soulFriend_Collective

Hello, soulFriend!

First and foremost. Thank you for taking the time to make your way into this humble digital space of mine. The how, what, when and where will eventually make themselves clear, but for now, I want you to understand the why.

• We are all valuable in one way or another, regardless if we believe it or not, to someone besides ourselves.
• We are all composed, in great part, of what we have learned in our interactions with other people.
• We need to archive our experiences and history accurately since we live in a time where "unreality" is a weapon and human memory is not only fallible but corruptible.

These 3 ideas motivated me to build the soulFriend_Collective Network.

When 2020 began, I was involved in a motorcycle accident. This put a lot of things into perspective for me. Shortly after that, reality decided to lose its complete and absolute mind. Sure, I had gotten a head start on the whole "facing mortality" thing when I got hit by a car; but between civil unrest, murder-hornets, possible aliens (twice), and specifically the Covid-19 Pandemic, the rest of the world had definitely just caught up with me.

Seeing the effects "Weirdmaggedon 2020" was having on people I cared about really bothered me. It was those very friends and family that had been there for me when I was coping with my own feelings of depression and anxiety. It had been the people in my life that in one way or another said or did things that animated me to keep working on getting better. It had been the interactions with all those loved ones that motivated the healing process and had encouraged me to focus all that leftover negative energy into something productive. I wanted to give back. I had to DO something, ANYTHING I could to ease their minds and lift their spirits the way they had done for me...

And THAT is when it all came together!

I humbly present soulFriend_Collective; a digital tribe. The culmination of a year's worth of self growth inspired and motivated by YOU (Yes, you! That is why you are here!).

This is my way of saying thank you for being exactly who you are. Thank you for being a part of my life and helping me become who I am. Thank you for allowing me the honor of being a part of yours. Whether I have known you for years, or we just met the once, if you are reading this, then you have made an impression and this is my humble way of honoring that. I have created here a place where you will always be able to communicate with me directly (I own the domain and will eventually transfer the whole thing to my private server).

If you made it this far, I hope you stick around. There are plenty shenanigans to be had. I have hidden a lot of easter-eggs and there may or may not be a treasure hunt. As Palahniuk wrote, "You decide your own level of involvement".

You wanted to be friends, right?

goodTimes.

It has been almost 4 months since I posted the the "Hello, soulFriend!" message.

In that time, the forums have remained up and as of this writing, we currently sit at:

Total posts 213 • Total topics 30 • Total members 20

In that time I also got a pretty solid practice run at forum maintenance, modifying live through ssh and a little on understanding server logs.

I foresee that for the near future, the forums will continue to evolve organically as the needs of the users become more apparent. I think as of this moment, the majority of features needed for the board to become a place of productivity

I also feel that a little more clarification as to my objectives and reasoning might be needed. I'm debating a more noticeable Q&A area or maybe creating a welcome video series explaining things a bit better.

Once anything is uploaded, it is exposed, and if there's one thing I have learned in my dive into information security is that for every door, there is a key; for every key, there is a thief; for every thief, there is a policeman. This goes on and on until someone stops trying. If there's a lesson to be learned from this forums, it is that one, and the implications that come with it.

Your data, just like a secret, is vulnerable the moment you let it out, and it is up to you to protect it. Just going to go ahead and emphasize that #SelfAccountability thing I keep bringing up. I urge you to be more self aware about the type of information you want online as well as what others can do with it. If the internet is the repository of all the knowledge we have, why would we want to fill it up with idiocy?

We have to change our behaviors and create a better internet culture. One that creates and curates content based on quality, not quantity.

Because one of my main goals here is for everyone to learn more about the value of their data, and how to protect it, I will respect privacy and not name names...

With that foking disclaimer out of the way, I wanted a record of the gigantic THANK YOU to all of those people around me hustling their asses out of their comfort zones and into amazing entrepreneurial efforts. It is inspiring and motivating to see the ones you love striving to be better and not giving up regardless of the crazy shit reality throws at us...

For whatever is worth, know that I recognize your efforts and envy your attitude.

"Don't tell me. We're about to go over a huge waterfall. Yepp. Sharp rocks at the bottom? Most likely. Bring it on."

This is all ya'll and I love you for it.

Proud being part of the tribe.

I just finished a week meltdown with the forums. It probably wasn't that big of a deal, but I manage to fumble things enough that I had to get others involved.

The good thing is that we are back and everything seems to be fine.