So it's been a while since I've used this thing. A long while, a couple of years. 

A lot has changed for me since then. 

At present, I've been thinking about making use of this platform (and the domain I keep paying for, but have just been sitting on) as a creative outlet. I think the "why" is that most of this type of energy, I've been directing it toward social media platforms rather than something more involved like this. Facebook, Twitter, etc. I deleted my Facebook account years ago. I haven't missed it at all. I gave Twitter a go, then got rid of it for a time. I tried it again when Elon was making noise about buying it, then stuck around for a while after he did and it looked like it could become more than the cesspool that it was. It is still a cesspool, and Elon seems to be embracing that now, rather than all of the great things he talked about making it, with shadow banning becoming official policy (their new CEO's "lawful but awful" and "freedom of speech, not freedom of reach" stuff). Mastodon is good, but there's a learning curve to it that stymies most people, it seems. In my experience, people would rather stay on familiar platforms and be abused because that's "more convenient." It's pitiful. What's worse is that in exchange for said abuse, the victims make their abusers rich. What a racket. 

I'm not willing to stick around for such stuff, however. I prefer walking away from bad relationships and bad deals. It may be inconvenient, difficult, disappointing, etc. I think the alternative, just putting up with the shit, is worse. 

That said, I'll explain the flags I've placed in the banner of my blog today: the flag of Liberland, the flag of Mexico, and the U.S. flag, inverted, a signal of distress. 

I'm a part of all three of those now. I'm a U.S. citizen by birth. I'm a citizen of the upstart nation of Liberland by choice. I'm a resident of Mexico, also by choice. 

I haven't been happy with being a U.S. citizen for quite a while. In short, I think this is a dying country, specifically because we have abandoned everything that it was supposed to be. A few months after the last time I used this blog, I attended Nomad Capitalist Live in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico, in May of 2021. I was looking for options. I found some. It was that event that started me down the path of internationalizing my life. It was there that I became an e-resident of Liberland and began acquiring the means of gaining their (our, now) passport. I also learned of the particular advantages of becoming a resident of Mexico, per my situation, and I met and made good friends who helped facilitate my becoming one. That process began the following August, and just after the new year in 2022 I finished the process in Mazatlán, Mexico. 

There's a lot more to these stories. I'll save those for another time, I'm not trying to write a novel today. For now, I'll leave it at this: "Go where you're treated best," the motto of Nomad Capitalist. Like my stated reason for becoming interested in using this blog again, I'm looking for better places to be and to do, in the ways that suit me.

The dominant social media platforms are shit, so why continue to participate?

Countries can (and should) be approached in the same way.