·wiikifox's den: about me

principles

+if there's a single constant in my identity, is that my identity isn't +constant. however, certain ideals have become a permanent part of me. +

freedom

+freedom is the inherent right of every living being — may it be fulfilled or +not. my freedom ends where other's start, so nothing that i do should limit what +you can, nor viceversa. +

equity

+equity levels the ground where we exert our freedom, acting as a countermeasure +to the inherent inequality of life. equity gives the everyone the tools they +might need to achieve what others can without them. +

creativity

+creativity is the way we enjoy this level ground: when you're free from any +burden, what else is there to do but to create, and enjoy the creations of +others? art, creation, is the essence of what makes us human. +

chaos

+chaos is the source of creativity, the spark that ignites the creational fire +within us, chaos is what drives a free, burdenless life. nothing lasts forever, +everything changes — even memories do. +

playfulness

+playfulness is the embrace of chaos, the acceptance that life doesn't make +sense, and doesn't need to. do what makes you happy, let others do what makes +them happy. enjoy life, since we don't know what comes next. +

the story of my life

+i was born in the city of ·cienfuegos, ·cuba, on march of 2009. however, i'd say +that my life started much, much later, somewhere between september and november +of 2023. and why? — you might ask. well, it's not a short story. +

+ +

+my family was your typical nuclear family: me, my mother, and my father. my +father was a reckless man, gave his life to pleasure without fear of +consequences. he lost his right leg to smoking before i was born, some sort of +arterial disease. his left leg followed years later, when i was 9 or 10 years +old. his heart was next, when i was 11, as he was driving home after visiting +me — my parents were divorced at that point, and i lived with my mother and +stepfather in another city. +

+ +

+my mother, on the other hand, was a very different kind of person. she was — +and still is to this day – a ·jehovah's witness, and raised me as such. if you +haven't heard about ·jehovah's witnesses before, you just need to know that +they're a high control religion, or — as anyone who's left likes to call it +— a cult. +

growing up as a ·jehovah's witness

+being raised in a cult made it take control over my entire life pretty +fast. where even thought is regulated, there's no room for individuals, only the +hive mind of "brothers and sisters" that comprise the community. i spent my +childhood behind a mask, which i eventually forgot i was wearing. +

+ +

+when i first got my hands on the internet, i started by following the advice +given at the time by the society (the headquarters of ·jehovah's witnesses): +avoiding contact with anyone i didn't know personally (i.e. other witnesses), +online discussion spaces (i.e. forums and the like), apostate material +(i.e. anything talking against the religion), among other things. but +i grew curious, i started to ask myself what was beyond the garden wall, which +led me to try out social media for the first time. +

+ +

+i found a place in the furry fandom, which slowly challenged the queerphobia +that is characteristic in the cult. cognitive dissonance started itching. +

a ray of light

+i stumbled upon free software and its ideals pretty fast, and under a year of +owning my first computer i already was running linux and writting software, i +was 13 or 14 years old. computers have always drawn my attention, and it really +felt liberating to use my computer on my own terms. i migrated from ·twitter to +the ·fediverse, before dropping social media altogether. social media overall +was and is a source of stress for me, but it gave me the closest i had to real +world connections — outside of the cult, that is. cognitive dissonance started +burning. +

·unix.dog: the end of the beggining

+one day, scrolling through some profiles, i found a link to something i had +never heard about before: a pubnix, a shared unix system; i found a link to +·unix.dog. i filled in the form, submitted my application, and a few weeks +later, i was in. +

+ +

+·unix.dog offered an ·xmpp server, where i joined and met other members of the +pubnix. i started to branch out to other places on the network, meeting people +that changed my life a lot. i remember a conversation with someone in a group +chat which impacted me a lot, even if i refused to believe it did then. he was +surprised to find a ·jehovah's witness on a furry ·xmpp groupchat. i agreed to +have my beliefs challenged, and he didn't fail at it. i heard for the first time +of all the atrocities the ·watchtower organization had made, and very good +arguments against my whole belief system. i ignored him at first, as my "bible +trained concience" told me to do; but the seed was planted. cognitive +dissonance started hurting. +

cognitive dissonance

+what does it mean? cognitive dissonance happens when you hold different, +opposing thoughts and beliefs in your mind. for me, i "knew" i was in the one +true religion™, but also knew all the stuff that was wrong with it. i "knew" +that homosexuality was a bad thing, but also was friends with lots of queer +people. i "knew" that the ·watchtower society was always right, but also knew +all the times that they've backtracked in their decisions several times. i +"knew" a lot of stuff, while knowing a lot of other stuff. +

+ +

+cognitive dissonance is a feeling that lingers in the back of your head, and +grows stronger and stronger over time. i slowly started to question everything, +to be more skeptical towards everything. i realized that the "truth" that i +believed in my whole life was nothing but a scam, a very cruel and elaborate +scam. +

+ +

+with time, pain and the great help of my friends, i deconstructed my beliefs, my +sexuality, and at last: my gender. +

·queer-spark.org: current affairs

+if unix.dog helped me find my freedom, ·queer spark taught me what to do with +it, it taught me how to help others to find it too. i learned about ·queer spark +when it was still called ·jabbering queer, a small ·xmpp server for queer +folks. it was a safe space to deconstruct and vent, a nice place to hang out. as +a sample of gratitude, now i help as a volunteer in the project with any help i +can offer, i'd love to see it thrive even more. +