I hate writing about myself.
I mean yeah, sure, it's a standard interview question. "Tell me about yourself." And there's a sense that I do like myself, sometimes, and think I might be an interesting person, but I'm also painfully aware that I can get some real Main Character Energy, and take over the conversation, and talk ad nauseam about a subject that very few people besides my wife want to do a deep dive into.
So I'll try to keep this relatively succinct. Not too terse, since you did click the link, but concise. Maybe.
Like many adults, I wear lots of different hats. Some of these are connected to relationships (husband, dad) and some are just about me (writer, artist, gamer, coder). I have lots of—possibly too many—interests (sci-fi, fantasy, mathematics, fractals, game theory, puzzles, algorithms, optimization, and oh so much more). I have opinions, many of which are likely to grace the pages of this site.
I note that I'm a husband and dad, because those are the most important hats I wear and they form perhaps the majority of my view on things, but they're not the focus of this site. You can check out my wife's site if you'd like.
I listed "writer" as a hat that I wear. I like writing, as a form of communication; it soothes me and I would much rather use written communication than spoken, for reasons that are complex and nuanced. Maybe I'll write about that sometime. But "you must write" 1 is one of the reasons this site exists. The words inside need somewhere to go, and you, dear hapless reader, have stumbled into my honeypot of verbiage.
"Artist" is another one of those hats. I struggled for quite a while to find "my" medium, something that would allow me to express outwardly what I had inside my head, until I stumbled into fractal art. That ended up being a key to unlock a lot of other media for me. I'm sure I'll write a lot more about that process as well, but I can say that the process of creating art, regardless of medium, is extremely fulfilling.
I am a "gamer" in the sense that I play video games, but definitely not in the sense that I adopt or adhere to any specific sort of "gamer culture". I think a lot of that culture is toxic and pushes people away from video games where they might otherwise be interested in participating, and I'm absolutely not a fan of "trolling" in games or anywhere else. A topic for another time(s), perhaps. In addition to video games, I also play board games, which often have different goals.2
I write code, hence "coder" as a hat. I've been writing code for a very, very long time. I've used more than a dozen languages on a dozen platforms. I've watched code fads come and go. I do in fact have a career in tech, which I've done reasonably well with, but I'm not famous and I haven't done anything historically noteworthy. From time to time I'll probably write some nerdy stuff here, but it will be properly labeled so you can skip over it, gentle reader.3
Those interests are going to become evident as I write the content on this site. Actually, they're probably the actual point of this site. There's little reason for you, random web visitor, to put any sort of confidence in what I write or treat it as more significant than any of the other millions of uninformed voices on our great big global network. I'll add my pitch to the general cacophony, and hope that rather than another dissonant chime, I'm helping to create a harmony of sanity in a world gone completely, utterly mad.4
And now, with you having made it to the end of this personal screed, I will tell you one more thing about myself, that sometimes people pick up on and sometimes they don't. My wife often (correctly) accuses me of burying the lede, but this time I did it on purpose, because you would likely have not read anything else on this page if I'd started with it.5
I'm autistic.
This doesn't carry the stigma it used to, thankfully, but it's still significant because most people imagine autism—a multi-dimensional spectrum of behaviors and challenges—to always be life-crippling. To be sure, for many autistic people it presents serious barriers to social life, work, and generally surviving in our complex culture. But as scientific understanding of autism grows, so hopefully does general acceptance of neurodivergence not being wrong, just different.6 I'm sure I'll write more about this too.
Anyway, now you have some background on who I am and why you can henceforth dismiss anything I say as irrelevant or unnecessary. Please enjoy your stay, and have some cookies on your way out.
Just kidding. This site doesn't use cookies.
1
Robert Heinlein, science fiction author of legend, wrote in 1947 that this is the first rule writers should follow. While the remainder of his rules have varying merit nearly 80 years since his advice was penned, this first rule—you must write—is such sound advice that it can be applied to almost any discipline. Artists must create. Gamers must play. Coders must code. Dads must parent. Husbands must love. By practicing whatever it is we do, we retain and improve. Cease doing, and ability withers, passion dies, memory fades.
2
We won't talk about role-playing games. Well, not yet.
3
Of course in today's world no discussion of tech can avoid talking about AI as well. If you're hoping for breathless cheerleading on that topic you won't find it here; as with other major tech changes, the hype vastly surpasses the reality, and I have a particular fondness for facts.
4
No promises, though. On any topic I might pick, there will be someone more knowledgeable, more current, more vested than me.
5
And you still might, because the stigma on this point in our culture is very high and all too often it's used as an excuse to thoroughly disregard the lived experience of people like me. Whether that's true here... is up to you.
6
There are people for whom different automatically implies wrong. That is... a choice, and not one I'd endorse.