There are a lot of things about me I’m not entirely fond of. I’ve got my issues. I’ve been dealing with them off and on for the last 28 years of my
life. Okay, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration, I probably didn’t really try to deal with any of my personal issues when I was a kid. So, let’s just call it the last 15 years. Still, no matter how hard I try, I never seem to make the progress that I really, really want to make. I suppose it’s always a matter of not settling, but it can be frustrating and infuriating. At the core, that’s who I am.
I am a bitter, angry man who wishes to be more than a bitter angry man.
<p>I try to think of myself in philosophical terms. I search the cosmos for explanations of human behavior, scientific, theological, metaphysical, and philosophical. I look, I assemble, I understand, I regurgitate back into the world.  I have questions, and when they get answered I ask more questions. </p> <p>Honestly, I don’t respect people that just take things at face value.</p> <h5>I guess I am a scholar of sorts.</h5> <p>I doodle. I don’t call it drawing because I see drawing as an art of trying to put to visual medium reality. When I put pencil to paper, I’m pretty much blatantly ignoring reality in favor of humor, fun and emotion. I use doodling as a means to cheer myself up when I’m depressed, or to cheer up those around me when I’m in a particularly good mood. In many ways, it’s the opposite creative outlet for my mind that writing is.</p> <p>Writing is what I do to channel all of the negative energy of my mind out of myself and into something I hope is constructive or entertaining. It’s the release valve on the steam engine that is my chronic depression. It’s what gives my brain the power to fight back against the sticky, gooey thorns that stab deep into my subconscious mind and make it bleed out hope and dreams. <strong>Writing is a pesticide to mind thorns.</strong> You can use that. Put it on a t-shirt. I don’t mind. As I sit here typing this up, I think it’s extremely clever. I often think I’m clever. I’m not always right.</p> <h5>I am a duality of art. Words and Visuals. Positivity and Negativity. </h5> <p>I’ve basically been on the internet since I was 12 years old. I spent a large hunk of my formative, adolescent years logged in via a dial up modem to a chat room called Open24. Growing up in a fairly tech-forward household, I stayed on the cutting edge of the real cyberspace most of my life. We weren’t AOL/Prodigy half net people. We were wading waist deep in the seedy underbelly of cyberspace. We didn’t have things like “<a href="http://www.netnanny.com" target="_blank">NetNanny</a>” on our computers. No, for this guy, teenaged life was a smorgasbord of the world’s most obscene and bizarre acts. I can’t say that it didn’t effect me. It probably really messed me up to be honest. Not that you would know. I’m one of a million in my generation.</p> <p>It pretty much makes me wonder if the future world will be able to handle our impending rule.</p> <p>Tripod and Homestead were the competing free website hosts back then, the late 90s equivalent of WordPress and Blogger. Homestead eventually got bought out by Google and became Google Sites eventually, although there is a new company running around doing the same thing under that name now. Of course, much like I do today, I had one of each. The homestead site is gone. Eaten by Google's hungry inactivity eaters. They devour pages left dormant for too long. <a href="http://gariff.tripod.com/bardic/index.html" target="_blank">The Tripod page is still there</a>. </p> <p>Those were my first expeditions in to the wilds of content generation. It was an experiment that continued on through <a href="http://darksphere.livejournal.com/" target="_blank">LiveJournal</a> and eventually this blog. </p> <p><strong>I’m not convinced that I’ve gotten any better at it over the years.</strong> </p> <p>Journals and websites became Blogs, and chat rooms became social media. I’ve whored myself for attention on <a href="https://myspace.com/gariff" target="_blank">MySpace</a>, <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/M-A-Brotherton/179610518754590" target="_blank">Facebook</a>, <a href="https://mobile.twitter.com/MABrotherton" target="_blank">twitter</a> and <a href="https://plus.google.com/109910328559232033949/posts" target="_blank">Google plus</a>, and I will continue to do so well into the future.</p> <p>I like attention. It makes me feel special. </p> <p>In my youth I pirated mp3s but long ago switched to legally purchasing them from legit sources like Amazon and Google Music. I stream Netflix now instead of someone’s poorly encoded, Russian subtitled version of movies and TV. To the internet cyber-culturalist these things are similar to the rebellious acts of petty vandalism or theft that a person just grows out of. Grow up or go to jail, I guess. </p> <h5>I am a member of the iGeneration.</h5> <p>Hello, my name is Matthew Aaron Brotherton. I am 28 years old. I am from a suburb of Kansas City, Missouri. You can call me “Matt” if you’d like. </p> <p>I am a constantly changing and evolving human being with a fairly dark background and a penchant for strange and disturbing behavior. </p> <p>Don’t mind me. I’ll just be sitting in the corner and rocking gently back and forth.</p> <p>Oh, yeah… I tend to rock back and forth in my chair when I’m in a a really good typing flow. </p> <p>It helps me keep rhythm. </p> <p>I need as much help with that as I can get. </p> <p> </p> <p><em>This post is part of the Scintilla Project, won’t you go and explore the rest of them too? </em>
Tags: Daily Doodle, Scintilla Project, Self Definition, Supermatt Doodle