It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society
— Jiddhu Krishnamurthi
Mastodon: http://mastodon.social/@AverageDog
Gopher: gopher://sdf.org/1/users/nmh
Imagine some mildly interesting factoids here, like ex-computer scientist, ex-Buddhist (quit the dogma, kept the spirit), occasional writer of novels. Worked part-time in technology and publishing, but nobody enjoyed that much.
I'm mostly interested in emotional connection. Sure, I enjoy the occasional friendly intellectual exchange, but I'm mostly interested in harmony and how others feel and what I can contribute to their wellbeing. No being can be happy at the cost of another. My happiness is your happiness. Unfortunately, I have rarely met anybody who shares this perspective. I might write a book about this.
So how do you live like this?
Simple. You have no friends, family (what's left of it) thinks you're weird, you have no job, you're not lonely, you're completely isolated from the rest of the world, which is the worst thing that can happen to someone who enjoys nothing as much as emotional connection.
Of course there've been people I've met. People I talked to, people I did things with. People who thought I was a good friend, even. But none of them has been a good friend to me. I laugh or cry during most movies, most of the time both. My emotions flow through me. I want to share them. But there's no recipient. I want to know how you feel. But sharing emotions seems to be uncool. It's a sad world.
The men I've met were particularly emotionally unavailable, we were only talking about cool things and never about ourselves. I had a few female friends, which worked better, but now all of them are either married or dating, and I'm not interested in either. Sex is a lousy foundation for a friendship. It doesn't create connection. Sharing your feelings and wishing the best for each other, this is what creates connection.
I started writing computer programs as a substitute for friendship and became kind of good at it. It was a dead end. So was writing books about programming. It does not create any connection. It's a cheap substitute. I keep doing it because that's what I do. I might try something else for a change, but my last work of fiction has still not broken even after a year. Of course I will do it anyway.
Yeah, I have written a lot of books. Most of them about compilers and LISP and two about Yoga (meditation) and Theravada Buddhism. Then I have also written some science fiction and a few essays.
Writing books has been a big part of my life. Most of my books are on the main page, but I have written many more.
My books do not really fit into a category. Even my textbooks tell a story. If you are looking for a neatly arranged textbook that compartmentalizes knowledge, these books are not for you. These books want to build understanding, not transfer dead information. The tone is light-hearted, but there is little or no fluff. I do not like to waste the time of my readers. There are lots of sample pages on each book homepage, so you do not have to buy the proverbial cat in a bag.