I chose the username “Plainwhite” after the band Plain White T’s. They wrote the song “Hey there Delilah”, which im sure most of you are familiar with. I perform on stage with my guitar sometimes at bars, and when I was 16, it was the first song I ever performed live. Ive written plenty of my own music since then.
What about you? Where does your username come from?
3 comments
It’s somewhat of a story, storyteller that I am. A large part is rooted in myth; there are stories of people who coult cut out their hearts and hide them away, far away, so they could never be killed in fact because their hearts were hidden in a container far away. I liken myself to such people quite a bit, perhaps that is why I am so hard to kill, even by myself. The example that is most obvious is the Norwegian myth of the Giant with no Heart in his Body. A king had seven sons and one ended up encountering the giant, and had to go find his heart to kill him.
So, a bit of wishful thinking buried in there. Someday my prince would come, one might hope.
The heartless viking is more of a myth coming from actual history though, how vikings actually behaved, they were ruthless. They would sail up to a settlement and set fire to everything that would burn, rape the women, carry off everything of value. It is how I feel about capitalism, and in the end how I feel as a magpie of a consumer of value.
Though I mask it all with kindness, in the end I am naught but a heartless viking, the damage I leave behind is cruel and my ancestors who sailed ships around the seas of Northern Europe and I are little different.
I think that at the end of it all though, I long to be heartless, like the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz; he feels, but he laments feeling, he wants to feel better, to be better at it. To feel, to have heart and be complete would be something, but all too often I feel a void where a heart would be. I am empty, I am inhuman, and I am capable of great evil just as many of my ancestors were.
It is the balance of pirate and saint, and I am more pirate than I am saint, viking is just a more romantic word for pirate, and it makes it more clear what is the issue that I focus more on the violence than the theft. The theft doesn’t bother me as much either, I don’t particularly care about the property aspect… there is such great abundance where I take that it flatly matters less. The violence and harm is the greater problem, and thus the viking is the more apt description.
Though I suppose now my averice has grown and perhaps I am more the pirate today than I once was. There’s few to talk to sincerely about my flaws, people want to minimize them for me and I really don’t need that. I don’t know what I need, truth be told, but not to be told my virtues are far greater than my vices, I know that is true.
It is only that my vices sometimes seem such that if given the choice I would consume all that surrounds me, because I could bury my heart in a box and do away with the thing. It is unnecessary for many day to day transactions. I compartmentalize very well, and I think that’s part of this identity I have formed where I can separate my feelings from cognitive projects.
It’s just ‘soap and water’. I used to self-harm by drinking soapwater so in a way, it reminded me of those days and how I don’t do it anymore. It tasted so alkaline it’s shit. Better off drinking soju.
Well, cause I’m a technical guy and fairly polyvalent. Programming, 3d modeling, cars repairing and swapping engines, tuning, repairing electronics and appliances, automation, micro controllers, building things in wood, metal, 3d printing, some engineering, on and on..
was 3 months, every year, in the woods as a kid, so, had a lot of time alone figuring how things worked I guess. My grandfather was a machinist. Guess it came from that, at least a little bit, my dad showed me a few things too.
Very interesting to hear you guys reason for the username, it’s nice.