I posted this on the PureGor, AlterRealm, CreativityChat, and ImagineChat Boards. I am posting it here in the hopes that all will read and recognize.
As I was going through my old printouts from 2001 pertaining to Gor (yes I have papers from that long ago and continue to read them to remind myself of how Gor should be) I came across a very interesting qupte from one who was highly respected in Gor back in the day and dare I say that if he were to see how Gor is today he would be as sick as many of us who know and remember the old ways of Gor were. His name is _Marcus_ of Ar, who had a column in a defunct online Gorean webzine called By the Book. He also posted it on the old Silk & Steel website. Anyhow, in his column dated December 25, 1997, he began it by saying the following:
Tal, Goreans!
I pen these words at the end of of what has been a very long and often confusing year on Gorean IRC. The online community fragments constantly, sometimes splitting into smaller and smaller pockets of like-minded individuals, each of which has its own unique views and feelings regarding Gor. But at the same time, many of these isolated pockets of online Goreans seem to be moving in the same direction, like separate trickles, eddies, and curents drawn by the same inexorable pull of gravity down to the sea... or in this case, to Thassa.
I find it gratifying, to say the least. Gor is too big and amazing to be the sole domain of a select few individuals, and has always been so. As I have often said in the past, MY Gor does not exist; it is Norman's vision, combined with our own hopes and dreams, which give live to our channels and online siciety. I only hope that one day the very concept of "my Gor" or "your Gor" evaporates, to be replaced by OUR Gor. Then, and only then, will I have come home. Until then, I will try to light a few lamps so we all might see better as we fumble through the fog, toward the truth about what Gor is, what it is like, and what it signifies.
I echo those exact sentiments, and try my damnedest to live by that saying daily. May each of us continue to do the same.
