Inspiring Incentives to Write Again

Hello Steem World!  I call myself Bitscape in some realms, Still in others, and beyond that, well...  Not going to descend to the level of sharing such mundane information as that generic assigned name those in the legal world of the Matrix would consider the only one to be "real".  Different facets of the identity associated with this body manifest in different ways, and at different times, so why not assume different names in these various contexts out of which very different beings possessing quite different patterns of consciousness may arise?

Bitscape, acting as an agent within the digital realm:  a hacker of the mind, a chronicler of personal experiences, intuitions, thoughts, and emotions into publicly available communication in a manner that will ideally create connections with others who resonate empathically, as well as sharing intellectual discourse on subjects of mutual interest. Sometimes written, sometimes visual, and sometimes aural.  When I am in blogging mode, it mostly comes through in written form of course, while the writing is heavily inspired out of the realm of music, and I do like to dabble in graphic editing from time to time as well; during those sessions when I'm in the KBGA radio studio, it's 100% aural.  (For the past several months, I have been on sabbatical from that.  It's a college community supported radio station which the town of Missoula is very proud of,  where I had the honor of DJing on the late night Saturday slot for a number of years, with the pleasure of the complete and total DJ artistic freedom that makes KBGA quite a rare gem in the world of broadcast FM radio.  A few of my past shows can be downloaded here.  Maybe one of these days, I'll upload more of the archives and highlights from my hard drive, and organize them in a more pleasing manner, but for now, this will do....  So many things one could do, even as attention is pulled in every direction in this world...)

Though the internet tradition from which I claim influence generally abjures posting face pics, or even publicly associating in any manner the online identity with the persona known in the "real world" of everyday people, let's be honest...  Social media has merged and intermingled these worlds into one, I am already a minor public figure locally (as are we all in the age of social media 15 minutes of fame attention economy)....  So without further ado, a selfie, taken in the woods a few months ago...

As I eluded earlier, I have mostly lived in the town of Missoula for most of the past decade.  It is a community nestled amidst the rocky mountains of western Montana, where I have found nurturing, support, and a culture that is generally friendly to the lifestyle I like to live, with many wild places and rivers in easy reach.

That said, since the fall of 2015, I have mostly been living "on the road", spending most of last winter wandering near the coastlands of Cascadia, a visit to California reminding me that it's not the place for me (the beloved cat who had become my traveling companion and best friend was lost to a predator there), getting a feel for wetter places, and enjoying lots of time in solitude in Oregon and Washington.  This summer, I tried being somewhat more sociable for a while by caravaning with a school bus driven by an old friend who spends her life giving rides to hippies, volunteering at permaculture earth-healing projects, and along the way spreading the messages in Walmart parking lots to help awaken people from the prison of the slave society which surrounds us.  After my hippie friends went on farther east than I wanted to go, decided that for a while there was nowhere else I'd rather be than back in good old Missoula, living out of my car, sometimes hanging out with friends, sometimes keeping to myself.

As winter gets closer, I'll likely be spending more time back in the work world, as lately I have been very much missing having a place with a kitchen of my own.  Sometimes kind friends have allowed me to cook in theirs, but there's nothing quite like having a personal space to arrange as I like for conducting cooking experiments and producing yummy things to share around.  So anyway, cooking is definitely another of my ongoing and recurring passions in life.

For the past several years, my day job (when I've had one) has mostly consisted of helping maintain website backend code, troubleshooting, and also a bit of occasional Linux sysadmin type stuff for a local mom'n'pop web shop whose primary focus is local businesses, non-profits, and other such organizations.  But that's a whole separate world, with a separate identity, a different name, whose existence may be known and recognized, but not dwelled upon here, existing in a symbiotic cohabitation / timeshare arrangement to keep this body and the other identities economically supported.  Though there have been some moments when I've wished the entire capitalist slave economy could be absconded with entirely, and the use of money supplanted with a pure gift economy, I also recognize that at times the incentive structures of the market can be a reasonably decent way to motivate people to help one another, at least under ideal conditions.

So I could go on into theorizing about politics, economics, philosophy, the human condition, the nature of reality and the universe and all that, but there could be plenty more posts to write on those things in due course, and this is intended as a simple introduction.

Since "favorite lists" can be such a direct and easy way to determine compatible preferences and interests, I'll conclude this introduction with a few...

Favorite bands (so many I love it's hard to narrow down, but I'll try a few of my all-time favorites):

• Delain
• Nightwish
• Within Temptation
• Nine Inch Nails
• Conjure One
• Sarah Fimm
• Tori Amos
• Madonna (yes, I too have a weakness for pop, and she's a master at it)

Favorite movies:

• The Matrix
• Contact
• Fight Club
• A Scanner Darkly
• Waking Life
• Dark City
• Lord of the Rings trilogy

Favorite tv shows:

• Firefly
• Buffy The Vampire Slayer
• Xena: Warrior Princess (the original, staring Lucy Lawless, though I'm open to the possibility that the new one might be good too)
• Babylon 5
• Game of Thrones

Favorite Foods:

• Pasta
• Pizza
• Burritos
• Making giant pots of spicy bean dip to share around

Passions:

• Promoting anarchy, mostly of the voluntary socialist / cooperative variety, ala Food Not Bombs, and other forms of direct action with immediate social benefit.
• Permaculture, though I'm a bit of a perpetual beginner and experimenter when it comes to basic gardening, I believe the ways and principles collectively known as permaculture have the potential to create the most abundant and hospitable future for human life on this planet.
• Earth-based eclectic spirituality.  I've dabbled in buddhist meditation, for a while became a member of unitarian universalist congregation (that was back when I was living in Lincoln NE over 10 years ago), associated with neopagan covens, found power in chanting hare krishna mantras, had my mind blown at the shift in human consciousness that can sometimes happen at rainbow gatherings (during the best of times, anyway), visited ecovillage intentional communities, and chuckled with bumused adolescent admiration at Anton LaVey's Church of Satan writings... But that's mostly in the past....  I suppose underlying all this dabbling lies a shamanic interest in the modes and ways it is possible to alter the consciousness in a way that connects with the essential divinity within all beings, and how we access that.
• Dancing, drumming, jamming, chanting...  When I lose all thought of myself in it, I find a more authentic understanding of what it means to be alive.  Paradoxical.
• Cryptocurrencies, and more generally, the way our realities are rapidly being changed by the Internet during this era in which I am privileged to be inhabit this world.
• Philosophy, contemplating the human condition, where we're going as a collective whole, and why.  At various times in my life, I've identified with everything from techie futurist dreams inspired by Star Trek, to John Zerzan style primitivism.  So far, Charles Eisenstein's The Ascent of Humanity seems to tie things together in the most articulate way I've read or heard yet.

Well, that will be enough for now.  I look forward to experimenting, connecting, learning, and sharing on this exciting new platform for communication and mutually manifested abundance.