The Strange Tale of Kier, The Searcher
Before college, everyone knew me by my regular name, Chris. From grade school through the end of high school, there were always at least two "Chris" on the bus (counting me). At one point, there were six. My next door neighbor was a Chris.
I tried a couple of times to cultivate a nick name or two, but (thankfully) none of them ever stuck.
Then I went to college.
Before long, I knew at least four more "Chris" (of various flavors and spellings). It was a little tricky to tell who was calling on the phone sometimes--it was even trickier to figure out who was being called from down the hall. At one point, there were nearly a dozen "Chris" around in my dorm (counting regular visitors, people from the next floor down and regular members of my Special Interest House).
One running gag was: "If you're ever in trouble, don't yell 'Help!' yell 'Chris!', you'll get a quicker response." (That was proven once or twice.)
The other running gag (since we were all pretty much geeks) was: "We are the Chris. Resistance is futile. Prepare to be assimilated." (And, sure enough, we did acquire an honorary "Chris" or two... there may have even been membership cards involved...)
But while all that was going on, something else was happening.
I was changing.
The old "me" was quickly dying away, being replaced by a distinctly different person.
That's when it happened.
It all started innocently enough. On my computer. This was before the Web hit the mainstream--back when the Internet was just a command line interface and you needed to know what you were doing to get anywhere. There were big, public BBSs (Bulliten Board Systems) out there, but I never really got into those.
(For anyone interested in what these ancient posting areas looked like, you can check out this here--it seems someone is still very attached to the LEV_Society board; lizcroteau and jenaiabird will recognize this right away. *efg*)
What I did get into was the RIT VAX. The local campus network had a fully featured BBS that had a set of message boards with various forums. Each forum dealt with a certain interest of was maintained by a campus group as an information clearing house. The one that I was particularly interested in was called "Story Board" and focused on writing. And, since I did call myself a writer even back then, it seemed like a good place to pop in to.
I started posting in a few of the story lines. It was fun, and a good literary workout sometimes.
Then there was a topic called "Towne_Pub" (link goes to the older LEV_Society version of that infamous meeting place--mainly because I'm not going to spend all night searching for a Story_Board archive...). In the Towne Pub, everyone gathered together to (usually) take a break from the rigors of serious story posting and let their hair down. This led to a lot of *ahem* interesting exchanges.
Needless to say, after writing a little in a few stories, I simply had to drop by the pub. And to do that, I needed a new character (after all, my other characters were kind of busy in their own plots, it just wouldn't do to have them wandering about--or riding from topic to topic on, say, a chesterfield couch or anything...). So I dug through the half-finished short stories that I had (most of which I still have and, yes, they're still half-finished) and picked one of my favorite characters to pop in to the pub.
His name was Kier. He was in to all sorts of strange stuff. He could do things with shadows. He was dark and brooding and dashing and romantic. And he had a really kick ass cloak. At least that was the plan for the pub. The original character was a bit different from that. But I'll get into that later.
Within days after my first post in the pub, I met as many people as I had at my freshmen orientation.
Well, not exactly "met"... but they knew who I was. OK... they knew who my character was.
It was only a matter of time before I really did meet some of these people in person. When that happened, they had no idea who I really was. To them, I was the guy who posted as "Kier". And that's what they called me. Except they left off the whole "guy who posted as" part.
This led to two very interesting things.
First and foremost, I acquired a nickname without even trying. Luckily, it was one I could live with. I was no longer "just" Chris. Now I could easily be differentiated from the rest of the "Chris Collective."
Secondly, it brought me into contact with a good group of people who were a wonderful compliment to the people I was already hooked up with. This led to a whole lot of personal growth on my part (some of which I've written about before).
By the time my second year at college rolled around, more people knew me as Kier than as Chris. By my third year, most people were hard-pressed to call me anything other than Kier.
That was when I realized that I had actually become Kier. Not as I had begun to write him in Towne Pub, but as I had originally conceptualized the character. As I went through my own growth process, I grew in to many of the attributes--a confident man, a seeker of knowledge, a loyal and hard worker--which I had wanted to have that character embody in my short stories.
The name had picked me from the start.
Now, I am more "Kier" than "Chris"--regardless of what all my "official" papers say.
But it's been a long time since I've been able to really be me. I've spent the last five years forcing myself back down into "just" being Chris. I still have trouble introducing myself as anything but "Chris" now. Even though it feels fake to do so. It's become a conditioned response from five years of mostly official and work-related meetings.
I haven't been Chris for years.
This blog is really about climbing back out of that old hole--the grave I buried Chris in when Kier crawled out of the computer and into the real world.
I've still got a bit of climbing to do... and now I have the added hurdle of being American_Arcane to a bunch of you.
But really, without question, without shame and without any masks: I am Kier, the Searcher.
And I walk a path that's all my own.
I tried a couple of times to cultivate a nick name or two, but (thankfully) none of them ever stuck.
Then I went to college.
Before long, I knew at least four more "Chris" (of various flavors and spellings). It was a little tricky to tell who was calling on the phone sometimes--it was even trickier to figure out who was being called from down the hall. At one point, there were nearly a dozen "Chris" around in my dorm (counting regular visitors, people from the next floor down and regular members of my Special Interest House).
One running gag was: "If you're ever in trouble, don't yell 'Help!' yell 'Chris!', you'll get a quicker response." (That was proven once or twice.)
The other running gag (since we were all pretty much geeks) was: "We are the Chris. Resistance is futile. Prepare to be assimilated." (And, sure enough, we did acquire an honorary "Chris" or two... there may have even been membership cards involved...)
But while all that was going on, something else was happening.
I was changing.
The old "me" was quickly dying away, being replaced by a distinctly different person.
That's when it happened.
It all started innocently enough. On my computer. This was before the Web hit the mainstream--back when the Internet was just a command line interface and you needed to know what you were doing to get anywhere. There were big, public BBSs (Bulliten Board Systems) out there, but I never really got into those.
(For anyone interested in what these ancient posting areas looked like, you can check out this here--it seems someone is still very attached to the LEV_Society board; lizcroteau and jenaiabird will recognize this right away. *efg*)
What I did get into was the RIT VAX. The local campus network had a fully featured BBS that had a set of message boards with various forums. Each forum dealt with a certain interest of was maintained by a campus group as an information clearing house. The one that I was particularly interested in was called "Story Board" and focused on writing. And, since I did call myself a writer even back then, it seemed like a good place to pop in to.
I started posting in a few of the story lines. It was fun, and a good literary workout sometimes.
Then there was a topic called "Towne_Pub" (link goes to the older LEV_Society version of that infamous meeting place--mainly because I'm not going to spend all night searching for a Story_Board archive...). In the Towne Pub, everyone gathered together to (usually) take a break from the rigors of serious story posting and let their hair down. This led to a lot of *ahem* interesting exchanges.
Needless to say, after writing a little in a few stories, I simply had to drop by the pub. And to do that, I needed a new character (after all, my other characters were kind of busy in their own plots, it just wouldn't do to have them wandering about--or riding from topic to topic on, say, a chesterfield couch or anything...). So I dug through the half-finished short stories that I had (most of which I still have and, yes, they're still half-finished) and picked one of my favorite characters to pop in to the pub.
His name was Kier. He was in to all sorts of strange stuff. He could do things with shadows. He was dark and brooding and dashing and romantic. And he had a really kick ass cloak. At least that was the plan for the pub. The original character was a bit different from that. But I'll get into that later.
Within days after my first post in the pub, I met as many people as I had at my freshmen orientation.
Well, not exactly "met"... but they knew who I was. OK... they knew who my character was.
It was only a matter of time before I really did meet some of these people in person. When that happened, they had no idea who I really was. To them, I was the guy who posted as "Kier". And that's what they called me. Except they left off the whole "guy who posted as" part.
This led to two very interesting things.
First and foremost, I acquired a nickname without even trying. Luckily, it was one I could live with. I was no longer "just" Chris. Now I could easily be differentiated from the rest of the "Chris Collective."
Secondly, it brought me into contact with a good group of people who were a wonderful compliment to the people I was already hooked up with. This led to a whole lot of personal growth on my part (some of which I've written about before).
By the time my second year at college rolled around, more people knew me as Kier than as Chris. By my third year, most people were hard-pressed to call me anything other than Kier.
That was when I realized that I had actually become Kier. Not as I had begun to write him in Towne Pub, but as I had originally conceptualized the character. As I went through my own growth process, I grew in to many of the attributes--a confident man, a seeker of knowledge, a loyal and hard worker--which I had wanted to have that character embody in my short stories.
The name had picked me from the start.
Now, I am more "Kier" than "Chris"--regardless of what all my "official" papers say.
But it's been a long time since I've been able to really be me. I've spent the last five years forcing myself back down into "just" being Chris. I still have trouble introducing myself as anything but "Chris" now. Even though it feels fake to do so. It's become a conditioned response from five years of mostly official and work-related meetings.
I haven't been Chris for years.
This blog is really about climbing back out of that old hole--the grave I buried Chris in when Kier crawled out of the computer and into the real world.
I've still got a bit of climbing to do... and now I have the added hurdle of being American_Arcane to a bunch of you.
But really, without question, without shame and without any masks: I am Kier, the Searcher.
And I walk a path that's all my own.