Welcome to 'Tomorrow'

My first intro post was admittedly a bit rushed on account of an ominous looming deadline: I didn’t want the inaugural post on this site to be Rooley’s obituary. You’ll forgive me for introducing about four distinct topics but failing to follow through on fleshing them out before hitting post. There are reasons for that. We’ll get to them.

I registered the domain name Hello-From-Tomorrow.com a little before I arrived in Adelaide three years ago, fully intent on documenting my transition to life in Australia. The idea is that the extreme time difference between Australia Central Standard Time and US Eastern Standard Time (where the majority of my family and friends live) means that my Saturday morning posts come through on Friday evening. A 14.5-hour time difference! That’s huge! 

The blog is also a place to work out just how the heck I ended up in Australia in the first place. I mean, I know how–I fell in love and took a chance at making it on the other side of the world. But I never had young ambitions to move to Australia. It was never on my vision board or 10-year plan. It was the sum total of incremental decisions and choices and particular circumstances that all came together in exactly the right way at exactly the right time.

There are many way-stops on my journey to Adelaide, many false-starts and upheavals and reboots and setbacks and dead ends. Every one of them contributed to the life I have today, a life I treasure and embrace, a life filled with love and support and opportunity and possibilities. I have to remind myself that trading any one piece of my past could have led to a completely different outcome. It’s worth it to me to look back at the steps that led me to where I am today, even though many of them feel like several lifetimes ago.

We’re also going to dig up some vintage Internet and retro gaming along the way, as these factored in heavily to Why I Am Like This. The capital-I Internet was sold to us as an egalitarian town square where the free exchange of information would lead to a smarter, more informed populace who could reach across age, location and cultural boundaries to unite and connect the entire world. While it’s true there are small pockets that live up to that ideal, I find it broadly fascinating how forces have shaped the current landscape to reward tribalism, sensationalism and engagement at the expense of coherence or understanding. That’s not even touching on what it’s done to the media landscape, another subject I have Strong Opinions on. 

That’s the initial plan for this publication; I anticipate it’ll evolve over time, and I thank everyone for taking the time to check it out. With time I’ll hit my stride, no doubt.