Ezekiel 杨蕊七

Personal Introduction

Warm greetings to you all. I'm a 17-year old guy-shaped person, and if I'm lucky, I'll grow up. As for my name, you can call me anything as long as it makes sense in context. Rui or Ezekiel works too.

There are a few things I enjoy, usually when I put a little work into them. I can music. I can words. I can consume. I can logic. They sometimes lead to more specific interests, though not many long-term ones. Only Homestuck, the sticky presence that's been haunting me for years. Maybe gender and Christianity count too, just to throw them out there. We'll see how it goes.

I lack friends, but that's nothing too unusual. Laziness, nihilism, insecurity, and unnecessary anxiety are my vices, though not ones I particularly enjoy. The weather changes every day no matter what I say, so I try to chill out on the dreary hypothesizing. It's the little things that count; just because it's a cliche doesn't mean it's wrong.

I have a lukewarm temperament as a default setting these days. It might be due to my being overcautious about mistakes and fear of being out of control. My frequent rumination on insignificant things probably contributes too. That's to say I'm as far from perfect as anything. God spits me out of His mouth.

I used to be more of a misanthrope. I'm trying to recover from it, but I don't want to forget the things they've taught me. Especially as a child, which you can say reasonably I still am. Empathy is the way forward, as rocky and ultimately self-serving the path may be. I don't know for sure who I really am, but isn't that just the thing we all have in common? Well, if it isn't, I guess I'll have to deal with saying something stupid because I made the choice of putting myself out there.

Now I just need an excuse to use footnotes, because I'm insecure and pretentious. I'll see a percentage of you around. That's a reductively utilitarian way of looking at it, but that's the inevitable result of trying too hard to be neutral.

Why I'm here

I don't use most social media. No Facebook¹, Instagram², Twitter³, Snapchat⁴, Tumblr⁵, Tiktok⁶, etc. The ones I frequent include Quora⁷, Reddit⁸, Discord⁹, and YouTube¹⁰. I'm not trying to judge the people on those platforms, I'm just making it clear which ones I participate in. And it doesn't mean I don't have an unhealthy relationship with them. I do, in fact. However, something I've noticed is that, other than Discord, I've never found myself contributing to any of it. There are reasons why.

First off, I'm not an assertive person, and when there's no reason to express myself, I won't. So I slip into a habit of doomscrolling quite easily, and that is partly a issue I can only address on my own. But at the same time, it's hard to break away from something whose ultimate purpose is to keep your attention. Because that's how they survive and propagate.

Social media incentivizes controversy over substance. People are objectified: flattened, distorted, and most of all, commodified. The only value people can provide each other is "content". The most important relationship is that of one between the consumer and the consumed. I hate to use the word "unnatural", but that's what it is. Despite everything promised to us by capitalist society, I believe that our natures are not suited for giving in to the illusion of being God in exchange for being harvested.

All that is to say: I want to make my own stuff. That, or time, and therefore life, has no meaning. It's not the end of the world if that happens, but it would make no difference if the world was there or not. Hedonism has its benefits, and so does nihilism, but hedonistic nihilism is the shadow cast by our ability to comprehend divinity. It can be absorbed into the greater whole, but it can also lure us into a state of utterly meaningless isolation. For my sake and yours, that's what I wish to fight.

Thank you, devs, for making this possible. Thank you, reader, for being here. And have a nice day. If you're unable, try peace or passion. The choice is yours!

1. Boomers.

2. Pictures are for people who can't read.

3. The only acceptable instance of deadnaming.

4. Eh.

5. The least bad one. The problem is that I'm too lazy and dumb to use it.

6. Do I really need to explain?

7. Only for the fair number of skilled and interesting writers on there. Otherwise? Memes and Nazis.

8. Yeah... Hard to justify this one. But it definitely depends on the subreddit.

9. Only one or two servers at a time, and not anymore at this point.

10. Varies in quality.