achad.net

It’s been over a year and a half since I started achad.net and my vision for it has changed dramatically. Achad means a lot to me. It’s my spot on the web where I can write about anything. I post thoughts on philosophy, art, current events, Thelema, etc. Although my original vision was to create a community, Achad ended up being an expression of the joys and sorrows I face on my journey.

I realize it’s been a while since I’ve actively posted. Much has changed in my life over the past year and a half. Besides quitting an addiction and exiting an abusive relationship, I’ve made new friends and lost old ones, moved 3,000 miles away from home to make a new life for myself, and started my own business: all while disabled by a medical condition which prevents me from looking at fluorescent lights.

In the next few weeks I will be posting a few things I’ve written but never go around to putting up. I’m also looking forward to editing a couple of my old writings, specifically the ones on Thelema. My opinions regarding certain Thelemic topics have changed drastically and I’d rather present my views accurately since there are a number of links pointing to my site referencing these documents.

Finally, I will be creating a new template for this site when I get around to it. The current layout is pretty boring and not very attractive. Since I have my own web design company and my portfolio could use some more active sites, I figure this is a great chance to demonstrate my abilities. (If you want to support my company and hire me to do some website work, please visit http://www.sigil93.net to get in touch with me.)

Thank you all for helping make Achad a success, and I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

The idea behind this site began as just a personal home page, where I could write about an aspect of my life, and then instead of *always* being limited to 140 character identi.ca/Twitter messages, I could write a brief summary accompanied by a link, if the need arose for more advanced discussion.

As the concept evolved in my mind, and as I began to assemble and configure the site’s layout, I decided that I could still use this as a personal site — but that I am also interested in experimenting to see if I can get a bit more of a community type thing going, to really emphasize a certain kind of “unity” (which is what the Hebrew word “achad” means). Maybe as this site grows, it can become a community of authors united to express and promulgate the ideas of various aspects and philosophies of freedom.

To me, freedom needs to occur on many levels for one truly to be free; one needs to be free physically, mentally, psychologically, and spiritually. I differentiate mental and psychological to emphasize the difference between freedom of information, and freedom from states of mind that limit one’s full potential (imposed by, among other things, superstition and abuse). But I digress. In any case, to emphasize these various aspects and relate them back to myself, the topics on this blog will include Thelema (a spiritual philosophy emphasizing Liberty), computer security (freedom of information), and anarchism (the only truly free political setup). There will also be a section for authors to post random things about happenings in their lives.

On an individual level, I am also looking to unite the aspects of myself. I find that I very frequently get intensely immersed in one aspect of my life, whether it is anarchism, computer security, occultism, or something else, and then I drop every other interest. I might go on a six month computer security binge, where I study various related topics during every waking hour, and then decide I want to get back into anarchism, so I go do Food Not Bombs, etc. and go read anarchist philosophy 20 hours a day. By the time I switch to the next interest, I’m pretty much starting from scratch because it’s been so long. As such, I’d like to make it a personal goal to find integration, so that I can indulge and make progress in all of my interests and through the unity therein elevate myself to a higher state of consciousness.

I hope that you enjoy sharing my experiences as I endeavour toward the manifestation of Life, Love, Liberty, and Light through the formation of unity, both in mind and community.