2008-04-03 00:31 ☼ post
A man of words and not of deeds
Is like a garden full of weeds
–my daughter’s book of nursery rhymes
Axodys started out as my AOL username back in the mid 90s. I wanted a unique handle rather than some common term differentiated by a number so I combined two words I liked into a new one. Thus exodus + odyssey became axodys. Although I cast AOL aside at some point in the mid 90s, I continued to use axodys as my handle as the web grew in popularity in the late 90s and beyond.
In early 1999 I decided to buy my own domain name and build a website; axodys.com was the logical choice. I didn’t really know what I was doing and there wasn’t much in the way of blogging software at the time so I spent a couple months doing a hand edited weblog in bbedit until my interest and enthusiasm kind of petered out. Everything changed in the Fall of 1999 when Blogger was released as a free service to the internet. I immediately set up axodys.com as a blog utilizing Pyra’s breakthrough system and the rest was history. It was incredibly empowering to be able update from anywhere with web access after doing everything by hand for so long. Even more importantly I was part of a new and pioneering blogging community.
At some point not long after creating the username Axodys, I began to think about what it actually meant. The meaning of the two original root words was important to me. An exodus usually means a departure from something- usually by a lot of people. An odyssey is generally a long and eventful journey. So what do you get when you combine these things? While I asked myself that question shortly after coming up with the word axodys, it was not something I ever really answered satisfactorily or even tried to too hard to figure out. I think early on the journey element had a stronger emphasis than the departure, but over time it’s coalesced into something a little more balanced in my mind. Yet it still defies a simple definition. At the moment I would describe axodys as a state of departure from old ways and habits, and an exploratory journey, metaphorical or physical towards new thoughts and knowledge. It’s about improvement, flexibility and evolution. And this is kind of zen, but it just occurred to me: axodys is itself subject to axodys. In other words axodys is constantly evolving further meaning while evading complete definition.
So now that I’ve explained my conception of axodys where does that leave us? Well, I’ve been unsatisfied with the state of axodys.com for a long time. If anything is in need of axodys it’s axodys.com. If anything should be about axodys, it’s axodys.com. That said, at this point I really don’t plan to talk specifically talk about axodys very much. I really see axodys as more of an overarching theme and principle that I want to approach this blog with. Hopefully the changes and improvements I hope to make will reflect this in the coming weeks and months. At any rate, it’s time to weed the garden, please join me as I roll up my sleeves and get to work.