I realized after I posted last night that there are a lot of other reasons dot net resonates with me—way more than just one kind of “network” perception, though that was why I registered dot net first, way back when.

But it all links a bit into my worldview, so I guess I will tell you (a tiny bit) about that first.

I used to have a hard time when people asked me about religion and spirituality. I was raised Catholic, traveled through Wicca and ended up somewhere else (somewhere that, after reading The Story of B, I realized felt like animism from certain angles—and would be completely indecipherable from others). For a long time, awhile back, I called it “meligion”. Someone asked me about my spiritual inclinations this week, and I told them we could call it “Meganism”. Hey, works for me.

But these days, I notice that I tell the same story over and over. It only works in person, and usually I draw, or make dramatic hand gestures. Questioning it probably won’t get you anywhere (but I don’t mind if you try). Here is a nice picture I drew of my worldview once, a long time ago:

I guess the gist of it would be that I’m the universe and the universe is me. That means that taking care of myself means taking care of you, too (and creates a hell of a swamp of delicately-navigable interpersonal boundaries, ha ha, we should talk about that sometime!). It means that I’m responsible for creating the world around me. It means if I want something to change, I need to take responsibility for doing something to change it—or I’d sure as hell better make peace with it, and quit complaining.

It means that my growth and change—and my positive impact on my surroundings—is possibly the most important thing ever.

So in a way, “worldmegan” is way of referencing that incredibly complex network of connections that is all of us, viewed through the lens of me. And especially from that standpoint, dot net is the most perfectly obvious decision in the world.

See what I mean?

I’m in the world and the world’s in me. God bless the world and God bless me!

(For my Dad: This didn’t occur to me before, but wow—Maybe the Night Kitchen had more to do with my ultimate spiritual development than one might at first expect…)

Today I had a totally unexpected (but really interesting) conversation with one of my cousins. We were talking about religion and spirituality, which is not something I would normally just bring up out of nowhere—but this time it had been on my mind, and all of a sudden we were discussing it.

Has that ever happened to you?

I have been feeling unhappy about the level of closeness and communication (or lack thereof) that I have with my family, my blood kin. My father and I have conversations, and I have them here and there with my mom and sister. But for the most part, I don’t really get to communicate seriously with family members. I barely know my cousins, aunts, uncles. We see each other at family functions less since I’ve moved, but the things we talk about are still all small talk. What have you been up to lately? Nothing much, just the usual, school, work, etc. Repeated till the cows come home, man.

Some of my friends in Austin are really close to their families. In some cases, family members are their best friends in the whole world—they talk about everything. Blood is not their only connection.

Man, have I been jealous.

But today it became really clear to me that the only barrier to this thing is in me—is in my assumption that my family’s “not like that”. And whatever kind of creature or unit my family is, it is still made up of people. They may not all be people I get along with, or people who would agree with me in a drawn-out conversation, or, hell! even people who are capable of processing the sort of things I like to talk about. But that’s sure as shit no reason not to try. How am I ever going to know if I don’t look into it? Pbph. How indeed.

PS. I know I haven’t talked about “meligion” yet. But I will. I swear. If you’ll just be patient, and let it, ah, coalesce in my head… scout’s honor.