Episkopos Aloysius Thudthwacker
Not quite in over my head yet, but I'm working on it.
Me? The sprawling insanity of
Discordianism
sits hovering in the virtual air
at the tips of your fingers, and you look up li'l ol' me?
You like me! You really like me! Cool.
Well, since you've come this far, I should at least let you know who (and, in
some sense, why) I am. Set the Wayback Machine a couple of years back
and hold on to your Beavis & Butthead Boxers.
My first experience with Discordianism was in the reasonably unassuming form of
Episkopos Ol' Sam
(a legend on the campus of
Stevens Institute of Technology,
where the normals
knew him better as Bobby Bain), who went around campus performing all manner of
funny, disturbing and anti-establishmentary (put down the dictionary; I made
that word up) things.
Ol' Sam had a wonderfully maddening way of pushing people over the edge, for
which I developed a great respect (being a frothing-at-the-mouth heretic
myself). He made constant references to Eris Discordia, which I didn't really
listen to but filed away for future reference. He gave me the address of the
IllumiNet Press,
(who publish the
Principia Discordia)
which I stuck in a drawer, reasonably certain that I'd never need it.
My own enlightenment came about a year later and two years ago under
extraordinarily ridiculous circumstances. You see, I was creating a character
for a role-playing game, and this character was quite a free spirit and had
very little use for authority in any form (especially metaphysical). I decided
that he would most likely be Discordian (though I didn't know very much about
the religion save that it was based around the Greco-Roman
Goddess of Confusion), and set about creating a philosophy for him.
My first attempt resulted in a rather lame set of beliefs, which I discarded
immediately. I couldn't possibly play a character whose beliefs were so
obviously dopey. I redoubled my efforts and eventually came up with a set of
beliefs that worked for me. They worked so well, in fact, that I found
myself unable to escape their conclusion (which boils down to the fact that we
only accept logic as being inviolate because we don't have the ability to doubt
it. Now, isn't it rather arrogant to assume that something is true simply
because we don't have the ability to doubt it? I decided that it was, and
rejected logic as anything but a product of the limitations of human
understanding. This rather neatly knocks the pins out from under virtually
every argument ever put forth and relegates some of the loftiest works of the
human mind to the level of mere conjecture. Not a bad week's work).
Who but Eris could ever come up with such a ridiculous and roundabout
method of enlightenment? I converted amidst peals of laughter that afternoon
and sent away for my copy of the Principia Discordia that very week.
I started my own Discordian
Cabal, which I decided to call the Order of the
Blunted Sword, because the sword is the elemental weapon of fire, which in
turn is the symbol of reason (before my conversion to Discordianism, you may
have rightly guessed, I spent several years reading arcane Books, cavorting
with the Forces of Darkness and lingering at the very Brink of the Void
[wherein were many initial-capped Things]).
I spent several months editing a hefty piece of literature called Five
Non-Prophets of Discordia, large bits of which are hiding hither and yon
(I honestly have no idea where, for the most part. This thing has only been in
existence for a couple of days [as of this writing {which, I suppose I
should mention, was back in late Bureaucracy of 3159 or early Chaos of
3160 --Al}], and I've already
managed to misplace things. Clearly, HyperText is a perfect Discordian
medium in that it makes a document too confusing to follow, even for the
author) in this hyperdocument.
This, HyperDiscordia, was originally conceived as a mere title page with links
to plain text files. It has evolved (on the first day of its existence) into a
labor of love that rivals Five Non-Prophets in fervor and outstrips it
completely in scope and potential. Such is good, since I stumbled upon a
prophecy-in-the-making and found myself with only a scant month or two to
fulfill it.
You see, I was born in the
Season of Chaos
on a Holy Day (the 23rd [2+3=
5]) and was 23 years of age at the time. With my birthday only a couple of
months away, I knew I had to act fast and do something neat or lose the
opportunity of a lifetime. Of course, trying to do something neat
(especially when you have no idea as to what that neat thing might be) is the
surest way to make certain that nothing of consequence happens. So, I forgot
about trying to fulfill the prophecy and rapidly forgot the whole silly
business.
A few days later, I learned HyperText Markup Language and embarked on my newest
mission. Now, this little (but growing) island of lunacy may not actually be
the stuff of prophecy (which is good, because we have to be careful to maintain
our non-prophet status), but I like to think that it's at least pretty neat.
Contact information:
I'm most easily (and inexpensively) reached via the Internet at
jformoso@westnet.com.
When I'm not here (or seeing if I can make that
other Pope gag on a bit
of Pop-Tart), I'm often out somewhere
partaking of no hot dog buns, as is
required
of all Discordians.
May the Goddess smile upon you always.