I am.

Hi.

Some of you know me pretty well. Others, maybe not as much. A few, hardly at all.

I'm Brandon.

People always say they're nobody special, unless they have really big egos. I suppose many would say that about me. They would be wrong. If I wasn't special, I wouldn't exist. And I do. If you can't see that, I suggest you look at this whole world differently, because there isn't a damn one of us who isn't special. We all have intrinsic value in our uniqueness.

Me, well, there's plenty to make me unique. I kind of like it that way, really. Sure, I have my days where I wonder if I should be more like someone else, or maybe I should "grow out" of certain things, but most days, I say to hell with that. I am the person I am, with the interests I have, the way I view life, for a reason. Maybe many of them. Maybe a lot of them, I'll never know about. I can be content knowing that I fulfilled something, made a difference, and never know it. My path is set forth for me, and I'm going to walk it, just as I am. Because I was made this way.

I love to learn. I love knowledge, information, call it whatever you like. If I get interested in something, I want to know as much as I can about it, even if I can't partake in the activity right away. I have researched all sorts of information about countless things, movies, books, video games, gadgets, ever before I actually got them. The Internet is a wonderful tool for helping this desire of mine, especially with sites such as Wikipedia and it's numerous more specialized offshoots. Do you know how often I have spent reading episode summaries of Star Trek shows that I haven't yet seen? Or reading the storyline of various Final Fantasy games before I played them? Or even done any of this sort of thing AFTER the fact, and then watching/playing it again? I love doing that. It draws me in more to the thing itself, and helps me enjoy it to the fullest.

As you can imagine, this has a dark side to it as well. This love of knowledge, combined with the access to information the Internet brings, has drawn me in to things that damage my very soul and has caused me (and others) great pain. Some of that damage has been repaired, other parts of it are still being done. I cannot change any of this, what's done is done. I make no claims to being untarnished by sin, none of us can. We all have our scars which still hurt sometimes. We all have our wounds that have not yet stopped bleeding. To be otherwise is not for us to experience, not yet. These wounds are a part of me, not a part I wish to keep, but they are there, nonetheless. The scars do hurt, but they remind as well. What has been overcome, and that eventually, all my open wounds will one day stop bleeding.

I love the idea of an epic adventure, an epic hero story. This is probably the root cause of my fascination with the Star Wars universe, and all that it encompasses. A story that spans centuries, millenia, of good versus evil. And of course, the fantastic futuristic technology, coupled with the very super hero mythos represented by the Jedi, all add to that. But Star Wars isn't the only one I enjoy, not by a long shot. Various video games including several Final Fantasy titles, Halo, Half-Life, Kingdom Hearts, Megaman, and most recently World of Warcraft have also captured my attention based again on this same idea of an epic saga. So have books such as Ender's Game, Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia, and a whole host of others.

Techonology fascinates me, and I think it's primarily because it can do all of these incredible things, but how it works exactly is beyond most people's comprehension, or so they say. I like to know how stuff works, and enjoy getting sometimes problematic technology to work correctly. The idea of what technology could possibly represent in the future is equally fascinating to me, which manifests itself in my enjoyment of science fiction's descriptions of the technology of the future. Robots, energy weapons, starships, artificial intelligence, holograms, all of that and more, I love the idea of it. The very possibility of the actual existence of these things is very real to me, becase after all, humanity dreamed up such things using the very creative drive given to us, and in fact that same drive has manifested itself over time to give us the very tech we have today. The possibilities seem absolutely limitless. If we can get this far, what is to say we can't achieve our imaginations? What is around the corner? What devices can we take from our minds and manifest it in the world?

I love superheroes for the obvious reasons. By their very nature, they are special beings, and it seems they are destined to fight for the very beliefs they embody, and are extremely well equipped for it. Isn't this something we all seek? I know I have longed for the ability to right wrongs in the world. I like the modern day incarnations of most superheroes, who have real humanity to them, but with very surreal abilities. It makes me dream of, as I said earlier, possibilities.

I really like the whole concept of "multimedia", when something exists in multiple art mediums. Because then I can experience multiple expressions of something and truly get a feel for the "wholeness" of it. Take Star Wars again for an example. Sure you've got the movies, and you can watch them, and enjoy them. But for something that fascinates me so much, that isn't all of it for me. Because Star Wars is truly multi-media. There are books, comics, videogames, TV shows, all sorts of things, which tell different stories, or tell the story differently. And I want to read, watch, and play as much of it as I can. I like experiencing the "wholeness" of it. Lord of the Rings. I'd never read the books before seeing the first film. You can bet I got copies of them after that though. And the Silmarillion to boot. Did you know that World of Warcraft has books which tell the parts of the history of that universe, to say nothing of the online-documented histories of the previous Warcraft games? I haven't read them all, but I have read quite a few. I have the movie novelization of X-Men III. Do you know why? Because there is much in there that simply cannot be expressed on flim. I feel I have more completely enjoyed the movie after reading it. That's just the way I am.

I'm a very visual person. I don't like to be told how to do something. I want to see it done, and then try it. It's harder for me to retain information that I hear rather than read, or see. That's not to say I can't remember stuff I hear well, just that I prefer to see it. Seeing a task done gives me a more retainable baseline for how to do it, and thus gives me more confidence at doing it

I think that's why I had a truly harder time enjoying Dungeons and Dragons. Don't get me wrong, the brief time I did actively play it in college was great fun, after all, it appealed right to my love of epic adventure tales and superpowers, but the fact that I had to remember spoken descriptions of the world we played in and try to continually imagine what the surroundings looked like made it harder to get into it. That's more difficult for me than to actually see it. Again, not to say I can't do it, it was just difficult to do, and it's why I prefer playing videogames or reading books of the same vein. The former I can actually see and experience rather than relying on someone elses description, and the latter I can more easily remember, despite the fact that it is someone else descibing it.

The whole "visual" thing is somewhat ironic given how bad my natural eyesight really is at the moment, now that I think about it. Heh heh.

That's another thing about me, I love to laugh, and I love making other people do the same.

I'm a romantic at heart, really, I am. I love a real, honest, true love story. Those three adjectives there are key. Real, honest, and true. That's the kind of love I want, both to give and receive. I know I can give it, because I have. It wasn't perfect, but it was real and true. I know the day will come when I shall have the opportunity to do so again, and I greatly look forward to that. I wholeheartedly believe that God designed me with someone else in mind, and that someone else with me in mind. I don't yet know who she is, or perhaps I do and don't realize that she is. I know that written into the core of my soul is the way to love her as she was designed to be loved, and I look very much forward to giving that to her.

There's tons of other things that I like and enjoy which have their roots in all these inner feelings of mine. Movies, comic book series, webcomics, podcasts, books, gadgets, websites, TV shows, and probably a lot more. I'll admit that when I was writing this I planned on listing as much of it as I could think of. But then I realized that I've either done that in the past or will have room to do it in the future in a more specialized entry.

And besides, this doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of who I am. I could go on about how I like to be organized, my strong sense of justice, or how and why I enjoy colorful things.

But ultimately I cannot describe all of who I am with words. I've done my best here to give you a small view of who I am, but really it's up to you to discover the rest, if you're so inclined.

This is who I am.

I was created. By God almighty.

He, in the infinite and unimaginable creative ability He's got, put me together this way. I cannot explain it how incredible that is, and how I have struggled with it at the same time. After all, who can know me better than myself? But something God has imparted on me through many means is that He loves me. He created me to be who I am, and that creation, the very real Me, brings Him joy. The peace and joy and happiness that realization has brought me is not something I can put into words. I am who I am, and I cannot, and will not, be anyone else. Why should I? God knows every possible aspect of me, and He loves me. And that, my friends, is enough for me.

I hope that, at the very least, some part of who I am can bring you joy as well. That has certainly been true for me about a lot of people.

I have a lot of me to offer, but me is all I have. If you want someone else, you got the wrong guy, because I can't give it to you, and I will not try.

Because this is who I am.

I am Brandon Kirk Matthews.

Heya.