From: Lucian Mogosanu Date: Thu, 25 Jul 2013 09:36:49 +0000 (+0300) Subject: posts: 001 X-Git-Tag: v0.1~5 X-Git-Url: https://git.mogosanu.ro/?a=commitdiff_plain;h=4af18ea1b16232b01396c65cec81d34b045bdd22;p=thetarpit.git posts: 001 --- diff --git a/posts/001-introduction.markdown b/posts/001-introduction.markdown new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9cfd07b --- /dev/null +++ b/posts/001-introduction.markdown @@ -0,0 +1,72 @@ +--- +postid: 001 +title: The Tar Pit: an introduction +author: Lucian Mogoșanu +date: July 25, 2013 +tags: asphalt +--- + +

*[Isn't this where we came in?][1]*

+ +About eight years ago I started writing. I suppose that's an idea bound to +arouse the intellect of your average guy in his late teens, although most of +them have next to no subjects to approach. I myself had no idea what I was +going to write about and I'll confess this has changed very little in these +years. But I felt an urge to write, in very much the same way someone needs to +pee after five beers. And I was motivated by two main ideas that I can +remember. + +Firstly, I had started reading seriously since three or four years before. I +hadn't read much else besides Romanian literature, which, mind you, can prove +to be excruciatingly dull at times[^1], but I was interested in structure and +in how to write after reading all these books, the same way I had been +interested in how to make music after listening to rock and so on. I never +claimed I could do it right, all I knew was that I had to try it. + +Secondly, I had found blogs as a way of expression on the Internet. I had +started using computers shortly after learning how to read (at about five) and +was spending most of my time mindlessly reproducing Basic code on a Z80 +Spectrum clone, so I could draw geometric shapes and the likes. At ten I +already had a good idea of how to use a PC and at twelve I was browsing the +Internet on dial-up on Friday evenings. Two years after getting my permanent +Internet connection, blogs were looking mighty cool and Wordpress intrigued me +so much I decided to give it a shot. I made a hosting account on some +Geocities-like platform[^2], installed Wordpress and wrote my first post, +entitled "Another Brick In The Wall...". It was an article about mostly +nothing, but I didn't care; I thought I had become a blogger. + +However, that didn't stop me from writing other articles about something, some +of it even interesting stuff. To be honest, I didn't care if it was interesting +to anyone else, since all I felt was sharing my experiences with "the +Internet", regardless of whether that "Internet" included anyone except myself. +But I interacted with people, and I kept writing about stuff. And it felt good +for a while. + +So why did I decide to start another blog? you might wonder. Well, I always +felt pretty good about having a clean slate. Sometimes such changes are bad, +other times they're beneficial and, finally, there are those times when change +is necessary, and I happened to find myself in the latter situation. Sure, the +new blog™ isn't going to be fundamentally different from the old blog™, but I +felt there was no other way to go. + +There are also some technical reasons behind this decision, but I'll cover them +in another post. + +*And what's with this "Tar Pit", anyway?* + +[^1]: The only novel taught in Romanian schools in the first eighth grades is, +as far as I know, "Baltagul" ("The Hatchet"), written by one of the first +Romanian communist writers, Mihail Sadoveanu. The novel attempts to make a +parallel with the myth of Isis and Osiris, at the same time introducing +traditional Romanian themes and motifs. I suppose the only reason they keep it +in the curriculum is a dumb sense of nationalism. + + On the other hand, I spent the summer before my eighth grade reading Marin + Preda's "Cel Mai Iubit Dintre Pământeni" ("The Earth's Most Beloved"), + which, if nothing else, is a good read on the wrongdoings of the Romanian + Communist regime. Also, the book's rather dubious philosophical content + made a deep impression on me at the time. + +[^2]: Now as dead as Geocities itself. + +[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlR3wUPwJCg