Links

The final version of The Way of the Pattern is published. There will likely be very minor edits or errata, but this is the complete pdf and website. When I set out to create my own imaginary religion, and embody it in hypertext, I figured I would never finish such a silly and fraught project. But, it is finished. And I live it. It frames my thinking and choices, at work and in life. It gives me comfort. I want to keep it my deepest closest secret, but I want to tell anyone who will listen about it. I fear it is irredeemably cliched, while I am also proud it is uniquely weird. I am sure now, I had no choice but to make it.

In high school I created a pen and paper geopolitical strategy RPG based on Eschaton, the tennis courts and computer based game about nuclear armageddon described in a chapter of Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace.

Started prototyping a new personal site design, playing with animated svg line art.

This is a sketch for a story map. Eventually it will be a map cut in quadrants and given to some friends kids. Each quadrant is for one of the kids and has a hero’s journey story illustrated on the map, and told in short texts. I’m just finishing the first completed sketches of both map and text. These are barely readable, with so much editing and redrawing to do, but all the bones are there:

http://imaginarycartography.com/quarteredtales/workbook.html

Now is the Time

Arc Arrows procedural art using html5 canvas.

http://imaginarycartography.com/_pcs/puff.html#arcarrows

In Memoriam John T. II: recorded recollections of life on the farm.

WordMap HD for iOS

When I was 21 I decided to create my own imaginary religion. I call it “The Way of the Pattern”. After more than a decade, the primary text of the religion is complete, but for some editing. You can read the pdf form at this link. Html and other formats to follow.

What kind of religion?

Its kind of a form of materialist mysticism. Kind of like Taoism, Sufism, christian ethics and modern philosophy had come from the same culture, rather than many different ones. Like other philosophies it claims to explain the deal with existence, fate, causation, reality, mind, ethic, art, ecstasy, etc.. But it does so without recourse to anthropomorphized first causes (god) or disembodied wills (spirits or souls). It aims to give life deep meaning without claim to knowledge of external truths, or definitive answers about an afterlife. It is an esoteric religion, meaning it requires faith that the way things seem are not necessarily the way they are, and some “truth” is intentionally hidden. Like many religions it contains some contradicting strains, and different subtexts provide very different perspectives on the whole. The book, and the faith it presents are an exercise in pastiche, research and creative analogy, rather than a true theological program. A post-modern religion, built consciously as a work of art.

A Game Of Groans

An Homage to Letting Go

Experiments in Browser Exploitation for Self Expression