I am a Roman Catholic, Teaist, gloomer, metalhead, cyberpunk, retrofuturist, and enthusiast of the arts, history, and philosophy. It’s surprising to me that you have nothing better to do than peruse the musings of an eighteen-year-old, but I welcome your virtual presence nevertheless. My name is Tomás.
The purpose of this virtual repository of my mind is to explore the world and it’s curiosities from a somewhat objective perspective, while providing a traditionalist commentary. On this site you’ll read posts about a lot of things. The rich intellectual and mystical Catholic tradition. Book and movie reviews. Rants on the state of society and music. Etc.
Inquiries: barlimansbag@protonmail.com
Music – RYM: https://rateyourmusic.com/~tomasmc87/
Books – Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/tomasmc87/
Movies – Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/tomasmc87/
Social Media: https://the-nautilus.net/2020/06/05/social-media/
Roman Catholic: I am what is called a ‘cradle Catholic,’ having been raised in the faith; but it was only until my later teen years that I properly came to the faith, with an aesthetic and intellectual vigour. Part of which I have Bishop Barron’s work to thank, but also a much more general desire for truth and beauty, which seems to have also manifested in an admiration and practice of some Stoic and Taoist principles, and is still a journey I am very much in the beginning stages of. Teaism is a set of ideas / philosophy from Okakura Kakuzō‘s masterpiece, ‘The Book of Tea: “a ‘cult’ founded on the adoration of the beautiful among the sordid facts of everyday existence. It inculcates purity and harmony, the mystery of mutual charity, the romanticism of the social order. It is essentially a worship of the Imperfect, as it is a tender attempt to accomplish something possible in this impossible thing we know as life.”
Gloomer: I shall refer to my friend Kevin’s writings: “inspired by the doomer or doom metal subculture, I thought of a term to describe people into dark culture or the dark alternative scene: ‘gloomer.’ In my opinion, a gloomer is simple, casual, fun, and very self-aware. It reflects the general mood of not only a lot of the people who enjoy this culture and the media we produce, but also the broader themes of the music and art we all enjoy – without going into the extremes represented. I think that this is a useful term and I intend to encourage others to use it – especially when they enjoy darker music that doesn’t succinctly line up with goth or rivethead subculture.”
Metalhead: this may have been a result of the atrocity which we call pop music these days that led me to the opposite end of the music spectrum. Classic rock, hard rock, glam metal, heavy metal, power metal, doom metal, and more. There is one thing that is consistent with these genres; one, they have melody. Two, they require instrumental proficiency, no, mastery, to produce. I only have to point you at Eddie Halen or Vince Neil for you to get an idea of this.
My interest in aesthetics and subcultures also manifests itself in the terms cyberpunk and retrofuturist. I enjoy most other speculative fiction subgenres that embody the core essence of the aforementioned “punk” genres, particularly those inclined to history and the alteration thereof.
Enthusiast of the arts, history, and philosophy: I have a great appreciation of universities and education, or at least appreciation of what they should be. Universities are the very backbone of western civilization. They educate us in the most broadest sense, taking fragments from the greatest minds that ever put pen to paper. These fragments combining to reflect but one aspect of truth, in it’s purest sense. It’s a call to the highest mode of being; it manifests in you the greatness of the past. It’s a civilizational inheritance. They sharpen the knife of the mind. You learn how to write; how to place a word in a sentence, in a paragraph, in an essay, and that essay answers an important question, a problem. Something we should like to have an answer for. Without any sort of deeper drive we settle in torpor, just scraping out an essay for a class grade. But not only is this vital to the very development of ourselves and society, but I’d argue we are almost duty-bound to study these things. We have a moral and ethical duty to understand history, because it’s about us. We are only products of the ideas and history around us, and we have to understand that to ever glean a glimpse of truth. We need an awareness of aesthetics too, what is beautiful. What is noble. What is the validity of my being? What is a goal of sufficient nobility to justify the inequity of my existence? We have education to find these things, what the ideal is. And that’s what we orient ourselves to, the hope that sustains us through catastrophe. I say duty-bound because some people don’t and/or will never have access to these great institutes, or the works inside them. Those of us who are blessed with the opportunity of studying should approach it with thirst, and view it as an individual and societal duty. We can’t afford not to study. Truth and goodness are things that have to be constantly grasped for, they aren’t a static achievement from the past.
