Thinking Unenslaved

so….

in my previous post, i lamented the fact that my blog participation was sporadic at best. naturally, part of me wants to improve up on that factor. the other part(s) of me are completely aware of the fact that:

• i have a pretty intense job (typically 55-65 hours per week)
• i have two time-intensive extra-curricular activities (martial arts student/instructor, soccer referee)
• i’m a homeowner, spouse, and parent of two wonderful young free-thinkers
• while not addicted to Twitter, it very much fits into my modus operandi

in other words, at least from this broadcasting station, don’t expect “unenslaved” to mean “irresponsible” or “ignorant of the inherent impact of one’s actions on his peers and the world around him.”

so, my posting will be a bit infrequent here as well, but since this is focused on more fundamental personal impetuses, it should be a bit more regular. i have invited a couple of others to post here from time to time to help keep things moving.

to answer a question that hasn’t been directly asked yet: yes, i am walking away from the otherwhirled. the domain name (otherwhirled.com) is cute and all that, but it’s not really me, if that makes any sense. and doing what i’m doing here just wouldn’t be that effective. if anyone wants the domain, i’ll make it cheap. i’ll even be happy to continue to host it. it comes up for renewal on 08/27/2009, along with otherwhirled.net.

fair notice: i am an atheist. on Dawkin’s scale, i am willing to assert that i am functionally a “6″, but intellectually a “7″. i listen to reason, but for the past twenty-odd years, i’ve not heard any theocratic arguments that are actually based in sound reasoning. as an atheist, though, i live in a conservative, religious community in which i participate actively. i live in a world circumscribed by theocratic thinking, and i do so without even thinking of heinous acts to commit against the inherent stupidity. resultingly, much of what i’ll be writing about will concern the need to think, feel, reason, and converse unenslaved by these social interdependencies while living a life that is inherently circumscribed by them.

changing ourselves, and changing our communities and environment will be a life-long process for those of us who are reading this today, the day this entry was written. this kind of change is not a short-term effect. it is really a series of processes that will need to be continually reavaluated, reassessed, audited, and adjusted. what i’m doing here today is not the beginning of that process. i’m just very tired of not doing more myself to help it along.

so let’s hope that i can do so.

there will be an inherent element of “preaching to the choir” in what i (and hopefully “we”) do here. there’s nothing wrong with that at all. conversing on our actions, sharing ideas and experiences, promoting critical thinking….these are all worthy actions to undertake. but of course, that’s not all of it. i honestly hope for the participation and feedback from theists who are genuinely concerned about the future of humanity, and who are willing to question not only their beliefs, but the directions those beliefs carry them, and the impact those beliefs have on their worldviews.

there is actually much more for these types of people to consider, than there is for those of us who are unburdened by theistic oppression, after all.

greetings.

i am Synthaetica. i have blogged in many places, under at least a few names, to the point where i felt enslaved by the practice of blogging. my participation in such places was sporadic at best, and those places largely just served to piss me off about how much i didn’t get done.

as well, the reason why i tended to fail at those endeavors was because their focus was never quite solidified. sure, i love photography, but not with the same frenzied passion that so many do, so i’d wander off on other tangents. and i also love being a smartass, but at 40-something the constant acerbity sets my own teeth on edge. not to mention that the one-trick-pony approach was pretty lame when the trick was essentially photo-caption snark. well before the last elections, i managed to burn myself out on that.

so from the outset, this site is something a little different. you’ll find that my being a smartass is a little difficult to avoid, but it won’t consume what i do here. the intent of this site is to address my true passions, which are, summarily:

• working against the establishment, especially the indirect enforcement of supporting legislation, of a theocratic state
• fighting against all forms of religious involvement, entanglement, and decision-making in the realm of public education
• offering insight to those people who want to receive it, regarding the process of disassociating oneself from delusional thinking in terms of religious beliefs, spirituality, and emotional dependency.

so, that’s what this is about. this takes up from where i only briefly touched upon in the written form, on a few occasions, at the otherwhirled. i hope you enjoy it as much as i believe i will.

…or not…

that some basic things have changed over at the otherwhirled—that other meta-incarnation of Dawnne that keeps him from going crazy.

as a result of coming out of the closet in terms of my atheism over there, some things are going to change over here, just probably not at the same level. one reason for the difference between the two is that functionally, in my personal life, my agnostic atheism is of no tangible import. in other words, between myself and my family, who share my worldview, it’s “eh, big deal”, and rarely ever discussed.

on the other hand, my agnostic atheism is exactly what drives my quest—my philosophical investigation, in truth—for better self-understanding. and that’s largely because i recognize the need for self-understanding before one can feasibly attempt to understand others. but you could also exchange the word “philosophical” above for “spiritual”, and that sentence would basically read the same, in my eyes.

and i’m tired of not including that quest here. it has only partly been because of the inherent juxtaposition between time allocated to blogging and time allocated to work. but the reality is, my work life isn’t very likely to get any less time-consuming within the next decade or more, so i might as well just schedule some time in and devote it accordingly.

which, i have done.

the snarkery side of it will remain on the otherwhirled, but given the diverse readership and the gross amount of visitors on the otherwhirled compared to perpetual dawnne, the otherwhirled was the proper place for a formal announcement of the matter. however, as i begin sharing my path to this point, such posts will be here on perpetual dawnne, because of their relevance to who i am, and their general lack of cathartic expression.

make sense? i hope so.

i imagine, because of the depth of time involved (a near-eternity in comparison to her normal communications when i have managed to contrive a what-the-fuck moment), that i have managed to offend at least one long-time reader and friend of these blogs. sadly, all i can offer in that regard: please try to think beyond what you’ve accepted as truth, because you know there’s little basis for it as “truth”.

seriously.

but i will continue to love, admire, and respect you regardless of how you ingest what i wrote over there.