DOTE Goes Off The Air

Naturally, I reserved the last day to say goodbye.

Yesterday I found humanity not guilty by reason of insanity — humans are non compos mentis, which means "not of sound mind and hence not (legally) responsible; mentally incompetent"

Although yesterday's post focused on tragedy, you won't be able to bear the suffering unless you also remember that the human situation is also Dark Comedy. Humor is your best defense against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune on this planet.

First, some housekeeping.

1,612,639 Lifetime Pageviews
1253 Pageviews/Day
1528 Total Posts
8966 Total Comments

Today is the 1288^th day since the beginning of DOTE time

You can see that DOTE traffic peaked some time ago. I've been below the average pageviews/day (1253) for some time now. But that's enough of that. Here's what I'm going to do now.

• I'll keep the website up indefinitely.
• I will organize some of the content and publish some links posts when I get around to it.
• I will publish some longer stuff on a monthly basis (probably). Look back in early September.
• I may put all DOTE posts on a CD which would be available for small fee.
• If the shit hits the fan in the next few years, I will resume publishing for a while. I don't expect that to happen. I believe there will be continuing decay of the usual sort.

I don't have to reiterate what I've tried to do on this blog. You already know. I am a writer of non-fiction, unvarnished with Obligatory Hope.

To those who lashed out at me for daring to tell them the truth about themselves and the Human Prospect, I have nothing to say.

To those whose generous support, either through supportive messages or donations, helped keep DOTE going, I am eternally grateful. I have friends all over the world, and you have a friend in Pittsburgh, although I will probably never meet you.

Uhmm .... this is hard. Bear with me.

It's always a sad day when something we love or want or need dies. But death is a part of life, and I had reached the end of the line on DOTE.  I could feel it. I've had no regrets since I announced my decision to quit my daily writing. I'm addicted to writing, and you know me—I can't shut the fuck up—so you will be able to read other things by me in the future if you want to.

I did this for love of wisdom. I didn't do it for money. I wasn't trying to sell you anything. It was always in the back of my mind that you might be learning something here, perhaps learning to see Homo sapiens with fresh eyes. I urged you to take off the blinders and see the world anew. I hoped you didn't mind.

I wanted readers who were willing to join me on the journey into "consciousness" (for lack of a better word). I did not want readers who were deluded or crazy or wanted to fight me tooth & nail every step of the way. Those people dropped out anyway, or I pushed them out.

Again, words can not express the gratitude and affection I feel toward those who did join me on that journey, who stuck with it right to the bitter end.

I'll quote from an older post in which I was asking for your support. I was referring to George Clooney's movie about Ed Murrow's stand against McCarthyism in the early 1950s.

Murrow (actor David Strathairn) was talking about television, which was in the early stages of becoming the weapon of mass destruction it is today. The remarks Murrow made in the 1950s also apply to the internet this year, or any other year for that matter.

This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it for those ends.

Otherwise, it is merely wires and lights in a box.

So from me to you, even though it is 9:00 AM in Pittsburgh, but also bearing in mind that it will soon be cocktail time in the UK, I will quote Ed Murrow, a person of real integrity of a type which hardly exists anymore. Murrow lived in a time when it was still possible to take the world seriously.

Good Night and Good Luck

Comments

[Dennis]

Here, where I live in Oregon, people often part by saying "have a nice day". I've never liked that expression, much preferring the "take it easy" that I grew up with in New York. So take it easy, Dave.