Who am I?

One of the ultimate questions of philosophy is “Who am I?”, and I’m afraid I have yet to fully discover the answer to that question.  I can say some things that I’ve done, and that might give a clue.

I have been working in the field of technology for the past 15 years.  I have mostly worked for small companies where I have been part of a small team.  This has allowed me to get my hands on many different types of technology.  I have been certified as an A+ hardware technician, a Novell Certified Engineer, a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer, and an Apple Product Specialist.  I have built and maintained Windows and Macintosh servers, built web pages, wrote code, even built security systems.  My server administration skills are pretty sharp, having had some experience writing shell scripts to automate certain tasks.  I love to automate, as I am essentially lazy, and hate repetitive, time wasting tasks.  I started writing code when I was 12 on a Commodore 64, and it is my favorite thing to do on a computer.

I enjoy video games, the first programs I wrote were games, and my first video game system was an Atari 2600.  I prefer strategy games to shoot ’em ups.  I recently wrote a strategy guide for GameFaqs that has received over half a million views.

I play guitar and sing.  I picked that up 20 years ago, and I have traveled through Europe as a minstrel.  I have been in numerous bands and have played many clubs in NYC.  I have written some material, but I prefer to play covers in a relaxed environment.  This year my best musical experiences were by a campfire with a few other guitarists and many singers, and playing Beatles tunes in Central Park with about 12 musicians to a crowd of 200 bystanders.

I like movies quite a bit, and I am constantly reading some novel or another.  My political views have been called by a friend “so far right they’re left.”  I also enjoy writing, thus this blog.

Here is a list of other interests of mine: cooking, birding, hiking, rollerblading, biking, swimming, history, philosophy, mathematics, science, good conversation, spirituality, travel.

Does the above define who I am?  I guess, in so far as a man is defined by his actions.  I think a man is also defined by his life circumstances which in turn contribute to his life story.  And his potential.  My actions, story and potential will perhaps gradually come out in this blog.