Hello, I'm here because I'm interested in writing, computers and related stuff, and would like to connect with people here in particular. Not to toot my own horn, but I'm planning on making some waves. Or not. More importantly, I hope that I'll find here the motivation to write. Thanks for accepting me in!
Does anybody notice how 'the meaning of life' is a metaphor everybody uses, but nobody knows the _meaning_ of it?
I'll be here all night.
The Dark Forest
She lit up her smartphone's screen and pulled me along, my agency suspended. In the woods, with everything I knew, a fear hid my lingering hope.
The path led deep within, the torch revealing growing wickedness: the trees acquiring faces and the critters standing unafraid. I saw a house, seemingly abandoned and poorly made.
She released me gently inside the house that was shelter. She was friendly to me, and a sacred ritual restored the holy grove.
Dark Mode
Light enters from without, and we understand it.
Darkness comes from within, but we can't grasp it.
The first symbolizes existence, the second emptiness.
When this universe completes, the light won't exist, and it will be emptiness; the darkness will be, and it shall become existence. When it happens, we might be there, but we won't see the difference.
Them
They feel like cogs in machines. They're looking for comfort in the motivational posts of strangers. Some are concerned with the planet and politics, and some relax with movies and conversations.
They are not like me. I observe from my void and don't concern myself much with transient phenomena.
I hope they all get a void of their own one day.
The Torch-Bearer
The mysterious man has a torch, and evil walking trees haunt the world.
Every Full Moon, he travels around the planet and starts month-long fires in the hiding caves of the people, igniting the branches that drop from the walking trees.
"Why doesn't he incinerate the walking trees?" I hear you ask. Now, who do you think made the mysterious man?
After a night's sleep, I find my latest story reads like an outline. Too much packed in and not down-to-earth enough. Still pretty happy that I wrote something, maybe it could serve as an actual outline...
I can't force myself to ever remake my stories in a real second draft. A touch of discipline will serve me well in the future... At least they're short.
Not to say there isn't any quality content on there, but the algorithms there determine that it they're going to serve you what will consume your attention, whether you want it or not.
I had a pretty busy time in life recently, here is an observation:
#mastodon #fediverse was the social network I neglected most, and the only one I felt that I didn't use enough. The other ones are just time-wasting machines for me.
Yesterday I got obsessed over the minute differences in the glyphs of letters in a book I'm reading. I see it as a feature and not a bug, as it gives a more natural feeling. It seems that achieving that effect can be difficult, both online and in print.
A Writer's Imagination
Every day I want to write, but I don't. Too much has already been revealed. If I write, I will unleash more of it into the world. If I write, I'll want to share it with somebody else. I can't even hide it when talking to people. The weight of it is too much for me, and my mind is too feeble to comprehend half of it.
My name is June. My mother’s name is May and her mother’s name is April.
You might think that this is cute and saccharine, but it’s an absolute pain when computers get involved. For instance, I’m making a family tree, and _no_, Excel, my daughter is _not_ called July.
Her name is Julia.
"You followed a person because you found them funny or cute one time?" the recommendation algorithm quizzically said.
"Oh, you must be interested in everything they're about, and I think there's a neat box I can fit you in. Don't worry, I'll never forget this gem."
I can't pull the stars from the sky for you, but I promise half-insightful remarks pulled from the ether.
Here's an example:
Whenever you post on the open web, you're feeding the data monsters of tomorrow. The unwritten law is: "If you can see it, you can use it as training data for machine learning."
I'm having "a lot of fun" learning programming.
"Show, don't tell" seems a confusing maxim. I'm probably missing something, but I can't quite wrap my head around it. People say it and give an example of telling what happened in a more character-focused way, or a less abstract one.
I'm a person interested in open-source, writing, and most things weird. I hope we both find our place on this contraption called the Internet. I'm a bit lazy, I think.
Writing bite-sized short stories on my blog. It's free!
It's also just a hobby, and won't be big at all.