As were temporarily shattered memories and feelings long deemed useless, there resulted a distinctive euphoria, a state of consciousness immersed in the Now. I remembered vaguely the after-taste of the herb, still present in my mouth.

Time as humans had so thoroughly defined it lost its meaning; meaning itself was tainted of thought patterns unlike what was available to the sober mind. What did meaning mean, again? Nothing but associations of subjective mental constructs, themselves fostered by experience, filtered through cognitions built upon purportedly innate features of personality? The answer was ready-made, bearing little practical implications.

At a much more fundamental level, consciousness is an ephemeral feature of the minuscule beings that we humans are, and yet it is too vast for us to ever truly know anything about it. Each time we believe to know, we end up realising that we know nothing about knowing. Interpretations, perspectives, emotions are, practically, infinite. The psychedelic experience, from the mellow fumes of cannabis to the intense intellectual rushes of LSD, is a stunning demonstration of this multidimensionality of the mind.

My thoughts raced ahead, I slowly lost track of myself through their meanders. I caught a glimpse of a subjective reality built anew through the lenses of mind-altering chemicals. Pleasant feelings, unusual thoughts; consciousness amplified and distorted. And nothing more than my own brain and an insignificant little herb.

How can this soft inner peace be so widely frowned upon, I wondered. Ignorance and fear of the unknown were obvious candidates. And the obvious reply was that humans should accept that they will never know everything, if nothing at all. And they should concentrate on learning about themselves – opening their minds to both themselves and the world, as nobody is ever alone.

“There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self.” ~Aldous Huxley

If you had taken the test in the past, you might wish to consider taking it again. Your results might be slightly different, especially if your opinions are on the more radical side.

Additionally, the few – at the time I write these lines – readers of this blog might have noticed that it now has a favicon. There is no real meaning behind it, as it is a mere downscaled and optimised version of a piece of abstract art I created this week by playing around with the GIMP’s rendering features and fractals; you can see it below.

Anyways, here’s what was going to be the first non-Az[tabkey] post on this blog.

When Az[tab] first mentioned this site on a certain libertarian channel, and I had read the first post, it came as no surprise to me that I wanted to mention I was interested in writing for it;  either rants or rational meanderings, or as an excuse to try out absurdist fiction, or to show the world random ideas.

Of course, it also came as no surprise to me then when I failed to do so.  It likewise was not a surprise when he mentioned that he wouldn’t mind me posting there. Or that he made an account for me. Or annoyed me several times about not making an about page or posting anything yet.

But Ikigami? Dude, his name doesn’t even start with the letter ‘A’. I mean, to get any farther from cool names that start with the letter A you may have to go to Italy or Greece — oh wait. Never mind then. Next you’re going to tell me Interstate 88 posted some stuff. That dude is serious business only.

Regardless, expect from me informal chats, strategies to life and winning, logical rants, worried ramblings about how ideas are becoming sapient and may seek to enslave humans, and even some short fiction. In other words, just about everything except formal papers or poetry. I have no patience for that.

Edit: never mind, just figured out how to edit the time, more like Iki did his on march 8th, twenty-ten, am I right?

Thus, this blog will feature posts about the following topics:

- Philosophy
- News/Information
- Free Speech
- Writings (random stories, poetry, etc.)
- Anime/Manga
- Free Software
- Politics [Added 2010-03-21]