draft
This
post has an uncertain lifespan. It is not clear if I will keep it
online for the long term. I might just let it go out there for a few
days, and then pull it back. We will see.
There
are a variety of changes around here and they will be reflected in my
blog. Those of you who seem to track this blog will notice a
difference, and I wanted to both forewarn you and explain things.
The
big idea goes something like this.
This
blog was created and written in one stage of my life in order to
achieve certain goals. For the most part, these goals have been
achieved although of course there is much more to do. Although I did
not write enough of the two books that are planned, I have certainly
written enough to have valid writing samples. With a little luck,
these longer term goals, for example, describing the early computer
animation community of the 1980s in Los Angeles, will be expanded
upon and will eventually make it into print. And hopefully several
other themes will also get written, some of them may even get a lot
of attention.
But
in other ways, the blog has to change. First, the illusion of being
self-supporting is not tenable. And it was this illusion that allowed
me the freedom to write on certain topics at length. I will still do
that from time to time, but not as much as before. Probably, I will
be working under even more constrained circumstances. And these
circumstances are fair. This is how the government and my peers
treat people like me, and only the stupid or the criminally naive do
not know it. Second, as time has passed, it has become clear to me that certain things that I took for granted, such as that our government was operating in good faith, or that people were my peers when it came to certain matters, have not turned out to be true. Third, it is very clear that many people, even friends of mine, do not take me all that seriously, even though they may think that I am amusing from time to time.
The
results as it applies to this blog is as follows. The posts will
probably be shorter, more diverse in topic, less “reasonable”
when it comes to strong assertions. It has been said about me that
“I do not pull my punches”. What is odd about this is that in
fact I do pull my punches, or at least I have in the past. Now, I am
more likely to just tell you what I think if I believe that the
evidence is obvious, and hope you can follow along.
There
is a joke that goes something like “if you are going to tell the
truth, you had better be funny, otherwise people will kill you”. I
will try to remember this.
Also,
when you have nothing to lose, why be tactful? The fact is, there
are a lot of things about our society that annoys me. Why not
discuss them? The fact is that I have been treated like garbage by my
field, and it annoys me. Why not talk about it? What is the
downside? Are people going to like me less? I doubt it. My friends
already know (mostly) what I think, and the people who are not
friends might be surprised by my reality, even in one case shocked,
but that is actually something of a compliment for a blog writer.
At
one point, I thought that through good work and patience, learning
new skills, being polite, etc, I would eventually get some
recognition, get some projects, demonstrate my more mature talents
and so forth, but that did not work out. Today most of my friends who
are successful play the corporate game (probably, in their
estimation, to be allowed to keep being successful), so they are not
going to help. If, then, as it appears, that whatever I do to fix
this will not rely on the good will of my peers, or at least my
colleagues if they are not peers, why not tell them what I think?
Hey,
maybe it will even help. You never know.