Hello, I’m Ryan Coons.

Hello, I’m Ryan Coons.

Once upon a time, I ran another blog, called SuperFunAdventureTime. (The thought being, if it sounded like a breakfast cereal, people would go there.) I associate with number of funny and creative people, and I figured that by pooling our talent and leisure time, we could pump out awesomesauce entertainment at a constant rate.

However, it failed -- but not for a lack of trying.  For one, life happened, and each of us became bogged down with some linear combination of fatherhood and/or graduate school, which proved to be a timesink. The real nail in the coffin though, is that my vision was unsustainable -- there just isn't enough funny or awesome shit that happening to us to maintain any sort of regular publication schedule. Between the two, we wound up letting the blog fall by the wayside. I later abandoned blogging entirely, and began work on manuscripts for novels and a series of martial arts how-to books

Several years later, I moved across the country, to San Diego, only to lose my mind. After 11.5 years in academia, I find myself institutionalized, and unable to function outside of it. I sought professional help for this. Now, I’m not sure that I can be helped, as in I’m not sure that help even exists. All I can find are palliatives, which treat the symptoms and not the disease -- after all, if I could be helped, then I’d quit searching -- and then no one could sell me things.

I realize that I’m living under a new structure, and a new set of rules. I was gently lead to along a line of thinking which would get me to rethink the way I viewed the world -- and towards ways to help me cope with my new lifestyle, and about my new surroundings.

While I agree that I’m playing under a new set of rules, rules are only suggestions, which are only to be followed when it proves convenient to do so.

I don’t want to cope -- I want to conquer. Coping cannot cure; coping is the cause. If I have to live and abide by the rules and social conventions prevalent of outside of the academy, then happiness is impossible, because the supposed cure would just make me more depressed.

Yet, the fun learning/discovering/growing part of life is over it seems, and everyone has turned into the people they were going to be. I can’t relate to most people, because my goals aren't even remotely like those of normal people. Most people’s goals are along the lines of “finally get around to planting a garden,” while my goal list contains elements such as “get into a fistfight atop a moving locomotive.” I can’t connect with most people, because I find them boring. I don’t get out much now -- and for a while I thought that was something wrong -- but then I remembered that the things I enjoy all tend to be solitary activities. My new life offers me few people to confide in -- but I also find myself with less of a reason to confide.

                It’s a bleak feeling, but it’s not that I feel that I have nothing to life for -- it’s that I have nothing to live against.  I can stand being alone, but I can’t stand being boring. Without a venue for mischief and agonism, my life can only be endured, not enjoyed. Although I’d like to be the Champion of justice and the Purveyor of Truth -- for the time being, I am a man of low rank and large obligations, struggling to survive in a society which is set up to endorse and protect its monsters.

This seems depressing -- but really, it is the opposite. Since I have nothing, I have nothing to lose, nothing to take! Threats of legal actions are all jokes at this point. No, seriously -- my only real property is a smashed-up Toyota Yaris, a laptop computer, and a large number of used books.  What stops me from calling punks and bitches out, publicly, by name? Nothing. I am now free of legal or financial consequences, because weaknesses are also strengths. Likewise, there are no ethical or moral consequences to calling people out, because calling people publicly out is intrinsically noble and just, and is the correct and appropriate course of action in any and all cases.

Unlike my previous web venture, this will be a one-man show, and I’m not here to make you laugh (…though I’m sure I still will). I will not guarantee regular posting, because I care more about quality than quantity -- Prodesse Quam Conspici.

I’m here to write for writing’s sake. I want to refine my writing skill, so I must practice more. I want to develop and refine my own philosophical system, because I don’t feel as though any of the off-the-rack philosophies fit me quite right. I want to call people out, because I can. I’m tired of consuming; I want to produce.