Quick Facts About Merlin's Ghast
I was born in 1993 on a clear and sunny fall morning. I grew up in a blur of different houses and cities. Generally, I did well in school, though I never could really understand what was expected of me and made few friends.
Now, I'm newly married to a wonderful man and we're working on starting a life together. When neither of us have much, that's hard sometimes. He's working on getting into programming, while I'm aiming to be a stay-at home wife and mother. We'd like to live together eventually, in the US, but for now we're living in Brazil until he can qualify for citizenship.
I seem to have more interests than there are hours in the day. I love cooking, writing, Japan, speedrunning, and so many other things it makes my head spin just thinking about it. While I published some books in my teens, I haven't found any success as an adult. Though, that's mainly due to the fact that I haven't finished a manuscript since I turned 20. I've been working on some ideas for different books, though I can't really seem to commit to any of them in particular.
I hope you can find something you enjoy on my website.
Hometown
- SATX, 1993
Interests
- Writing
- Sociology
- Science
- Music
- Anime
What Got Me Started
My entire impetus to start this website literally came from one youtube video. I was completely sold on the entire concept from that moment. I made this site later that same day.
Frankly, it was an amazing decision that I do not regret for a single second. My biggest regret for this site is really just that I didn't start sooner. It's fun to imagine what it might be link if I had already been maintaining this site for 4, 6, or even 10 years.
I won't let that turn into a sad thing though, instead I'll work on carrying it here forward, so that in 10 years I can feel really proud of it. I love the freedom of just having every different thing that I like, living together. I like that I don't need to box myself in and I don't need to "chase numbers" in order to feel relevant.
Expectations
I'm just having fun. Sometimes I'll take this deadly serious, and other times it's just a game.
Notes and Writing
I’ve always been the type to write a lot. By my own estimate, I write probably 1 million words per year between snippets of stories, notes from books, and half finished essays. I think that this would be a good place to see that in action.
Getting my books published is probably something of a pipedream, but putting my notes out in a format that will allow others to use and benefit from them is a real possibility, so I want to use this website to do that – to be a platform that shares whatever I’m interested in, whenever I’m interested in it.
I think that making and taking notes is the only thing that I’ve been able to do consistently in basically my entire life. Whenever I’m not doing one of those things, I’m suffering psychologically from the inability to do so. I love to read and to toy will useless ideas that mean nothing to anyone at all.
Other Sections
Internet Shrines
The idea of an internet “shrine” dedicated to something I love and enjoy seems very wonderful. I know the general idea of an internet shrine is usually for some kind of fictional character who is loved to the point of obsession, something you would expect to see on a teenager’s wall. I doubt I’ll ever create something specifically like that, but I do enjoy a good Pepe Silva moment, and like the idea of repositories and wikis very well.
I’ve decided I want to give myself the space to be over the top, to go “too far” in my interest of things and not worry about coming across as an autist. It’s not good to live in fear of the eye of the other. That’s part of what makes a personal site so much better than social media: instant interaction is so much more difficult.
Identity
This Section
Moving Too Much
My family flitted from place to place every few years, and I think it’s fair to say that I moved too much. While I was able to meet many different kinds of people, I feel I left small bits of my identity everywhere we went, and they have trouble catching up to me sometimes.
Other Sections
Fracture Lines
Am I the kind of person who is one way, or am I the kind of person which is a different way? In that sense, I identify very heavily with Pierre from War and Peace, as he struggled to decide what profession to take. It feels like the weight of destiny.
But, I think it is worse for me, because other people seem unable to relate to my experience. If they could relate they would empathize with me, or mock me, but mainly they just seem unable to comprehend. I feel not that my body is pulled in many directions, but instead my identity.
I have so many competing interests, so many competing views of myself, that it’s impossible to know. And they switch so erratically, that I can’t predict. The day that I started this site I was in a “pink and blue with butterflies” kind of approach to life, and now as I write this I feel more serious and am somewhat disgusted by the idea of color and small decorations.
I can love something today, hate it next week, and have my obsession reappear next year. As far as I have been able to tell, it’s completely unpredictable, though some moods have a tendency to last longer than others.
Polymath: The Renaissance Man
By nature, I’m a curious person. I’m interested in so many different things like sociology, writing, history, computers, and music. I look up to those polymaths or “renaissance men” who through sheer effort and dedication were able to develop a strong command of many different fields.
Slow Internet Movement
As we know, one of the best ways to express oneself is via the creation of a social media platform. And of course, we want as many people as possible to see our content, so that we have the greatest chance of speaking to another person who would see things our way, to make friends.
One of the best ways to establish a friend group is to “be known” for some kind of content, but my inability to form a solid nucleus of identity has caused me many issues. Creating a gimmick is not difficult. Gaining initial support isn’t hard either. But being able to continue enjoying the same topic and aesthetic for more than a few weeks. . .
As I was watching YouTube, I came across the idea of the “slow” or “personal” internet. It was this idea that you would put your content onto small self-coded websites, so that you can control your own content and be free from the oppressive reach of algorithms and content policies.
And upon hearing that, the idea that there were groups of people making their own small, personal websites, and that you can customize your own as much as you want was kind of a freeing idea. Because of my “broken” identity, I’ve often struggled to keep blogs alive – I keep writing nearly every day, but not on the same topics. Unfortunately, most blogging software doesn’t have a reasonable way to separate out these different streams of thought.
One of my biggest hopes for this website is that I can separate out my different moods and hobbies and interests in a way that makes sense to me, and hopefully can be of interest to others as well.