Who am I? Why am I here?

I was at a point in my life (and I've reached this point before) where I'd almost felt like I had everything. I'd have money, I'd have friends, I'd have things to do, enjoyable work, etc. nice things. But I always felt a sort of emptiness. My intuition was that the emptiness was a psychological "spiritual vacuum" left as a result of my staunch atheism. Something would nag me saying, "Why don't you go back to Christianity, or check out Buddhism, I heard that was coool." Thing is, I had experimented with other religions, but was always unsatisfied. They always made me feel good in the beginning, but would leave me hanging afterwards. After a little bit, the religious foundations and beliefs would always violate my faith in science and mathematics. Where's the scientific foundation for reincarnation? Where's the scientific foundation for Heaven? What says God exists?

If you want to read more about my inital thought process, read my first blog on it.

So, to fill the vacuum, I decided that I needed a God or some constellation of deities to satisfy my psychological needs. I first turned to the Greeks who deified everything, like Mars, the god of War, or Bacchus the god of Wine. I then picked a little bit of Zoroastrianism that I liked. The Zoroasters emphasized the co-existence of both the Truth and the Lie. Truth was something important to me, better than faith in the "great Unknown." Western religions also provided nice structures, such as prayer and symbols.

My "spiritual" mixing bowl was about half-full at this point. The final ingredients would be the art side of it. Why not? Why not make religion be the artistic creation of the individual. Religion is as much aesthetics as it is structure. So my favorite artisic themes became interlaced into my theology. Concepts from the Matrix and other technophillic sci-fi culture helped shape some of the ideas (the fist-in-palm motion was inspired by Morpheus and Neo's kungfu battle). I also looked to comic book writers who created fantastic superheroes and supervillains as avatars for Man's dreams and nightmares. Other influences then came in from Vernor Vinge's Singularity, Kurzweil's Law of Accelerating Returns/Order, the Church Turing Thesis, and Nietzsche's The Gay Science.

Another big influence on the themes of the Tautrix are from Internet culture. One of the great things about the Internet is its decentralization and amateurization. The decentralization leads to greater individuality, and in tandem, greater thinking. The Internet's amateurization also leads to greater individuality: just look at blogging and slashdot as an example of how the common man can bear great fruits without submitting to an enslaving superstructure of social values, such as the corporate ladder.

On a superficial level, the Tautrix is just my personal symbolic deification of mathematical and scientific principles. On a personal psycholocial level, the Tautrix fills my spiritual hole and therefore contributes to my greater happiness. Ultimately, on a third, more basic level, The Tautrix is a source for play and liberation, something I can finally call a true "Gay Science."

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