Many take Nietzsche out of context when selectively quoting...

"He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you."

Shortened to "the abyss gazes also" for maximum effect the phrase evokes a sort of universal truth beyond its intended meaning another phrase of such a kind is "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." This is Newtons Third Law of Motion which can be seen paradoxically echoed through Zen Philosophies nonduality and the karmic cycle of samsara. The Yin-Yang symbol is the illustration that opposing forces are often interconnected. This is all to pose the rather simple question...

"Do the eyes of the dead steal our life from us?"

Watching someone die is very different from watching it happen in movies or even in gore videos online. Nothing prepares you for the multisensory explosion that is the death of a human being. Nothing can give you back what you lose when you look into eyes that you once knew to be full of life but are now abyssal portals to a realm conglomerated of nothingness or are perhaps in the processes of becoming that which is best left unseen. The body itself begins to change rapidly, the skin color of the recently deceased or dying is a kaleidoscope of colors often thought to be unhuman. Purple, Blue, Grey. As the individual cells in the body expire due to lack of oxygen they do change colors. As anyone who has tightly wrapped dental floss around their fingers will be able to tell you. The eyes may remain open or may shut, during an examination they can be held open to check for dilation reaction when exposed to a bright light, this is a common test to see if an expiring person is dead or alive.

There are also sounds and smells, being in a situation when someone dies may also heighten the senses to a point where someone may recall a specific taste caused by an increase in epinephrine and/or noradrenaline in the brain. The recently deceased may soil themselves as their muscles relax at the moment of their final passing. The sound of someones respiratory system failing on its own is a particularly memorable and incalculably inhuman sound.

Shutting the eyes of the dead is a common practice in several cultures. Placing coins over the eyes of the dead is also a similar practice found in the western world. The eyes of the dead hold no special or supernatural properties. Just as the eyes of the living hold no special property but they are called "the windows to the soul" by William Shakespeare. In fact, they are just organs, semi external, connected directly to the brain, as are our ears. But the ears are not the window to the soul, unlike animal ears they cannot show emotion, are often dirty, and all around kind of weird looking. But the eyes show emotion, they react to stimuli constantly, and we notice subconsciously when we look into the eyes of someone we know, that they are alive.

When we look into eyes we once knew to have life in them and instead see that life to be absent and we arent prepared for it, it changes something in us. Thats not violence. Thats life, which is death. People die every day for strange reasons. Its the most common part of life next to birth. Its a universal and inescapable part of life. People will die. People will be killed. Witnessing the void behind pale eyes is not a tragedy. It our societies view of death, often inspired by religious images of suffering that paint our own experiences when viewing it in-person for the first time.

The dead do not suffer, even if they did during their transition from life to death. We, the ones still alive suffer. But our suffering is selfish. We suffer in the stead of those who cannot suffer themselves because we presume they would, if our places were exchanged. Our self imposed suffering at the death of those who mattered to us is our way to show the joy we experienced at the idea of their life. It is a part of life. Its an unpleasant part but without lifes unpleasantness there would be no pleasure.

I will leave you with a poem from one of my favorite writers whom, herself, is deceased, Julia Winslow.

Haunted

(reprinted without permission from "Never Too Late To Be Forgotten- The Julia Winslow Reader")

I know that spirits around me are real
I see them every day
The only question there seems to be
Is when a body dies do they stay

Do they weep in halls at night
And stare from window panes
Are they forever restless
Have they forgot their names

Some say that ghosts are real
Personified memories of want
But of all the souls that Ive watched leave
Mines the one that haunts

Im the one stalking the halls at night
the one who moans at the moon
Locked inside of memories fowl and unright
While stumbling through forsaken ruins

Some say that ghosts are energy
Left after tragic demise
But the ones who do the haunting
Are the ones that yet survive

The ones who weep In halls at night
And stare from window panes
The ones forever restless
whove all but lost their names

The survivors brought to bitter woes
By fortunes outrageous times
The only real ghosts that are on this earth
Are the ones that are still alive

You may fear it, this idea of spirits
Staring out from within or without homes
But as long as there are ghosts out there
Ill never feel alone

I want to talk briefly about what I want this website to be. I first envisioned this as a BBS board hosting a forum where like-minded people could discuss Neo-Luddism in the modern era, that is to say, the ways we reject technology, what technology we choose to interface with, and why we choose these things for ourselves and perhaps even our families. I don't want this to be a place for constant distain for technology. I am not "Anti-AI" in the strictest terms. But I am against the misuse of technology to debase the human spirit. I think this is a time we need to ask ourselves if we want to continue allowing our fates to be shaped by technology we cannot understand our control and is there a way we can live separate from the world slowly being taken over by technology we abhor?

I have already setup my gaming area and I will start posting about free, open-source, or traditionally designed games which is a way I have been rejecting AAAA gaming for a long time and is a part of my personal Luddism.

I will also setup forums and a place for articles written by myself and hopefully you on how other folks can utilize luddism in their own personal lives if they choose. I think that's the beautiful thing about a DIY movement like this, everyone will have their own unique style of how they implement it and sharing with each other ways to avoid negative technological interactions can be as diverse as browser and email service choice to cassette tape collecting and zine making. So please don't be shy share how you reject tech in our GUEST BOOK!

From MySpace,

with love,

Space Witch

Image Credit ASCII Studio

As I write this I am tired, but invigorated. This world of technology, politics, and angry places beats a person into ash, but we persist as do the dandelions do on broken airport tarmac. Persistence may be a non-renewable resource but our wells have not yet run dry. Welcome.

It's 5:30am and the city is still asleep. I will crawl into bed soon, too late. I am happy that I am finally doing this. Excited at the future. Relived to be finally "done" with the homepage. Everything here is placeholder more or less.

It was amazing coming back to this, I haven't done HTML since Myspace was the big thing, but I had Xanga in elementary school. But it all flooded back to me and I knew what I was doing, looked up a template and started working. I got all this done in a few hours.

What inspired me to make this website was my friend Kimi they make a really crazy webcomic and do cool computer stuff like this all the time and when she showed me I looked upon her website with envious eyes.

I had the idea for this to be a BBS a first but realized I had no idea what I was doing and abandoned the project. I feel very strongly about this Neo-Luddite movement and have wanted to share my feelings about it publicly for sometime. I also played the video game HypnoSpaceOutlaw and that REALLY got me feeling the want to have my own page again. I think someone on a subreddit said this website was like HypnOs and I realized what this was and got a template. I will be using other templates for my other pages likely gotten from other pages that I will link to and give credit, I cannot yet create my own templates but I will try to get there.

Expect more ramblings in the future, although I hope to categorize them better. Please leave a message in the guestbook. I would love to hear from you.

Yours sincerely,

SpaceWitch

image credit: viksoe