Ophidian Convolutions

1) I handed in my thesis today.  I'd rather not have had to haul 300 pages x 5 copies around in the rain while doing so, but oh well, it's done now.  The defense is in September, and I won't be surprised if I end up having to do some revisions after the defense, i.e. "please re-write this chapter in a more efficient way that takes about 20,000 fewer words."  But I'm relieved that the hard work is basically finished, and that I still have 3 weeks of summer left for celebrating that accomplishment.


2) Hydra last week was the busiest one yet.  So a big thanks to the following parties for contributing to the success:

• cadredlight and jesse_fantastic for helping out on the door
• Mannequin Depressives and Tekhnotron for putting on a great show
• Mauler for assisting with the sound set-up
• DJ Science for spinning some excellent tunes
• D and his staff
• Everyone who made it out to show their support for the night

You can check out DJ Science's playlist here. 

And why am I providing a link instead of directly posting the playlist here like I have in the past?  That brings us to #3:


3) This will be my last entry on this journal.

For the entire time I've had this journal (i.e. LJ and/or the Angels of Disruption one in years previous to this year), I have either been writing a master's dissertation, writing a PhD thesis, or (during the year or so between them) knowing I was going to be writing a PhD thesis.  Thus, with the thesis now complete, this seems like a good time to be shutting things down and/or transforming my online presence as I'm currently inclined to do.

I've thought about this decision a lot for the last few weeks, and while I suspect it was at least partly motivated by the "I'm tired of talking / writing / defending myself" syndrome that grad students commonly experience toward the end, I wouldn't be making this announcement if I thought I was going to change my mind once I rested for a couple months.  (We might recall from certain past incidents that I'm pretty harsh toward people who make big grandiose declarations about "closing a chapter of their lives" and then go straight back to the same thing they were doing before. )  I won't rule out the possibility that I might someday start a different blog, maybe on blogspot or something, that is oriented toward a specific topic rather than being "personal."  But I think the "personal journal" / LJ era is done for me.

The following factors contributed to this decision:

1. LJ has been horrifically slow the last while, either needing multiple reloads or (a few weeks back) not loading for me at all.  I found this frustrating at the time, because I had really wanted to write a rant and was prevented from doing so - and all this after I'd actually started paying for LJ, no less.  But reflecting on my frustration later, I found myself thinking "y'know, this is bullshit.  Even if I post this I'm still going to rant to my friends at tea, and the rant is of a nature that I don't want to post it publicly, so nobody else will see it anyway.  So what's the point of posting?  Now I hate that this is even bothering me to begin with."  The whole thing, in short, started to feel like a failure of mental discipline, which in turn made me want to not want to even write in the journal.


2. On a similar note, I find that when I'm meditating, the idea of writing a journal entry on _____, and how to phrase said entry so as to encourage certain kinds of comments and discourage others, is often a disruptive thought that arises.  As per #1, this too implies to me that the journal has become a liability rather than an asset as far as promoting mental discipline goes.  Whereas writing has, in the past, helped me control any dwelling on personal issues (by crystalizing those issues), when the topic is something like religion or feminism, the prospect of posting a blog about it seems to cause mental-wheel-spinning rather than halting it.  Speaking of which...


3. Regarding political/religious/otherwise intellectual topics: I just increasingly find that talking about any of this stuff on the Internet is inherently frustrating.  There is a certain kind of conversation you can have in real life, in which all the parties involved seem to be genuinely striving for mutual understanding, and in which you have plenty to talk about even when people largely agree with one another . And I find that type of conversation is seemingly impossible to have on the Internet, no matter how much how much effort (as per #2) one puts into encouraging it .  Either people agree with a post, and thus don't comment because they feel they have nothing to say, or they disagree in a needlessly adversarial manner that to me seems excessively "You are wrong, I must vanquish your view because it is a threat to my identity/worldview/privilege/etc.!" and insufficiently "oh look, a friend with a different view than mine, I wonder what I can maybe learn from them seeing as how I might not be right/knowledgeable about everything?"  Often, these people are actually fine in real life, but the way they act on the Internet actually causes me to judge and dislike them.  In which case, the Internet is actually interfering with whatever "real" friendship could be there.  So best to eliminate that element, and save the intellectual stuff for real life.  


4. I would also note that I'm well aware that the "no comment" portion of #3 is partly my own fault, because I can't stop myself from writing like a graduate student all the time, and over-tailor/elaborate/defend what I'm saying such that little is left for other people to say in response.  But inasmuch as I do consider that my authentic "written voice," and don't want to change my style in a way that I know I won't be satisfied with, I'm thinking maybe it's better to just write academic papers, instead of posting stuff on the Internet that thus simultaneously invites and discourages comments.


5. Last but not least: I want to be clear that I have no regrets whatsoever regarding the way I've dealt with certain personal / emotional / relationship issues on here in the past.  This journal has played a valuable role in giving me a place to sort out my thoughts about some confusing situations, as well as to "spin" things that I thought needed "spinning."   If people don't like it, fuck 'em - I did what I felt I needed to do for myself, and I have no trouble sleeping at night as a result.  All that said though, I'm in a very stable situation these days - in fact, easily the happiest I've been on the relationship front in my whole life.   So as worthwhile as I've found this personal aspect of journalling to be in the past, it's kind of N/A now.  i.e. going back again to point #1, I find there isn't much point/need in journalling when you talk to your friends and loved ones about everything significant to you all the time anyway... something which is much easier to do when you do not have a dissertation or thesis hanging over your head!  The journal thus made sense as an adaptation to certain past circumstances, but as those circumstances change, it has gradually cased to fill a need.

So in conclusion, I'm killing off the journal because I no longer need or want it, for the reasons given above.  I'll probably still drop in and/or comment on other peoples' journals once in awhile, but I won't be posting entries myself.  I'll probably also make all my past posts private, not because of any particular content, but because if I'm "finished" here, that just seems "tidier" somehow.

But I will still be maintaining an online presence, albeit in a different form.

I am NOT getting on Facebook - I assume that was already obvious to anyone who knows me. 

However, I am now on Twitter as @Jinx_Disruption.

For the record, I was never against Twitter in the 100%, "causing-the-downfall-of-civilization"-type way that I am against Facebook.  Sure, there's lots of bullshit on there too, which I've mocked and continue to mock, and I still have no respect for the "I 8 a sandwich LOL" school of tweeting.  But with Twitter, it was more that, in the past, I just didn't personally have a use for Twitter.

Now, by contrast, I do have a use for it: in fact, I think it's perfect if all I want to post is event announcements, links to playlists, songs I want to share, "look at this gothic shopping website that has a good deal," "look at this funny animal doing something awesome," updates re: artistic projects that I have separate websites for, or etc.  I've also found plenty of useful "non-sandwich" tweeting around, e.g. major news sites, sellers of gothy goods, record labels and... villains?  (You'd be surprised how many villains have pretty hilarious twitter accounts. )

So in conclusion, I invite anyone who wants to keep up with upcoming Angels of Disruption events, playlists for those events, and related topics (mostly music but also some other random stuff)  to follow me on Twitter. 

And here's hoping that, in the dawning, post-thesis era of my life, I also get to see and interact more with all of my friends offline.