[Flint]

@Pangloss: I'm sorry to hear about all the loss you've experienced. It tends to make on philisophical about things, doesn't it, staring in the face of our inevitable mortality? (See my "Fear of Loss" thread.) But you're doing okay, I think, because you've got a good head on your shoulders. You're a thinker. You aren't buying into the simple solutions being pushed on you, whether it be religious or commercial. You're setting your own course, and along the way, confronting some hard reality. But, you aren't giving in, you aren't surrendering to the fairy tales.

I need people like you. The internet brings us together. After it removes all of our superficial aspects, the things that seperate us, we are forced to interact as disembodied intellects. People wonder, is this "real" - talking to people on a computer screen? I think it can be more "real" than most of what goes on in our society. We can play games, and hide behind walls of make-believe, but how is that any different than what people do every day? Here, at least, there is no concrete agenda.

Anyways...don't make sad faces, dude. I hate that.

EDIT: You sound alot like a character in a Herman Hesse novel.