- and then I go about the radical business of living my life. And in my world, that makes me Otherkin, regardless of whether or not those who think they hold the current patent on the word agree. ... I now realize that attitude, too, is a radical act of self-liberation. I'm not repeating this because there has been a dispute over "authentic" draconity. I'm repeating it because it resonates with a key quality of my own identity politics lately. We can talk about ~~identity~~ draconity, or other elective avenues of identity*** until we're blue in the face. And there's some use to it -- discussion is a good way for people to more accurately define themselves and realize what's important to them. But beyond a certain point, when enough words have been contributed to the discussion, the best thing that elders can contribute is a good example.* Can draconity be a positive force in people's lives? Well, sure, look at this guy over here.** The plural of anecdote is not data, but this isn't about statistics, it's about Story. It's about a life making more sense inside a narrative strange by conventional standards, and reassurance to others on the fringe that there's a place for them too. -- * Except for the blue dragons, who, I suppose, turn purple or something. Note to self: This is worth further discussion. Starting with that thought I had the other day, about having a foot in both worlds, and thereby learning to recognize the value of stillness. * EDITED TO ADD: Just to be clear, I'm going off on a tangent with the remainder of my post that's not applicable across the full spectrum of identity politics. Those suffering from institutionalized discrimination -- primarily women and minorities -- don't need good examples, they need change. Current Location: ~/couch Current Music: Miles Davis, "Bye Bye Blackbird" Tags: draconity (18 comments \| Leave a comment)
June 10th, 2008
02:20 am [Link]	Sharing and caring I saw a license plate on my way to work today that, had I not been driving a vehicle, would have made me stand up and cheer. There were no bumper stickers or other meaning clues on the tan minivan. Just a simple California plate: "ANESTE". And I was immediately struck by the subtlety and the power of the message. Now that, I thought, is pitch-perfect evangelism. * * * ( On responsible evangelism, and the context of the plate ) Current Location: ~journal Current Music: Sting, "Fragile" Tags: draconity, greece, struh won niarb ym (10 comments \| Leave a comment)
May 12th, 2008
11:59 pm [Link]	Fun with headlines Ah, the life of a paginator. I can do without the daily deadline pressure, but there are some parts I've missed. Like laying out today's Annie's Mailbox advice column on the page. For space reasons, we just ran the final two letters -- from vampire fans who met their spouses via that corner of the Internet, a little peeved at Annie's earlier joke at vampire chat rooms' expense. For one thing, the exchanges were remarkably cordial (at least compared to the screaming dramafests that usually occur whenever mainstream media catches wind of us oddballs). But also because I got to write the headline: "When love bites: Vampire fans weigh in" -- Then there was this story, on today's front page. Nickel summary: A new stretch of the American River has been opened to river rafters, who are discovering that the formerly secluded stretch of water is home to a gay nude beach. Alternate (rejected) headline: "Boaters now penetrating gay hidey-holes" Heh. cough Ahem. Anyway. Who says small-town papers don't cover hard news? -- Current music is genuinely what's playing now, with Winamp choosing at random from most of my music library. Truth, fiction, stranger, etc. Current Location: ~journal Current Mood: giggly Current Music: "Sit Down, You're Rocking The Boat," Guys and Dolls sndtrk Tags: draconity, wordplay, work (4 comments \| Leave a comment)
March 19th, 2008
01:19 am [Link]	Therianthropes' "German moments" My mind goes in odd directions sometimes ... kinkyturtle just posted some cartoons, one of which pokes fun at Nazifurs. Yes, that's exactly what it sounds like: furries who take great glee in their character violating Godwin's Law, even showing up at conventions dressed up in Nazi regalia. I mention this only because the second panel of the comic (a retelling of an encounter at Anthrocon where an actual German discovered one of the Nazifurs didn't speak the language) threw my brain on a tanget. The encounter is funny because, well, Nazis. Not speaking German. The cognitive dissonance of it slaps you in the face. If somebody's going to all the trouble to incorporate such a recognizable symbol into their outward identity, you'd think that they'd at least try to get the glaringly obvious bits right. And here's where my brain left the path: Do us dragons (and Otherkin/therianthropes in general) have our own "German moment"? In other words -- are we (some or many of us) missing out on anything that basic? Is there anything so fundamental to the theri experience that it seems glaringly obvious we would all have exposure to it, even though there are probably swaths of theris running around that haven't given it any thought? As impolitic as it is to say it, I think there is. ( My own answer's behind the cut; share yours in comments. ) * * * * * Also, on another topic entirely, I support the upcoming LJ content strike (Friday, March 21). The primary reason I'm here is that it's an accessible social hub, where I can keep track of many friends easily and share semiprivate content with them. When SUP gets progressively nastier to the folks who got free accounts here to keep track of paid members like me, and when they drive my friends off little by little, SUP undercuts my entire reason for sticking around as a paid member. Current Location: ~/brainstorm Current Mood: thoughtful Current Music: "Zelda's Jazz," AmIEvil, www.ocremix.org Tags: draconity, hiking (26 comments \| Leave a comment)
February 5th, 2008
04:12 pm [Link]	Quick notes from an overworked dragon Your daily dose of WTF: Go to Google. Type in the phrase: I am on the Internet. Click "I'm Feeling Lucky." (SFW as of this writing.) -- Your dragon sighting of the day (via waywind): "Fire Baby Dragon." -- I hope my readers who live in Super Tuesday states are taking a few minutes out of their day today to vote. There are some inspiring candidates out there. Current Location: ~spiral Current Music: typity typity typity Tags: draconity, my brain now hurts, search results (4 comments \| Leave a comment)
January 29th, 2008
08:06 pm [Link]	Dragon sighting 2nd place, 2007 National Natural Landmarks Photo Contest Monument Rocks Natural Area, Kansas Photo by Rob Graham of Great Bend, KS Link has the wallpaper-sized original, along with all the other contest winners. (Previously: The fire dragon) -- * This reminds me of a decades-old book I read in high school purporting to be a guide to modern dragonology; its conceit was that dragons had once existed on earth, but due to human encroachment had disappeared into the ecosystem. It had some marvelous photos of dragon-shaped sand dunes, clouds, etc., and classified them into species based on habitat. Anyone else ever heard of this? EDITED TO ADD: Found (and kinda misremembered). "Dragons: A Modern Infestation." Current Location: ~/spiral Current Mood: impressed Current Music: "Teakbois," Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman and Howe Tags: draconity, multimedia (30 comments \| Leave a comment)
January 13th, 2008
04:40 pm [Link]	Don't know why it took me this long Just learned* I have an easy way to tell geeks how to pronounce my name: Baxil, x as in TeX. (Or, if you're more the IPA sort, `/ba:xi:l/`.) -- * I have a degree in mathematics. I somehow didn't pick this information up in college. Under the Chu-Carroll Criterion, this means that I should probably be fired. Current Location: ~/Brainstorm Current Music: Symbion Project, "Soft Tempest" (via net radio) Tags: draconity, geekery, wordplay (7 comments \| Leave a comment)
December 19th, 2007
02:13 am [Link]	ClaWrite: Not just for placeholders anymore This may not be news to those of you who read therithere and/or saw its latest comic, but I've updated (and moved) the ClaWrite page. Permalink, for those of you who want to update your bookmarks, is now the simple and memorable `http://draconity.com/clawrite`.* It still looks like crap, but it's now at least got a tutorial page up -- including full punctuation guidelines, which have been in existence but missing in action for the entire decade that the info has been online. (Happy anniversary, ClaWrite! Most people would say tin is traditional, but I got you punctuation!) For as little attention as I've given ClaWrite -- an alternate alphabet based on a 3x3 grid of strokes easily made with, say, a dragon's claws -- it sure seems to have captured people's imaginations. Back in my college days, the URL was apparently dropped into a column in the gaming magazine InQuest, which is about the closest I've come to 15 minutes of fame. And I've heard from people over the years who have used it in one capacity or another -- including, as the comic linked above points out, writing in diaries. I really ought to give the site a facelift and commission a proper font out of it. Which reminds me -- I don't have an informed opinion on the many alternatives-to-copyright that exist out there (copylefting, creative commons, GPL, etc). What would be the simplest way for me to preemptively tell people that $THINGY is available free of charge for non-commercial use and/or modification; as long as the original source (me) is credited and any modifications retain the same license? And hypothetically, should $THINGY gain enough popularity that people want to use it (or one of its derivations) in a for-profit scenario -- what protections would said license still offer? -- * Yes, draconity.com is me. This has the happy side effect that the Draconity FAQ is located at the wonderfully memorable `draconity.com/faq`. I feel guilty sometimes about not putting the domain to better use, but at least there's that. Current Location: ~/couch Current Mood: awake Current Music: Splashdown, "Karma Slave" Tags: draconity, requests, tlands, wordplay (9 comments \| Leave a comment)
December 7th, 2007
02:55 am [Link]	Draconity: The literal and utilitarian views This is cleaned up from a chat log with krinndnz. I posted something similar in comments on lupabitch's journal some weeks back, and since then I've kept meaning to expand my thoughts on the subject. Krinn:* Which of these statements more closely reflects your state of mind: "I am literally a dragon" or "Being a dragon is such a useful method of understanding/coping with/narrativizing the world that I've heavily integrated it into my life"? Baxil: Um ... mu? It's not that both are true so much as that it's a false dichotomy. I do literally believe myself to be a dragon. At the same time, the only reason for me to acknowledge it in the first place is since the knowledge aids me in some way. In my more self-subversive moments -- and, hell, let's make this one of them -- I'd lean more toward the second. Only because: Even if I didn't literally believe I was a dragon, I'd recognize its utility as a metanarrative. But if I didn't recognize its utility as a metanarrative, I wouldn't bother with the idea of being a literal dragon. They do stack on each other more than is immediately apparent. The idea of being Otherkin -- to me -- fundamentally relies on the notion of making a conscious choice of belief. Even if there is an objective reality and the nature of that objective reality is that in an essential way I am draconic ... my choosing to accept that identity, as a guy in a human body, involves a set of conscious decisions about the way in which I view the world. It's easy to say "I believe this because it's true" - but in this context, 'true' means 'viewing the world through this lens makes things look more correct.' Which is inherently subjective. Short of someday physically turning into a dragon, the best I'll get is a framework that makes more sense as a meta-narrative than ($alternative). ... And to get around to the original question, if draconity caused my world to cohere more badly, it just ... wouldn't occur to me to insist on it. The ultimate goal is a meta-narrative that makes sense. -- * Edited to add: Link to original post, which is worth reading beyond my discussion. (It builds off of an earlier discussion of Otherkin as metaphor here.) Current Location: ~/brainstorm Current Mood: thoughtful Current Music: Dwayne Ford, "God I'm Glad To Be Here" Tags: draconity (15 comments \| Leave a comment)
November 11th, 2007
02:40 am [Link]	There's hope for the media yet Tomorrowlands is still down. No ETA yet on server return, although work seems to be progressing. In other news -- those of you who didn't first meet me through the dragon community may have heard some pretty outrageous things about "furries." There's a persistent and idiotic media myth -- and an accompanying Internet meme -- that "furry" is a sexual fetish and "furry conventions" are giant orgies of people in animal suits. To be blunt, this is not true. If you've never been to a furry con, please take five minutes and read through this article. The author went undercover to a con, having been lured in by their lurid reputation ... and then did something unexpected and uplifting: she reported what actually occurred, instead of desperately casting about for the worst examples she could find in order to confirm her preconceptions. I have been to dozens of furry cons and sci-fi cons. I have a long history of volunteering for both. I can confirm that the reporter's experiences were accurate (and that she captures many little details -- such as the Dance Dance Revolution machines and the chill of the headless rooms -- that show she was paying attention). The notes she makes about the contrasts between furry and sci-fi cons are largely accurate, as well, and it makes me suspect she has a history of prior con attendance. If you've ever considered attending a furry con but balked due to their reputation, give this article a hard read as well. I wholeheartedly recommend the experience. For many of us, cons are the best (or only) chance we have to connect F2F with our online friends, and that alone makes it worth the investment. Current Location: ~/brainstorm Current Mood: pleased Current Music: "Secret of Mana Aphrodite Oceanus Remix," The Wingless Tags: draconity (19 comments \| Leave a comment)
November 9th, 2007
02:06 pm [Link]	Here's one for the Friday night crowd Please indulge my curiosity on something ... If I had never presented myself as a dragon -- if there was nothing to indicate my species identity anywhere online -- and if I mentioned one day that I'd discovered my true inner species, what would you guess I am? No right answers* or wrong answers*; I'm just wondering how I present. Explanations welcome but not necessary. If you ask, I'll answer the same question for you. -- This is based on a similar thread in a friend's journal. But mine is totally hypothetical. If you really can't see me as anything besides a dragon, that's OK too. But explain why. :-) Current Location: ~spiral Current Music: "The Dragon's Daughter," David Lanz Tags:** draconity (63 comments \| Leave a comment)
June 22nd, 2007
03:23 am [Link]	Ask the Advice Dragon: The naming of names I still get a fair amount of feedback on the Draconity FAQ (long overdue for an update, though I think it's handled the passage of time well). And of the questions I get asked, one pops up time and time and time again: How do I find my dragon name? I keep re-answering this to people individually via e-mail; I can't find my notes from the last few times I wrote up suggestions, so I'm going to copy and paste my latest answer here as notes-to-self for the eventual FAQ update. If you have additional comments/questions/suggestions on the topic, or on the answer I gave, feel free to add them in comments. N.b.: Pretty much all of this applies to any search for a "true" name, draconic or otherwise. -- It's always hard to know how to offer suggestions for something so personal, but I'll pass on a few methods that have had good results for other dragons: First of all, keep your ears (and your heart) open. If a particular name is lurking in your subconscious, when you hear it, it'll just feel right. Someone might tell it to you in a dream, or a magically inclined friend might suggest it to you. If it resonates, there you go. (And if this works out for you, consider yourself lucky. `:)`) Sometimes playing with random letters can help jar your memory. Sit down with some Scrabble tiles, or an Ouija board, or a random syllable generator such as Yould (http://ygingras.net/yould). The point isn't to sit down and come up with The Real Thing on the first pass; the point is to find little bits and snatches of it that leap out at you, then play around with combining them, rolling sounds through your mind, giving your brain space to process it all and let it kick back an answer at its leisure. Also, don't be afraid to take a "temporary" name -- an Internet handle or a descriptive word or somesuch -- while you're waiting for inspiration to strike on the One True Dragon Name. Names are a matter of identity, and just having something to call yourself while you're looking for "the real thing" may be enough to settle you into your own skin (as it were) and let you identify with your dragon self. Besides, sometimes names have a power all their own, and end up choosing you - and something you picked as a temporary handle might end up having enough deeper meaning that you decide to stick with it! Current Location: ~/brainstorm Current Mood: insomnia Tags: ask me a question, draconity, magic (6 comments \| Leave a comment)
March 15th, 2007
04:24 am [Link]	Tattoo tangent: The story of Nobody I keep meaning to write about the meaning behind my new tattoo ... but every time I do, my mind drifts, and keeps settling back in on the story of Nobody. That's unfortunate, because Nobody has very little to do with my tattoo. His story's not even one I like. But it's a tale that has stuck with me through decades and distance. Perhaps by sharing it I can come to some sort of peace with it. ( A bleak story from another time and place. ) Current Location: ~/computer_desk Current Mood: reflective Current Music: "Homesick," Soul Asylum Tags: draconity, magic (7 comments \| Leave a comment)
March 9th, 2007
12:44 am [Link]	On "weirdos" vs. "executives" I mentioned in my previous post that I try to personally steer clear of the "executive freak" vs. "weirdo freak" distinction. I wanted to take a moment to expand on that, because this dovetails very neatly with something I said over in lupabitch's journal recently. Now, there are going to be (to borrow Eddie Izzard's coinage) "weirdoes" in every movement. The people who just make you stop and stare. The ones with no apparent sense of community responsibility and a narrow focus on something that manages to make no sense to anyone but them. The infamous ones, who make you inwardly wince when someone outside the group inevitably recognizes them and paints the entire group with that brush. I'm sympathetic to the common arguments for weirdo exclusion. People passionate about a subculture understandably don't want their public face to be obnoxious and out of control; fringe ideas have enough trouble getting taken seriously that a full-on embrace of the weirdoes can poison the rest of the group's efforts. But too often, splitting a group out into "executives" and "weirdoes" has ... well, exactly the advertised effect: it shatters the community. Self-righteous battles over who's "really" a $group_member and who isn't welcome there produce a lot of splinters, sharp edges, and cause people of good faith to tiptoe around the whole area lest they find themselves impaled. (I'm sure any Otherkin or pagan can name some immediate examples of the phenomenon here.) The groups that have dealt with this most successfully have taken a big-tent, small-platform approach: Invite the weirdoes in, but don't let them set the agenda. Because the truth is, you can't keep the weirdoes out -- but you can, in any of a variety of ways, drive away the executives that legitimize you. Being too exclusive will generate confrontation and drama that makes your most down-to-earth members run away. Being too extremist-driven will do the same. Either drives the executives underground, and once they're there, they can't provide the good public faces that earn you quiet respect. So it's been my experience that actually trying to make the "executive"/"weirdo" distinction is counterproductive. Let the executives and weirdoes sort themselves out. To the extent that anyone can tell them apart, anyway. `]B=8)` ( That about sums it up; a slightly cleaned version of my original comment follows. ) Current Location: ~/computer_desk Current Mood: contemplative Current Music: David Bowie, "Modern Love" Tags: draconity (7 comments \| Leave a comment)
January 16th, 2007
03:25 am [Link]	Much dragon wuv Looks like I'm a bit slow on the draw for Trogday. TROOOOOOOOGDAY! TROOOOOOOGDAY! Birthdaynating the countryside, birthdaynating the peasants ... On the other hand, I'm writing this post just in time to point out Appreciate a Dragon Day. Yay! (via xydexx) Of course, it's possible you don't have enough dragons in your life to appreciate. So I decided to offer you my assistance in locating one. A broad and rigorous selection process was undertaken, at the end of which your humble author was surprised to find that he was the chosen candidate. So surprised, in fact, that he lapsed into third person for two sentences before clearing his throat and moving on to the point. If you want to help a dragon out today, I can't imagine anything I'd appreciate more than a few pictures for the TTU Wiki.* One of my goals for the place is to start accumulating spot art to give important pages a little visual zest. For example, wouldn't the page on The First Sighting be more vivid if there was a picture of the video footage to go along with the story excerpts? Or the Los Angeles Riots? In return for my request of creativity, I've been adding story pages and world background to the wiki; CategoryStories now has summaries and pointers for some 15 short stories that few people have read since 2003, the era timeline sketches out history and WikiNews summarizes the work in progress. The place is taking shape, slowly but surely. -- * To be specific, simple ones. Line art (or even a finished-looking sketch) is quite sufficient, and what I embed on the page would be 200-300 pixels wide (though it could link to a higher-resolution version). All art would be fully and gratefully credited. Current Location: ~/computer_desk Current Mood: draconic Current Music: The Infinity Project, "Cybertropic" Tags: draconity, requests, ttu (3 comments \| Leave a comment)
June 17th, 2006
05:38 pm [Link]	The PCT as a spiritual journey You've seen it in a hundred movies: The hero travels to the wilderness, has some sort of epic quest/giant showdown/inner epiphany that grants him the weapon/secret technique/inner strength/life lesson he needs to win in the climactic battle, and emerges triumphant. It's a powerful symbol, perhaps even a cliché. The wilderness (often, but not always, a desert) removes the character from their comfort zone, forces them to push their boundaries, offers a setting for a struggle unlike anything the hero has yet faced. They emerge stronger, wiser, and sometimes even spiritually enlightened. I planned my trip as a transformative spiritual experience. It's been nearly two months now. So how has it measured up? The bottom line is, this is one of the few areas in which my expectations have been at all close to reality. I doubted there would be any great epiphany, or even much time for abstract reflection. I knew it would be exhausting and drag my focus very much into the present and concrete. It has, in fact, been an extremely grounding experience. You tune your senses in so much to your body and your surroundings, out of safety if nothing else, that there just isn't really room for the transcendent. It has been quite a spiritual journey -- in a Zen Buddhist sort of way. One long two-month koan. Life as spirit, spirit as life, moving with the rhythm of your surroundings. Walking the path in front of you, because it is your path to walk, learning to accept all of its twists and turns, both literal and metaphorical. That doesn't mean there hasn't been room for spirit. Thea and Savi have been my constant companions, and, at times, guides and protectors. There was that odd and quite supernatural-feeling encounter with the cloud. There have been the moments and miles of connection -- with random local spirits, jigsaw parts of a greater whole, and with that whole itself. I don't know what to say about those, though, really. They've just been part of my trip, no more, no less than picking my feet up off the ground to take each new step. For the most part, that's been the lesson I'm learning so far: That the spiritual connections are just sort of there, something that exists outside of me whether I'm watching or not, something I can choose to pick up and follow or choose to ignore as I go along. That they're just another part of life, another element in the grand and varied vista through which I trod. -- (Out of Internet time again. The library has odd hours here. ... About 24 hours until kadyg's visit! Yay!) Current Location: Mojave, Calif. Current Mood: reflective Current Music: Genesis' "Mad Man Moon" in my head Tags: baxwalk pct, draconity, magic (4 comments \| Leave a comment)
December 21st, 2005
12:39 am [Link]	Predators and prey nicked_metal: "Attraction to novelty is the mark of the predator." I read that post, hit that line, and thought, "Oooh, now that's a great topic to spin some thoughts off of for next_of_kin." (I still owe it to myself, and him, to do so for "The Utility of Pretension," too; I've just been a flake.) But along the way it spun into a broader thought on civilization, instead. I mean ... "Predators like novelty!" It's the sort of thing that sounds like it really ought to be some sort of litmus test to add to the "Am I a dragon?" pile; and heaven knows that, practically by definition, anyone who has enough social cojones to call themselves other-than-human in public could quite fairly be branded a novelty-seeker. Dragons are predators. QED. But ... Taking a broader view of Otherkin, it immediately falls apart. After all, the same statement applies quite equally to those who consider themselves elves and unicorns, and other such not-quite-top-of-the-food-chain species; and 'kin or furries who identify with "prey" species, from badgers and ungulates down to rabbits and rodents. All of which people are quite deliberately moving toward the fringe -- seeking novelty -- to fill some sort of inner need, be it spiritual or social. If anything, a broader look at Otherkin and other such fringe thought groups shows just how far society has upended "predators like novelty." The sort of people who have a strong likelihood to find themselves in fringe thought groups are the ones whose needs aren't getting met in mainstream society. The freaks. The loners. The intellectuals. Exactly those who, long ago and far away in a zebra pack, would be wandering around the outside edges to get picked off by the lions. But that behavior, as far as I can tell, sure makes us happier than trying to fit in at the bottom of a pecking order we don't really have any interest in anyway. Today, it's the "prey"* that gains from openness to novelty. Strange and beautiful world we live in. -- * I expect to be widely misquoted or misunderstood here, but I'm not sure how to put it any better. I'm speaking only in the savage-wilderness evolutionary sense outlined in nicked_metal's post and the zebra-pack analogy thereof. Like it or not -- all thoughts of Otherkin aside, us fringe types by definition are the stragglers of the herd. That's all I mean to say here. Current Mood: busy Current Music: The Coral, "It Was Nothing" Tags: draconity (18 comments \| Leave a comment)
January 6th, 2005
01:24 am [Link]	QotD I am pretty sure that people gain a selective advantage from believing in things they can't prove. I am dead serious about this. People who are sometimes consumed by false beliefs do better than those who insist on evidence before they believe and act. People who are sometimes swept away by emotions do better in life than those who calculate every move. These advantages have, I believe, shaped mental capacities for intense emotion and passionate beliefs because they give a selective advantage in certain situations. I am not advocating for irrationality or extreme emotionality. Many, perhaps even most problems of individuals and groups arise from actions based on passion. ... I am arguing, however, that if we want to understand these tendencies we need to quit dismissing them as defects and start considering how they came to exist. -- Randolph Nesse, answering edge.org's question "What do you believe even though you can't prove it?" This is actually surprisingly relevant to my personal approach to draconity (draconity in general, I can't speak for here). The Inner Skeptic and I grapple all the time with the whole "can't prove it" deal. Ultimately, I have the choice to either accept the lack of proof and believe anyway, or to back away from it in favor of more uncertain but epistemologically solid ground. One of the many factors that has gone into that decision has always been a difficult-to-encapsulate but conscious recognition that it's healthier -- more advantageous -- for me to believe in this theory, which is imperfect (like all the others) and odd but nevertheless has given me the best framework yet for approaching my life. Current Mood: busy Current Music: Everclear, "AM Radio" Tags: draconity (5 comments \| Leave a comment)
January 2nd, 2005
06:14 am [Link]	Starting the year off right Actual, verbatim exchange. `From: S-------- <l-------@yahoo.com> To: Draconity FAQ maintainer <me> Date: Sat, 1 Jan 2005 16:38:41 So what do you first say when you meet a person, "Hi! I'm Baxil the dragon!"? You are fucking crazy. I hope you go to hell and die, but you probably don't believe in hell since you believe that you lived in a past life. I hope you fucking die a horrible painful death in each of your "lives" Are you sure you're not a fucking cat? Loser. Die.` `From: TBR <me> To: S--------- <l--------@yahoo.com> Date: Sat, 1 Jan 2005 16:56:42 I'm glad I could give you a chance to get that out of your system. Happy new year!` `From: S-------- <l-------@yahoo.com> To: TBR <me> Date: Sat, 1 Jan 2005 18:40:57 thank you. happy new year.` Current Mood: Vastly amused Tags: draconity (19 comments \| Leave a comment)
December 13th, 2004
02:11 pm [Link]	QotD "If you were me, and had this happen to you, I'm sure you wouldn't be able to leave it alone. You would seek a theory that would account for it. For over four years now, I have been trying one theory after another ..." - Science fiction writer Philip K. Dick, speaking for everyone who has ever had a mystical experience, as he quite earnestly discusses a theory of his that maybe we're actually living in 50 A.D. and any evidence we see to the contrary is a manufactured reality we've drawn up to fool ourselves. (Personally, I find that idea batshit crazy -- but then, he'd find my ideas batshit crazy, and I'm sure we'd both be able to agree that any number of ideas for reality that billions of other people have assembled are equally batshit crazy. We're a world of batshit crazies, we are. ... But I exaggerate for effect. Us people who acknowledge the weirdness of our own beliefs do tend to take a more lenient view toward others'. And it's becoming increasingly clear to me as I age and my horizons broaden that the collision between reality and sanity is not that reality is too small to incorporate all the "batshit-crazy" theories; it's that it's so big it includes all of them.) Current Music: "Money," Pink Floyd Tags: draconity, magic (5 comments \| Leave a comment)

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