What's the point?

You have been charged with High Facebookery, how do you plead?

Not long ago, I took part in something of a social experiment that took Facebook by storm. I dubbed the exercise "Twenty-Twenty" but I'm sure there are myriad names for it. The point of the exercise is to do two things: (1) write a series of twenty "random" things about yourself in no more than a few sentences, and (2) tag twenty of your friends so they'll see that you've created the post and ask them to write a similar piece and tag you in return.

The idea is clever. It gets people thinking about various and varied aspects of themselves and begs them to post it for all to see. In addition to that you are guaranteed a limited audience for your self-expression, which is at once healthy and the engine that drives the entire experiment. The hypothesis behind it all is two-fold, "People love to talk about themselves. They like it even more when there is an audience to project and reflect themselves off of..."

I am not immune to this. I must admit something of an addiction to filling out questionnaires, personality tests and posting my own written pieces of self-expression. The mere existence of this blog is evidence of this, and I'm never really certain that many people read it.

I ask myself, "What's the point?"

Assymmetric Conversion is an ego blog. It's not claiming to report on events that you can't find out about somewhere else, and it doesn't claim some special knowledge or hints and tips for living. It's a personal site where I post my own thoughts for no other reason than I have them and have the time to write them down for the Internet to envelop and consume like so many sand castles before the tide. However, this does not explain why I continue to publish my thoughts and opinions. So, why?

It's not for personal reasons. It doesn't stand as my only record for my thoughts and experiences. I have a journal for that sort of thing, though I must admit that I don't update it all that often. As well, my personal diary contains much more than I'd like to let known. It's more a record of thought and emotion than a record of events and activities. I have an odd relationship with my emotions, and I have an innate mistrust of letting anyone know what I'm feeling and thinking.

"Anyone" usually won't get the nuances because I'm not yet skilled enough to express myself that way.

My blog isn't anonymous. I don't use it to express unpopular opinions. I'd like to think that I can stand in the Sun and let my thoughts known in one way or another. Communication is communication. It doesn't always have to be words.

The only alternative is exhibitionism. An altogether common cry of "Look at me! Look at me! I'm so very interesting!"

I'm not all that fond of my own physical existence. From the first time I was told that I was smart, I have been a being of thought and ideas. I judge myself on the quality of my thoughts, the results of my theories and my ability to gather, retain and synthesize information is all its forms. I wish to be intelligent, knowledgeable and wise; not strong, fast or possessed of great endurance.

I find that there are several reasons why people write ego blogs. One is validation. Another is self-discovery. The other is entertainment. I find that I blog here for all of these reasons in one way or another...

Calling Marcus Aurelius, Emperor Aurelius, are you out there?

I have a cynical side, some say it's an entire hemisphere, and it's been telling me that people only write to validate themselves in order to exorcise the aspects that they dislike about themselves. In writing here and in other places, am I white-washing my past as some temporary fix for my general malaise? No doubt people do this all the time and in different ways. How many times have you heard a group of people sitting around talking about their past relationships and it never seems as though they're willing to admit that they had a part to play in the downfall? If you were to go by how people present themselves, we have a lot of victims of fate, betrayal and greed. It's very rare to hear or see someone own up to their shortcomings in a private forum, let alone a public one. Do I seek validation? You bet I do. Do my logical sides think I should? Not really, no.

I blog because I seek feedback. I contemplate my life. I am introspective. I find that this only gets me so far. I cannot, in good conscience, take up a person's time face-to-face whining about my existential angst, nor could I afford the service professionally. Still, I blog becaus I wish to know more, not only about the world, but also myself.

If you're not powerful, entertaining or attractive, do people really want to know who you are? Even then...

The third option isn't likely a reason that I blog. I find that I'm not all that concerned with how entertaining I am as a writer. I'm not writing for The Office or The Daily Show. I'm writing for a blog that maybe a handful of unique visitors read in a year. My life just isn't that interesting.

My day-to-day life isn't all that interesting. I'm not a spy. I'm not knee deep in amazing adventures, political or sexual. I'm not a traveler, nor a journalist. I get up, I go to work, I come home and do chores. Sometimes, I watch a movie or consume other intellectual property. I react and respond, but not in any unique way.

My blog isn't a soapbox. You can load up more expert and eloquent men and women left, right and center. I offer no insights that haven't already been written or spoken by better people than me. I stand on the shoulders of giants, and I still have to stand on tip toes to see where I'm going because it's getting crowded up here.

Everyone has them, everyone loves them and hates them at the same time.

I've thought entirely too much about this subject. What do I have to offer that I'm fairly certain that people will be interested in?

The only answer I have are those little black diamonds that result from mistakes made and consequences unforeseen: secrets.

My secrets. Your secrets. Others' secrets.

The realm of secrecy is dangerous territory. You need only to remember your own secrets and what would happen if they were to find their merry way into the hands of the very people you keep them away from... we all have secrets, no doubt, but I think we hoard them too. What do you know about your best friend? Your spouse?

There's an economy of secrets out there. Holding them is like possessing something of value. Once cashed in, they lose much of their worth. They're markers, vouchers of trust. I wouldn't reveal others' secrets, for the repercussions of that are far too high. I like the people whose secrets I keep. I would never violate their ever-tenuous trust in me unless safety was at stake, and even then...

I find that my life is one lived with no more secrets than I expect you to have, but when I think of why I would continue to write this blog, I find that the only things of true value that I could offer are my secrets.

Am I going to do that?

I'm not sure yet.

Where would I start? What's interesting?

I'll be doing some research. Then, I'll get back to you.

Be seeing you,

- J.

A Question for a Whimsical Friday

What's in a name?

More precisely, what's in a screen-name?

This is, of course, a question of identity. We don't choose the names that we go by in the real world, even if we're known by a name other than our given one offline, it's most often a nickname given to you. For example, my name is John Alan Jack. My first name is from my great-grandfather on my dad's side. He was a company man, a Hudson's Bay Company man. My middle name is from my mother's younger brother, my Uncle Al. And my family name is Jack, named after the patriarch of the family when the Indian Agents were handing out anglicized names: Old Man Jack.

I didn't choose these names, but they're who I am.

I have two other names. Reprisal and Garacaius.

The first one is my oldest handle. It was originally lengthened to "Nuclear Reprisal." A term taken from a song by the Matthew Good Band called The Future is X-Rated. This was my name for online games like Unreal Tournament, Quake 3, Total Annihilation, Counter-Strike, and Day of Defeat. I shortened it to Reprisal not long after I started becoming more involved in the gaming community and after people online started calling me "Rep" for short on Voice-Chat.

Reprisal is not a term you see every day, unless you live in Gaza or the West Bank. I chose it as a good representation of the image I wanted the name to have in the lobbies and scoreboards of the games I played. A reprisal is a measured and "proportional" response to a violent or illegal act. That was the persona I took on whenever I logged in to play a game. I was a straight talking and cooperative player with an eye for teamwork and little patience for grand-standers. What little voice-chatting I did in a game had to do with position, strategy and congratulating other players on a well-timed grenade or an amazing shot.

I've lived with with name Reprisal for around ten years now. It's a part of who I am. I'm not particularly well-known in any long-term sense of the word, but when I visit the same game server or post on the same message board for a while, people tend to find familiarity in my name.

My name is my label, it's my brand.

I've recently decided to take on a new name: Garacaius. It's no less esoteric, but it's also more inocuous -- a handle I can use that's more widely accepted. Though it might be weird, people won't react as negatively to Garacaius nearly as much as they will a name like Reprisal.

I took the name from a background character I created for an RPG I was running for friends about a year and a half ago. His name was Garacaius Mendalus. He was a young-but-retired artificer who owned a merchant company with his fellow retired adventurers. Smart, good-natured, and way too cautious.

I figured it fit all too well.

I often wonder what others' stories are when it comes to their handles. Are they chosen fairly casually? Fairly naturally? Do they matter at all to you, especially now that websites like Facebook cncourage the use of your real name?

Real name.

What's in a name?

Tribal Utterances

I currently work for my tribal government. My tribe is called the Huu-ay-aht First Nations. It used to be called the Ohiat Band back when we did not bother to correct inaccurate, anglicized labels given to us by bureaucrats of the federal government. Many of our elders still call our First Nation the Ohiat Band, but I suspect (and hope) that this has more to do with habit than assimilation.


The Huu-ay-aht First Nations are located in the Barkley Sound region on the west coast of Vancouver Island. As far as I know, they have been there since time immemorial. Legend has it that we originated on Diana Island, named after a spring on that very island. Thus, it is a sacred place to us. We are a small band with approximately seven hundred members. The Huu-ay-aht main settlements are located principally along the Pachena River and next to Pachena Bay, though we have historically important settlements in a place called Numukamis on the Sarita River and on Diana Island. In truth, we are very much a tribal diaspora: seventy percent of our number live away from our traditional territory. I am one such person.

My relationship with "the band" had until recently been one held at arm's length from the core of my identity. As a child, I can only remember being ashamed of my heritage. Returning to the reserve was fretful, if not frightening, and the only thing I ever seemed to like about going there was getting home again. As I grew, I became more aware of my heritage and it became less embarrassing. When I graduated, I met many of the people from the band who my mother held in high esteem. They helped change my outlook on the nature of my first nation.

The Huu-ay-aht are a part of the Nuu-chah-nulth culture group. We speak the same language and inhabit the same general area of Vancouver Island. We are members of a larger entity known as the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council, or NTC -- a group dedicated to having a unified voice in promotion, protection and preservation of our collective interests. In practice, the NTC is affected by -- surprise, surprise -- tribalism. It is little wonder that the NTC still struggles to cooperate enough to pursue a treaty with the Crown. There are too many cooks in this particular kitchen and it seems most people know it.

The Huu-ay-aht were one such tribe. In the mid-1990s, we broke away from the NTC on treaty matters and got together with four other like-minded members and formed our own treaty group: the Maa-nulth Treaty Society. We applied and entered into the British Columbia Treaty Commission's system for negotiating a treaty with the Crown governments and have since worked to successfully adopt a treaty.

My band paid for my post-secondary education. While I am deeply grateful, I find that I am also somewhat embarrassed by that fact. I can sense the discontent that this brings out in my non-aboriginal friends and colleagues and it affects me more than I tend to let on. I will not apologize for it. One need only look up economic and demographic information on the Statistics Canada website to understand that aboriginal people in this country are disadvantaged in ways that would take college-level lecture courses for most people to fully appreciate. The cynical part of me wants to tell people who complain about how tax dollars are spent on aboriginal issues that they should consider it the bare minimum rent payments on the lands that they occupy (but that might be seen as a bit bitter, so...)

Needless to say, my outlook has changed since I was fifteen years old. I am proud to call myself Huu-ay-aht and I am excited to be a part of something so special and unique. I feel a part of something larger than myself, but not so large that it is a mere abstract idea.

I am slowly learning about my heritage. I have participated in cultural events and rituals. I am becoming Huu-ay-aht. It fills a void and I am glad for it.

I will tell you more about my experiences later, but I think this is a good introduction. There are plenty of links, too!