About Site

Overview of the Site's Purpose (#)

In the most general sense, this is a website devoted to the exploration of any interesting thoughts and any acts of creative expression that I feel inclined to share. However, more specifically and more distinctly, this website is about embodying the qualities of nature (e.g. emergent effects, serendipitous exploration, freedom, decentralization, evolutionary change) in how one engages with modern life, but especially with how one engages with technology and with creative or artistic mediums (such as game development, books, digital painting, digital sculpting, 3D modeling, music composition, sound editing, computer programming, and gaming — just to name a few of my own interests and aspirations).

I think that the concentration of power in the hands of just a few entities in society combined with the hyperconnectivity of the modern internet has become all too often harmful to users (especially to users' scope of awareness and to diversity of thought) and I miss the days when computers were not beset with a multitude of unethically intrusive and user-hostile design elements (e.g. "dark patterns"). There is no reason why things have to be like that. People could have decided to make much more wholesome and ethical choices and it would still be just as profitable or indeed probably (I think) even more so.

I like standalone software and offline applications much more than anything web-based. The less entangled and interdependent software becomes the better for everyone. Homogeneity is brittle!  However, in the meantime one has no viable practical choice but to use the web to reach an audience. As such, that is the role this site will fill. I want to provide useful and interesting things and to have a canvas upon which to express my creativity. A static website seems like the best compromise for accomplishing that and for striving for a more free and wholesome computing landscape insofar as I can as just one person.

Creativity is like evolution in that it operates most swiftly and creates the greatest diversity and most vibrant beauty when everything is not interconnected all the time. This is analogous to how the greatest biodiversity in real life occurs on isolated or semi-isolated islands. Darwin's theory of evolution was coincidentally originally formulated by exploring chains of islands, in fact, because such islands were precisely exactly the kind of environment where evolution's influence would have been most apparent.

Hyperconnectivity is thus in some sense inherently antithetical to diversity. Hyperconnectivity has a strong tendency to lead to creeping homogenization of anything and everything. One can also see this effect in how when big corporations establish footholds in foreign countries then those countries tend to increasingly lose their corresponding cultural diversity (within overlapping niches) and what makes those cultures unique and interesting is gradually eroded, in increasing magnitude proportional to how strong the intruding entities' influence is.

Hyperconnectivity is also rationalized as being "good for everyone" when in reality it often mostly (or perhaps even only) benefits whoever just (as a fluke of history and circumstance) happens to hold the reigns of power and hence has a status quo bias (because their own power is built on the status quo). It may also "benefit" whichever other random people have views that just happen to align with those of whatever the dominant entity is, but that is pure coincidence and it not a healthy basis for building a society.

Therefore, if one truly wishes to foster diversity then a healthy amount of decentralization and of disrupting or breaking up hyperconnectivity is essential. Diversity struggles to survive in an overly hyperconnected environment because more powerful entities tend to inevitably try to suppress anything that doesn't suit the more powerful entities' own goals. Things like "the internet of things" for example are thus likewise probably mostly harmful to diversity (via the inevitably homogenizing influence of centralization and hyperconnectivity) and thus consequentially harmful to the future of all of humanity in the long term.

As such, returning to what I said earlier about the core guiding principle of this site: This notion of returning to embodying more of a metaphorical "spirit of nature" in all aspects of how one engages with modern life is reflected in the name of this site (Wraith Glade) in that a "Wraith" is a "spirit" and a "Glade" is a small secluded opening in the woods (such as a circle of trees with a small meadow in the middle of it).

This mirrors the guiding idea of respecting the values of decentralization, partial isolation (which helps foster healthy evolutionary change and diversity), and giving sufficient breathing space for beautiful microcosms of truly richly varying thought and authentically fresh creative works to spontaneously emerge and unfold from the mists of time.

I believe we all need to strive to live in accord with our better natures as a species: forever deepening and strengthening our latent human virtues for the well-being of all.

"This website is under construction!" as we used to say back in the olden days of the more freedom-respecting internet of the past. Indeed, it will always be so, just as it should be! Life itself is an eternal work-in-progress. Life is transient, yet enduring!

In the immortal meantime, I sincerely thank you for your time and for exploring my website!

May your future be abundant in both joy and clarity of thought! 🤗🌱🌊😁

Memorial to the Founding of the Site (#)

This website was created on 2023-11-18 (November, Saturday) at noon (EST).

Though it was autumn that day, the warm sunlight pouring into the window created a kind of sense of peace and tranquility, which somehow seemed appropriate given the site's analogously illuminative purpose. Perhaps half or more of the leaves on the trees outside had fallen to the ground by then, so most of the leaves had turned brown, though just several weeks previously the fall colors had been more diverse and resplendent (including much more vibrant reds and golds especially).

I've actually had the idea of creating this website for years now (in some intended form or another), but finally decided to just dive in and do it! 🎉🥳🧗‍♂️

You see, I also have a personal WordPress "blog" which is associated with my real name and which I've had for many years. As such, I debated for a while whether I should actually bother creating a new "old net" (a.k.a. web revival, digital garden, wild web) style static website like this, seeing as I already had/have my real-name WordPress site.

However, with every passing year I have become more discontent with any and all forms of unwanted intrusions into my digital space. WordPress is practical and expedient in some respects, but it is also bloated and disproportionately heavyweight for what is mostly plain text with a (usually) clean layout and occasional images and multimedia. Most irritatingly, my WordPress host does periodic mandatory updates that break or alter things against my will.

Yet, my real-name WordPress site has an established presence and I do use it for professional purposes and I also like owning my real name's domain name. So, what I ultimately decided to do was to both keep the old site and also create this one. I was especially inspired by Neocities' harkening back to the "wild west" freedom-respecting days of the "old internet" and that is something I definitely want to support and be a part of.

Before my real-name WordPress website, first when I was a teenager and second when I was in college, I had also previously created a couple of plain HTML sites from scratch but they are long since gone. There was also at one time an entirely different version of my real-name WordPress website (which I produced shortly after graduating college) which was wiped out completely but used the same domain. I haven't decided whether I will link to my real-name site yet. I will postpone that decision indefinitely for now. I value privacy!

I am excited at the prospect of building this website and getting back in touch with the spirit of the "old net" and "digital gardening" and with having a platform for sharing my thoughts and creative work without feeling a suffocating sense of not being truly in control of what I'm making and of feeling like anything could be taken away arbitrarily at any time at any random person's whim. A big part of the beauty of the "old net" is how much more freedom-respecting and individuality-encouraging it was and is! We need to bring that back!

Being tethered to arbitrary and capricious forces of centralized power that are outside one's own control is not healthy for the human mind, and especially seems not healthy for the part of the human mind responsible for genuine creativity, intellectual honesty, serendipitous curiosity, and freedom of thought! 🎨📣🚧

So, in light of that, it is heartening to be in the midst of so many kindred spirits working together to rebuild a more organic, creative, and healthy internet for everyone!

Being able to express one's authentic voice in an environment free of the technological overreach and groupthink of the walled gardens is no small thing! There is immense value in that. It's nice to feel like I have a real voice again, one that is more outside the reach of those who think they know much better than they actually do! 😎💬😵

As for this website itself, I am committed to ensuring that it becomes more than just an oddity but something that is actually useful and entertaining and provides real value.

I have a wide assortment of curiosities I'll explore (and sometimes also publish) on this site. That is, after all, a core part of what makes the "old net" so fun and enriching. That "web surfing" feeling where you stumble on hidden gems and oddities, like randomly discovering some quaint and lively hole-in-the-wall alcove of wonders that only the locals know about, like a tiny cultural microcosm... that's what the internet should be brought back to! 🌐🌱😄

Let's seek a better horizon! Every step of the journey is its own destination! 🌄🏞🎨

PS: Here's a link to Neocities if you are interested in getting an account yourself: