You know what that is?
When I got my account banned from the Mastodon server hosting it earlier this year1 I had motherfucking feelings. I was confident 2 that I hadn't violated the spirit or the law of the server's rules. Being banned for a first offense felt particularly egregious.
Per the server, I had the chance to make a single appeal within 30 days, and I planned to use it to express the following sentiment. I knew that I was never gonna get my old account back, (partially, if not primarily because) I never had any intention of apologizing.
I'm not contrite now3, was even less so then, and dishonesty has always fit me poorly. If I'd already been escorted across the bridge, why not burn that motherfucker?
But I decided to sit on it. To resist my first impulse. “Tomorrow's me deserves a vote on this decision” I told myself. I also told myself I'd return to the effort. To craft a more useful, more well considered response. At least one more confident and less petty.
But something strange happened.
The deadline to send that “appeal” passed this week. I didn't send one. My feelings are much smaller, much more subdued. Less “fuck that shit” and more... “hmm... I have a chance to write like.... something. I like writing. I should write something in that text box.”
It was, after all, my first time getting formally banned from any online service ever in my 20 years online. Like a first tattoo or a first broken bone.
That indecision about what to write soon faded into ambivalence and then apathy. What was there to feel strongly about, let alone mad about? I landed on a cool server. I reconnected with the people I needed and made some exciting new friends too.
We good over here. Thumbs up and shit.
No petty malice. No defiant vitriol. No antipathy. Just a desire to look ahead, not behind.
As the saying goes, “You know what that is? Growth.”
Rather than utilize my last chance to say anything to that server or its mods, and rather than workshop some 'woulda been, coulda been”-ass statement, I'll let this post be my memorial for my old, first account.
Cherished. Taken. Gone. Eventually forgotten.
I'm more confident in embodying all the #tags that make up my identity. And expressing every sentiment that doesn't fit in my brain. Still excited about carving a lil niche here on the fediverse. More excited to be NaClKnight. Known? Loved? Doesn't matter. I'm warm, and bright, and loud. Like a campfire. Grab a seat and stay a while.
I am not going to always have correct or benevolent opinions. I'll get it wrong sometimes. I'll keep trying though, and I certainly don't imagine that I'm some objectively good person. I'm just a poster trying to orient his actions and words toward his ethics, and one trying to reevaluate what those morals and ethics are.
But that's not why I'm here.
I'm here to commence the ceremonies and pour one out for my old account.
Here's to the friends I made there; the ones I kept and the ones I didn't.
Here's to learning how to use Mastodon one post at a time. To muting and blocking and posting like a motherfucker.
Whatever you drink, grab it. With that eulogy completed and its moment of silence behind us, I can move onto more pleasant things.
Raise a toast to a new Mastodon account on a different server and everything it represents. A new direction and a new path. Walking alongside new faces and familiar ones.
May it surpass its predecessor in all facets. More friends. More longevity. More memories. More smiles. More stubborn honesty.
More Chivalrous Sodium. More Saline Solutions.
Here's to more NaClKnight.
1 for posting clothed, suggestive, pinup photos of curvy models from Twitter and saying I found them attractive. I didn't even get banned for something egregious or hostile or funny. 2 still am. Make no mistake 3 still aren't. Fuck that shit
Find shorter thoughts at https://c.im/@NaClKnight