In
remembrance of those who haven't found what this is all about.
So many souls have left E2:
friends,
writers,
kindred spirits,
trolls; all manner of people. Everyone has their
reasons, and some people we could do
without, but if you are actually reading this, then you're certainly not one of them. When someone
contributes, their
words,
pulse, and
spirit are left here in their place after they are gone. I see it everywhere... an
unfinished node,
projects left
undone, homenodes saying "last logged in:
(Three months ago)", claims of
retirement, and people who have "lost
interest". Even some senior noders who just haven't seemed to settled in.
Why are they gone? Will they be
remembered? I will, as much as I can hear their voices
echo around me. Their nodes are
read and their
homenodes are
watched. Their work
incomplete, like a
desert town,
unrefined but
alive. It
kills me that after
eight writeups someone will suddenly come to the
epiphany that they do not, and will never "
belong" here. Heavens above, it's not about that. More people leave without saying "Hey, I could use some help here", than I can think of. The sheer amount of people
willing to mentor is
incredible. It's beyond me what calls a new person elsewhere, but too many
desks are vacant; simply a quill, paper, and a few
scribblings of
obscurity no one read, with a final note of desperation.
E2 is a
second childhood in many ways; you have your
adults, and you have children who want
attention from those
adults. Of course it's hard to tell kids to
Be Cool, but you get my point. Sure bones is not the most huggable guy, and dannye has a really low shit tolerance, but that's fine. They are here to make sure we all play nice. They get it; look a little
lower down, we're all here to help.
People say that we're
unfriendly to
new voices here; which I think is an unfortunate
universal truth; hell, life is unfriendly to new lives. How can anyone get noticed under all this weight of
text? How do you fare against the likes of an
intellectual, a pile of
bones, and the
gods? It's not about
competition; I'm never going to catch up to anyone's XP total, never will I have a
million nodes in my notebook, but I know that since I've been here I've
improved tenfold.
Everything is
changing;
E1 nodes are fading away into
stronger, more filling
E2 cousins. Upon reading
dannye's
raising the bar, it
floored me; I had to look at my old stuff, and
realized how much I'd grown since then; I wouldn't even consider some of my stuff as
worthy of my own
upvote. This whole thing was to
raise the bar on
myself...then I
understood all of it. This huge
dawning came to me that
night;
E2 is about growing in
yourself. All of it means nothing:
XP,
write-ups,
level, etc. Nothing...that's just the fun we have with it all. It's the growth you find since you
start. You mess up, stuff gets
nuked, but you keep
going. Every move you make either nets you praise, or a learning experience. You find
topics,
learn, pace
yourself, and your
writing improves.
Expressions of self become more
elegant, more refined, and
polished to a graceful
shine.
These souls are so close to figuring that out for
themselves, and then they leave; and it hurts me. Some people refer the stuff of
everything as the
nodegel; but for many it's more aptly put as the
nodefog. I look back through the
haze and see people lost in it; some people want to
turn around and give up, some people bury themselves in
deeper, and some people find their
haven within. For some, there is this
dawning; it isn't fog at all, it's a
cloud, with an
intellectual view immense as any other. I see those
people who get it, and who build and shape those
clouds into the shapes that children dream about and
old folk reminisce over.
I can finally see those
clouds; and I can tell you, the view is incredible. Please don't turn back; you're closer than you
realize. It hurts to see them go, because I know other people could be here, if the other stuff didn't get in the way. The worst part is, everyone has to
swallow the pill for himself or herself, and there is little I, one of the gods, or anyone else can do to tell you this, except that you are close, and to keep trying.
It kills me to watch them go.
Come back soon friends.
You're missed here.