Elfwreck Application
Basics
Name: Erica. I go by Elfwreck or Elf online. (And there's something of a story behind Elfwreck, but it's less interesting than it might seem, so I tend to wait until people know me a bit before I bore them with the details. Mostly, it's a username that's *never already taken*; I can be Elfwreck in any online forum or community.)
Age: 34 Sex: Female Location: Oakland, California
Country of Birth: U.S.A.
Favorites
(with a brief description explaining why)
Author: Ah geez, you expect just one? You can't be serious. Favorite... hmmm, is that "the one that influenced me most?" Or "the one I reread for comfort?" Or "the one I most often recommend to friends?" (Not that I'm sure I could pick a single name for any of those, either.) I think I'll go with Robert A. Heinlein; he's got more than a passing chance of belonging in all three categories. I started reading his works when I was too young to know better; I think I was nearly sixteen before I figured out that most people were honestly shocked by the idea of group marriages. I love the way he blends technological changes with social changes, and his frank awareness that the sex drive is an essential part of human nature that won't go away or even greatly change as our societies shift through new developments. (Gotta admit there's a special place in my heart for Spider Robinson as well, though.)
Book (not written by favorite author): Again with the "pick one." I can't pick my "favorite;" not sure there is one. But I suppose I can find "a book whose recommendation is important to me & says something about who I am." Illusions, by Richard Bach. This is one I buy secondhand when I can find it so I can give copies away to people who seem to need it. I like the messianic aphorisms, and I like that some of them contradict other ones, and I like that it says they may all be wrong or irrelevant. I'm still working on that "walk through walls" part, though.
Historical Figure: Joshua Norton I, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico. Proof that the world loves a loon, as long as he's *our* loon. Possibly the last known creator of money not created by the U.S. Treasury that was accepted by real U.S. businesses.
Poet and Poem: Favorite poet who wrote favorite poem? Or like Book/Author, two different ones? (I suppose that in the case of abiguity, I get to chose. I think I'm gonna skip the comments on "whaddaya mean, favorite?" after this.) I'm caught between e.e. cummings & Ogden Nash; I think I'll go with cummings for this. I truly enjoy the lilting phrasing in "anyone lived in a pretty how town" but have recently developed a liking for the crude directness of "the boys i say are not refined."
Movie: Haven't got one. Really. If I never saw another movie again, I don't think I'd miss them. That said, I've certainly got preferences, and ideas about which ones are "good" and which ones are atrocious. Currently, I'm mentioning Chocolat when people ask me what kind of movie I like. (Because usually, nobody's heard of Dr. Caligari.) I like movies with several subtle messages hidden under morality plays, and movies with pretty visuals. I'm always up for more eye-candy.
Album: Something filky. Probably Heather Alexander's Life's Flame live album; it's got several songs about magic & power that have touched me deeply. It might get bumped by Jordan Kare's Fire in the Sky if that one ever gets released on CD; I'm a sucker for anything with a baritone voice & acoustic guitar.
Famous Quote (and who said it): I believe in the soul:
The cock, the pussy, the small of a woman's back;
The hangin' curve ball, high fiber, good scotch;
That the novels of Susan Sontag are self indulgent, overrated crap.
I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.
I believe there ought to be a constitutional amendment outlawing astroturf and the designated hitter.
I believe in the sweet spot, softcore pornography,
Opening your presents Christmas morning rather than Christmas eve,
And I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days.
--"Crash" Davis, played by Kevin Costner in Bull Durham.
And I've got a re-write that I made for use as a sig file on groups that told me it was too crude. The rewrite is always liked. Some people just can't handle blunt language; you have to pretty it up for them.
I believe in the soul:
The sacred poles of sexuality that entwine men and women
Energetic play, good health, enjoying the richness of life;
That popularity, no matter how profitable, is not wisdom.
I believe that there is no vast conspiracy to control & destroy us.
I believe that all good folk should strive against artifice.
I believe in romance, in the gentle rise of passion,
Waiting for fullness, not forcing things before their proper time,
And I believe in taking time to enjoy the small, sweet things that make life worthwhile.
Voice Your Opinion (make sure you can support your point of view)
Capital Punishment: I'm for it. It's *practical*; I don't want Rampaging Murdering Rapists on the streets, and I don't see why they should get free room & board for their crimes, either. That said, our current legal system *sucks*, and our track record at actually finding the guilty is pathetic, so I always vote against all death penalty-related measures that hit the ballots. If I ever come to believe we can truly identify (1) who did X crime, and (2) who is truly incorrigible, I'll support the *application* of the death penalty. Until then, I agree with the theory, but think the practice has too many bugs to be effective.
Religion: I'm a practicing Discordian Feri witch. (A google search on either term will turn up interesting webpages, which may or may not be useful in understanding them.) I'm pagan, which is fairly meaningless as a statement of beliefs or practices. Err... is this about my religious beliefs, or how I deal with religion in public/on forums? (Some from Column A, some from...) okay, a bit of both. Feri is a spiritual path of erotic power & personal transformation, which I've thrown myself into head-on. Discordianism is a, umm, "path" ("tangled ball of yarn?") of confusion, chaos & weirdness, which I've been living for a couple of decades.
I love religious debate; I'm active on several religious forums online, mostly pagan. I respect spirituality but not hypocricy; people who make bizarre claims can expect to have them challenged... even if the claims are heartfelt beliefs of uniquely personal events. (If someone says "an angel gave me a message," I don't necessarily discount it... but I'll need some reason why *I* should listen to the message; their divine imperative doesn't carry over to me.) I am not compelled by other people's religious beliefs. I don't expect them to be compelled by mine, but I'll happily use that as a tool in debate if I think it's effective. ("Your holy book says that gays are an abomination? Well, my holy book says that hot dog buns are an abomination; can we outlaw those too? No? Howcome your holy book is better than mine?")
Time travel: I've enjoyed the paradoxical ideas around time travel; I've read a great deal of SF that deals with it. I do think that StarTrek started to get silly with its timetravel episodes. I don't think time travel to the past is possible; I believe the paradoxes are real ones and not just linguistic/humanbrain conflicts. ("One god" and "infinite # of gods" is not an actual paradox, IMHO; "one car" and "infinite # of cars", is.) That said, I'm willing to admit that quantum physics is beyond me & maybe they'll figure out something I don't know.
Cloning: Physical genetic copies of living beings: quite possible, even though our tech for it is still taking baby steps. The process is gonna be slow & fraught with ugly mistakes. Spiritual copies: Not sure that's possible. A genetic copy of you would not be "you." Mental copies: hmm, whole different area of tech, one that we've barely started to look at. Not sure why various religious groups think that making physical copies tinkers with souls; we've had identical physicalities for ever (we call them "identical twins"), and nobody (reasonable) thinks they share a single soul.
Thots on societal changes from cloning tech are in limbo, waiting for said tech to actually appear. It may be that copies of a copy are unstable... or that they truly are identical copies, in which case we hypothetically *could* have a society of only "the best & brightest." I think that's a couple-hundred to a couple-thousand years away, though, and discussing the ramifications is kinda like Victorian families discussing the politics of OPEC.
The Dreamer May Die: but never dies the Dream. Individuals are ephemeral. Gestalts & ideas can be eternal. Memes are sturdier than meatlife. (Not sure I agree 100%, but I do enjoy the concepts.)
Mental Health Care: Our entire medical paradigm is caught in a problem: we've acknowledged non-physical illnesses (although we still try to insist they must have a physical origin), but our entire treatment system is based on treating symptoms and hoping the cause goes away if it can't express itself anymore. This doesn't work with "mental" (more accurately, "emotional") illnesses. I think the practice of handing out serotonin inhibitors like candy is atrocious.
I've recently had some odd thoughts on this one--I've learned that higher serotonin levels (as a racial trait) are associated with less agressive behavior in animals, and maybe our race has evolved to a point where this is becoming problematic--where "lack of agression" in individuals is creating insurmountable stresses in the way they are forced to deal with a highly-agressive culture. But I haven't gone anywhere with the idea yet; it's still brewing.
President Bush: Joined Ford in being the only men to serve in the Oval Office without being duly elected by the American Public. A pompous warmonger, working to distract people from his failings by dragging religious issues into the public eye.
Euthanasia: Everyone should have the right to die. That said, figuring out who actually *wants* to die is a royal pain; too many caregivers are not unbiased, not unwilling to inflict their own opinions on the people they care for.
Aliens/Extra Terrestrials: They probably exist--it's a big universe. Not sure if I think they're actively visiting *here*, and I'm damn sure that Terra is not some Interstellar Galactic Hub of wisdom or tremendous resources that draws them in the numbers some new-age kooks believe.
More in Depth (you need substance here. One- or two-sentence answers are not enough)
(Makes me wonder if some of the answers I've been giving are too long. I decided to stick with them; I figure they give you a better view of *me* than short answers.)
In your opinion, what's the single most important technological advancement of the last thousand years?
Global communication. (My husband disagrees; he thinks it's flight: global transport. But he's an airplane nut.) I think the quick exchange of ideas from cultures that have grown up separately has caused, and continues to cause, the most drastic changes human society has ever seen. We become aware of both our differences and our samenesses; we learn that "the enemy" has thoughts, dreams & fears just like ours... and we learn that "our friends", the people we thought we knew, can have strange hobbies & stranger beliefs. And, of course, we can troubleshoot across continents... scientific research will never be happy going back to the single-lab concept again.
This has created the problem that many people believe that "knowledge" is "wisdom"... that having lots and lots of information causes better decisions. While I think it causes fewer *disastrous mistakes,* I'm not sure the statistics show that decisions made with access to near-infinite info are actually any better than ones made w/o the info, but with good judgment & understanding of human nature.
If you could "take back" a single historic event, what would it be? How do you think the world would be different?
Not sure I would. I'm deeply religious, and my respect for Eris leads me to distrust my judgement on issues that properly belong to the Gods... I'd love to eliminate poverty & war, but considering what bizarre & painful substitutes *I* can think of, I'm not sure I'd knowingly give the Gods a chance to try their hand at reshaping humanity without those forces. (Not sure I'd be willing to be personally responsible, mainly.)
Ok, disclaimer done. I want the Library of Alexandria back. I would hope the insights into ancient cultures it contained would help be relevant in our search for understanding of global patterns.
Why do you want to become a member of this community? What do you think it offers you and what can you bring to us?
I'm not sure--but I hunger for a community with *standards* for posting, where some level of intellectual skill & command of English is required. I figure I can discuss almost anything with people who can both think & express themselves clearly.
What I can bring: I'm smart, erudite, clear-spoken, and have a whacked sense of humor. I can spot the flaws in almost any argument, and can move past them to see the truth underneath. I enjoy flamewars & mocking idiots, but I'm not unwilling to be careful & sensitive to people who are seeking support, not looking for fights.