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I'm just not digging this.

04:15 / 25.07.02

I have no idea where the original "barbelith closing down" post went, but I'd like to know if I'm the only one who's gonna to be majorly effected by this. All you people post from work with your jolly jolly jolliness, but there are people like me who kind of grew up here. We can start new message boards, but there is never gonna be anything like this again, and all of you are joking around and throwing auctions when I want to cry cry cry.

Seriously, you guys have done a lot for me. I know this is just a message board, but it's been a big part of my life for the past year or so, and I'd like to say "thank you" for being cool-as-fuck.

Of course some of you are PC trotting elitist assholes who make me want to retch, and I'm sure some of you fucks probably want to delete this very post, but there will always be those of you chaos thrivers that I will love like my sacred panties. Here's to all of you fun ones, who don't want it all to go in a systemized patternio. Here's to all you rabble rousing wild ass romper badaballoooers who want to fly to the galaxy of Tabittika with me. I know you.

Shall the barbelitians live on to new paradigms and culture jams of whacked out discordian diner droits. Shall the barbelithians remain a legend in this internetic medium of advertising banners and porno parades. Shall conspiraces dance to the tunes of our special thoughts, synchronizing themselves with our delusions of post-modern grandeur. I know you.

The first time I got here I thought I was dreaming. Too many people who thought like me. Was some scary shit! This place was great for a while, and I saw it slowly deteriorate into a dictatorshit of toilet crust. For it was not just The Knowledge, but the conversational orders imposed on the wild thoughts of us young ones. We were not educated enough. We were not up to par with your debatery skills. This place was apocalyspe-bound for the past 6 months or so, and I left and came back like there was no tomorrow. But I always knew I could come back here if I wanted to talk to someone about overcoming my us vs. them mentality issues.

No more no more no more. This place is dead. I cry and I weap, and I watch you guys scamper along like this is a-ok. It's not.

I'm just not digging this.

05:41 / 25.07.02

This place is dead.

Not yet. There's always potential, right up until the final 404 not found, and even after. And I can only speak for myself, but no, it's not a-okay. The thing is, holding our collective breath waiting for an axe that may not fall won't help anything. And if it does turn out to be the end, well, we all handle grief and loss in our own ways.
So we have our stupid closing sales, because it's a way to remember the shit that made us laugh and smile and stuck in our heads for whatever reason. Cause yeah, there were the epic debates, but there was also a lot of kidding around and kinda sorta being friends in a weird sort of way. It's still part of who we were and are.

If I could go back and change the way I handled some things, sure, I might. Get more involved in some discussions, start more fights, but then I probably wouldn't have been Mazarine. And I did, and do, like being Mazarine, splashing in the shallows of Barbelith while reading the deeper threads and thinking about them. I just feel like now's not the time to start reforming myself- I liked who I was here, and by and large, I liked who other people were here. So I'm just going to keep on being Mazarine tomorrow and the day after until there's no place left to be Mazarine. Maybe that'll happen, maybe it won't. But this is the place I loved, though it's changed and shifted over the past four, five years, however long it's been.

The uncertainty is uncomfortable, and the worst case scenario is deeply troubling. We'll see what happens tomorrow.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

06:00 / 25.07.02

I think we're all pretty gutted at the though of being de-Barbelized, Rage. Sure, people are being flippant about it, but there's real regret under the lime shower-gel enrcusted ninja PJs.
*Sighhh*

06:13 / 25.07.02

If we didn't laugh we'd cry...

08:05 / 25.07.02

I'm just not digging this, either.. for what it's worth.

Hopefully it's not actually gonna happen, but even if it does we've got temporary measures to counteract Barbelith withdrawl.. which have worked in the past.

Um, that's Pocket Barbelith by the way, rather than getting wasted and sitting in the corner mumbling to yourself for an hour every day..

08:28 / 25.07.02

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the 'Lith.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the 'Lith.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the 'Lith.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the 'Lith.

(almost all) Dylan Thomas

Nothing wrong with your debatery skills, Rage. They're well up to par and you're speaking for most of us when you say you're not digging this. It's a sad fact of life that nothing is forever but we're all crossing our fingers and sacrificing chickens anyway, hoping for the best.

08:34 / 25.07.02

Look on the bright side, I just tried to access the Pocket Barbelith site and its banned here at work, so at least you get rid of me if the site goes. Every cloud.

11:08 / 25.07.02

Hmm. Even with Lailaesque levels of precognition, I doubt I could've foreseen the circumstance whereby Rage would criticise the rest of the board for not taking things seriously enough. Maybe it is the end of the world...

[insert 'jolly jolly jolliness' smiley here]

I'd also like to add that although I am posting from work (which, today, is overwhelming me slightly with its shitty shitty shittiness), I too am not "digging" this. Man.

11:49 / 25.07.02

I think we should just delete this thread and step away for a bit. Tom

Tom has simply done what he suggested. Be patient. Perhaps he just wants some space for a time.

11:55 / 25.07.02

sigh.

if you are completely incapable of reading between the lines on this one, rage, then perhaps i should post some of the pm's i've been sending and recieving over the last few days....

12:31 / 25.07.02

I agree. Rage, just because not everyone is wringing their hands and falling to their knees, shaking their fists at an uncaring universe and screaming "Noooooo!", it doesn't mean we don't give a shit. We do care, probably all of us. But life, even the strange life that is Barbelith, has to trundle along in some fashion until we know what the fuck's going to happen. Some people sulk. Some people shrug. Some people tell crap jokes. But we do care. Probably as much as you.

12:50 / 25.07.02

Dang diddly tootin.

Scampering is just my way of dealing.

12:57 / 25.07.02

Oh god!!!
*wrings hands*
Oh no!!! Barbelith is Closing!!!!
*falls to knees*
What will I do!!!!!????!
*shakes fists at uncaring universe*

Make ya feel any better?

There's no sense in getting all worked up about this. Until I see the big sign that says "Barbelith Underground is gone. Go away!", it's basically business as usual except for that tiny niggling feeling of dread in the back of my head.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

13:35 / 25.07.02

I've been doing some half-hearted pm'ing of my email address and stuff, but it's a bit depressing really... kind of an acknowledgment that the game's drawing to a close...

Far more fun to play and communicate as if nothing's happened... or better than usual. If it's the last few days, let's make 'em good.

And Rage, I am in full agreement... if it goes, I will be mucho gutted.

jUne, a sunshiny month

14:03 / 25.07.02

holy goofyfuck,
since my back around a few days ago, i still doesn't have the time to read all the last stuff that came since i wasn't there, so i was really sad to see rage lines ; not against her cause as usual, rage found such the correct words for describe her instant karma. but to see what i could loose, once again ?
i gotta read all the stuff about the lith break, but definitely, it wont happne this easy. tom and the crew did such many great things since all this time, it just can't. we (including "they" -tom and the whole lith crew) deserve more, by platypus tail !

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

14:34 / 25.07.02

By the way (not sure where else to post this), if anyone's dumb enough to want to keep in touch with me if this is the end, then my email's in my profile, so go for it (and if I don't contact anyone who thinks I should have done, don't feel bad... I'm trying to pretend it's not happening, y'see. Email me and swear at me about it.)

Regrettable Juvenilia

19:20 / 25.07.02

I honestly don't believe that Tom is going to close Barbelith without some kind of concrete confirmation/warning first...

19:23 / 25.07.02

I'd just like to say that I'll be using the term 'holy goofyfuck' as often as I can from now on, despite the fact that it's just helped create a disturbing Disneyporn image in my mind's eye.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

19:30 / 25.07.02

Divorce lawyer to Mickey Mouse: "You can't divorce your wife for having an overbite."

Mickey Mouse: "I didn't say she had an overbite. I said she's fucking Goofy!"

A-boom-tish.

19:43 / 25.07.02

I won't post about my initial reaction to first hearing about all this talk. But there are some things that make a lot of sense to me - I also used to run a small community where the emphasis was mostly on thinking and debate, and I chose to close it down when a lot of the people who went regularly said they really enjoyed it and got a lot out of it. It just wasn't what I wanted to do anymore, and I was getting frustrated with the lack of development in the meetings, getting frustrated with the lack of any attempt to understand each other displayed in the (sometimes heated) discourse, getting frustrated with my friends (not that I'm saying I think that about Barbelith... well, sometimes I do). The person who runs things has a completely different opinion of what goes on a lot of the time. The host never gets to eat.

You don't call something Barbelith if you're expecting it to be permanent. Maybe this site will keep going, maybe it'll turn into something else, maybe the reigns will be handed over to someone new, maybe it'll stop and we'll keep in touch. Life has so many amazing possibilities

Murray Hamhandler

20:28 / 25.07.02

It's all just gallows-humor-esque, the joking and the whatnot. But I hope all this work-up isn't for nothing. I mean, I definitely don't want Barbelith to die, but I'm also hoping that this won't be a reoccurring instance of Impending Death Syndrome.

20:37 / 25.07.02

unpleasant remark ahead

i've been finding myself hoping that it will die

I'm sorry, but while I've met loads of brilliant people etc, everything comes to an end. Maybe this is a suitable point to split. The people are not dying, they will continue to exist. Maybe this level of disintegration over one troll means that it's time to split up into more individually resistant subgroups. Maybe the initial concept just wasn't feasible.

Don't get me wrong - I love you guys. But I'd like to meet you in a structure or structures that was (were) more resistant to outside attack. Because, you know, the Knowledge is not by any means unique - he'd like to think that, but he's nothing special. I've seen far more persistent trolls, even in the face of legal actiom.

20:44 / 25.07.02

That's not an unpleasant remark.

I know exactly what you mean, just as I share Deric's fear of Recurrent Impending Death Syndrome (RIDS!). I've done the whole 'temporarily-disillusioned-with-Barbelith' thing several times in the past and have, at those times, longed for a 'clean ending'. Thing is, after a while, the place starts to become attractive again and I'm glad of it's continued existence.

I'd also tentatively suggest, Fridgemagnet, that your own Real Life situation (cutting ties with the old, looking ahead to the new) is colouring your perception of the situation, at least partly.

I agree re: the "resistant" environment. Question is, do we try to achieve that here, within Tom's vision, or disintegrate in order to attempt it elsewhere?