How Did I Get 10 000 Followers?
Also, allow me to reintroduce myself to the newcomers
By MARTIN REZNY
Seriously, can any of you explain this? Cause I have no idea. I definitely do thank all of you for choosing to follow me here, it makes whatever this is feel substantially less pointless. I suppose I can use this opportunity to show those of you who have been here only for a short while what it is that I actually write. Long story short, it’s a LOT of entirely different things.
If you’ve followed me only for the last few weeks so far, you may be under the impression that I mostly write about (weird) science on the border with philosophy. And I do write about science and philosophy, now and then. Usually, it will be a series of related articles, like the one about the simulation hypothesis, or the one about the common failings of science.
The reason why my articles often come in series is that I don’t really let ideas go until I’m reasonably sure I have discussed everything that I can think of regarding those ideas. It’s also caused by my preference for the leading of actual discussions with people, meaning that many of my articles are responses either to direct questions, or to criticisms of what I wrote or to someone making a flawed (or awesome) argument about something.
Therefore, if there’s something you’d like me to write about, engage with me in a response or simply ask. I may not get back to you right away, since I now have a full-time job at Red Hat (the leading global open source developer), but I will get to everything other than hate mail eventually. Not that I receive much negative comments at all, for which I’m very grateful.
Apart from science and philosophy, I’m very interested in all forms of storytelling, especially in speculative literature (scifi and fantasy) and computer games. What I write about those topics is not your typical reviews, though. I usually try to go deeper and discuss the philosophical or scientific themes in my favorite movies, shows, or games, but also comment on the art and craft of it all. If you’re a writer or a game developer, these thoughts of mine can perhaps be of practical use to you.
On occasion, I also use my conventional academic education and delve into topics related to political science or journalism. Or both — contrary to what most of my university teachers in those two fields thought, they’re hardly ever separate topics. Another frequent intersection that I cannot seem to avoid is between the issues of politics, media, art, science, philosophy, games, or really anything and money. As the saying doesn’t exactly go, it’s the economy, and it is stupid.
Speaking of education, as I am a veteran of competitive debating and acting, I have spent last more than a decade training people in all kinds of rhetorical and dramatic skills as well as English language. Which is why I’ve written quite a few articles about interesting educational alternatives. Feel free to visit an educational Youtube channel that I direct to watch debates, or lectures about the art of rhetoric, or me rapping, very whitely. I also wrote a few articles about differences between Czech and English languages and cultures. And a number of poems, often coupled with (neo)classical compositions of mine. Because I compose music, too.
It’s a lot, I know, hence my having no idea how I’m being followed by dozens of new people every day. Probably the easiest way to navigate the many types of articles that I write is to subscribe to my publication, Words of Tomorrow, and use the categories listed in its menu:
Right now would be a great time to subscribe since it’s almost at 1000 subscribers. Almost. Everyone is also free to ask to become a writer for my publication. So far, two other authors have contributed, Mike Robertson and Alexander Zhivetyev, and I haven’t refused anyone yet. In general, the theme of the articles in my publication should have something to do with alternative, original ways of thinking, especially about the future, but who knows what might qualify that I currently fail to imagine.
As for fiction, I do have one more publication which very few people have discovered so far. It’s a collection of a bunch of short stories and encyclopedia entries, or hybrids of the two, from a story universe that I’m developing primarily for a space 4X turn-based strategy game, but just as easily for a series of books. Or a TV show. Or anything, really. Some of them include surrealistic illustrations from a local Czech graphic artist who made them somehow before knowing anything about my universe. I smell time travel. More illustrations are in the works, and a game design doc.
Feel free to peek in and let me know if you’d like to explore more of it:
Well, that about covers it. Not completely, but to be fair, I haven’t even started writing about all of the things that interest me yet. Once again, thank you for following me, and if you want to help me write or compose more works, consider joining my email list or donating any amount money, however small, to my PayPal account through the links at the end of this article, or in pretty much every other article here I ever wrote.
As I said, I do have a job currently, and believe it or not, I have been accepted into the Medium writer program recently, so it’s really more symbolic at the moment than anything else, but until I have some confidence that I can make a living this way, I will always be distracted and slowed down by a job entirely unrelated to any of these million serious interests that I have. With money and time, I could write a series of books and make a game, or a scientific or philosophical work, or an educational textbook, or likely all of the above, in a few years, tops.
If any of that sounds like a good idea to you or you’d like to collaborate, feel free to let me know or ask any questions — @Nartimar is also my Twitter handle. Anything is possible if enough people decide to make it happen. I’ll be here if you need me.
