So long cowpokes
There’s been a lot on my mind lately and a lot that’s gone on in life that I don’t talk much about. I tend to keep a tight lip on such matters, not wanting to cause a fuss and all, but I’m just going to be blunt about this one.
First off, I’m no longer interested in running any sort of web communities. CozyNet was a bit of an accident, intending it to just be a rant blog posting site which I already wrote about in a previous post. I got a little too involved with trying to make it into an everything site though, wanting to show people what the early web was like in regards to web communities from then (15+ years ago) compared to now.
At the same time running all of this, I’ve also become quite involved with a church too. The rift between running this site and its activities while also taking on an active role at church and its activities has been widening so far apart that I’m essentially living a divided life where neither side is in any sort of alignment with the other.
It’s lead to a cognitive dissonance that’s been causing me a good deal of distress, so I’m pulling the plug. I turned off the IRC and Mumble server for a little bit, then set a global password on them. I intend to do the same for the CozyNet forum too, and lock the guestbook and comment system to read only.
As for the blog itself, I’m not completely sure just yet. I believe I’ll keep it and continue blog posting about life, but that’ll just be it. Anyone can still email me at the same address. I’ll probably keep XMPP for 1-to-1 messaging.
My intent is to disengage from web communities and from running them too, of which I’ve been doing since I was 14. I’ve surfed till the last wave of the world wide web and have seen everything, so this is going to be quite the change for me. What really got me to kick things off like this was realizing that I’m being a host to stuff that does not align with God while simultaneously trying to be a man of God. Also, if I were introduced to a nice lady and were to marry her, I would have to hide all of this from her which would not set a good precedent if I’m withholding something in secret. The same can also be said about my relationship with God too.
I’ve seen too many people in my spiritual journey that profess to be “Christians,” yet openly make a mockery of the name of God in their private treachery. I don’t want to be a fake like that, and yet here I am running a community on the web that was not inspired by or aligned to God in any way and the sort of conversations that I see and hear going on just makes me sad – not sad for my own sake, but for the rest of you. As for myself, I’m disappointed and want to do better than this, and I know that I can.
Now I’m not going to proselytize to everyone behind that sanctimonious veneer of “evangelism” that Christianity has unfortunately been twisted into, and neither would I want to do that. I’m not an Evangelical, I believe strongly in discipling and discipleship and the internet is not a place for that and neither should it be a pulpit.
Again, if you have questions, you can always email me.
I apologize for the sudden shutdown, so I’ll bring it back online until the weekend so that everyone can say their good byes before I turn it off for good.
Thanks for reading my blog!
Comments:
-
Jun 17, 2025
Permalink
Reply