Welcome back, gentle readers, to the new and improved GoodAndLost.org. For those of you who were following the blog over the summer, no, I didn’t die in Turkey–I just never got around to writing my final return post. Suffice it to say that I made it back safely, via Thessaloniki and Frankfurt for a (far too short) day, and that since then many things have happened.
At first, I simply returned to my old life–part time work, eighteen credits of classes, old friends. But after only a few weeks of that, I began to realize that after the summer’s experience, simply living that old life was no longer an option. I began to consider alternate paths.
My first divergence was quitting school. I had a year and a half left of a history degree, which would have cost me an additional ten or twelve thousand dollars. As I have the ability to make good money in web design (and hopefully writing one day), I didn’t need the degree to make a living. I had lost all interest in the actual content of my classes as well, as I knew I could learn at least as much at least as quickly by simply reading–and without the thousands of dollars of tuition money.
My second divergence was the publication of my break with the Christian faith. It was a long time coming. I’ve given my reasons elsewhere, and will continue to give both them and the new conclusions I’m coming to in the Philosophy section of this blog.
The third divergence wasn’t so long coming, following only a few weeks on the second. That was my losing my job at Patrick Henry College, because I could no longer sign their statement of faith.
And so here I am, a week into November of 2009, with a thousand new paths open to me. I’m currently trying to build a freelance web design and writing career (if you’re interested in my designing a personal blog or business website for you, you can contact me here) to pay of tuition debts and establish a geographically independent source of income for future travels. I’m also working on a new fiction book, which should be finished in a few months, at which point I’ll begin the process of looking for an agent.
In the meantime, I’ve expanded this blog to six categories: travel, which covers interesting places visited and photos taken; philosophy, which covers personal development, ideas about life, and religion; knowledge, for random, interesting, and/or useful bits of information; culture, for good music, films, book, and art; gear, for stuff worth having; and skill, for ways to become a more useful and capable human.
Thanks for coming: I hope it’s an interesting ride.
