My favorite online pseudonym is Yonos. He was the name of a character I role-played as on the online game EVE Online for ten years. This name came to me at the character creation screen years ago. In that moment, I paused and stared blankly ahead, as writers often do, and I welcomed in a spark of inspiration. The name came to me quickly, and I felt it was perfect. Yonos is a name I didn't associate with anything, it felt unique, a fresh name without cultural associations. With the name Yonos, I could be a futuristic space pilot in a distant galaxy as simulated on servers in cyberspace.
With computer games, and especially with EVE Online, there is the chance to start over and over again with the simulation no matter how many times your character dies. EVE Online has a science fiction reincarnation theme. When your character dies in-game, its consciousness is downloaded into a new clone body. You can always try again despite the repeated deaths of the character.
Yonos feels like a part of my psyche. I've retired from EVE Online, but I've kept using the name in other games. In re-using the name as my pen name here on Hive Blog, I want to re-imagine Yonos while honoring my first pseudoidentity.
These days, I've largely divorced myself from compute gaming. I've spent a huge amount of time on gaming, often to the detriment of other aspects of my life. I want to focus on other things. Writing has always called to me, though I do it sporadically. Since just before the pandemic, I had already embarked on a journey of re-self-discovery. This included fairly consistent journaling and writing short stories while traveling. The few times I've shared my writing, I've gotten rewarding feedback and great satisfaction in the quality of my work.
However, I find it difficult to reveal things about myself under my real name, it feels very vulnerable. Some topics feel too private to share as myself. I've come to appreciate the value of writing under a pseudonym. The danger of being judged and identified and singled out for my writing feels much less severe by writing under a pen name. If I am to take up writing seriously, maybe even as a key part of a future career, I can start doing that here on Hive Blog, and just get going banging out my work. I can publish stuff under my real name later as my confidence and ability grow.
I'm interested in how blockchain blogging might impact my writing and my relationship to my body of work. My goals with my writing on Hive are to:
-Elucidate the nature of the Hive platform and how it impacts writing itself
-Discuss cyberstuff like crypto, gaming, censorship/free speech, cybercrime
-Share stories of my adventures online in the past and currently
-Feel the ease, joy and flow of casual writing with creative freedom
-Discover cool content and communities on Hive to share
-Make some income with my writing
I feel that I've come to a natural pause. Thanks for checking out my blog. I'm eager to see what I contribute on Hive and all the new things I will be able to read, learn, and share.
-yonos