Welcome to Robert the Wombat’s NAQ (Never-Asked Questions) page, a repository for all those questions that, at the time of writing the answers, are so intrinsic and crucial that it’s utterly amazing that no-one has asked them at all.
No worries, I’m here to cover your omission! Here are the answers you didn’t know you wanted….
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Q: Why “Wombat”?
A: There are reasons I don’t mind revealing, and one or two that I’d rather not, yet. Here’s what I’ll share:
1. As mentioned, I don’t want the site to be all about me personally, but about ideas. It will necessarily be mostly my “take” on the ideas, but at least it’s not going to be about pets, what I had for breakfast, and my arguments with Aunt Gertrude about how I should be behaving at my age. If it’s not really about me, it doesn’t need my name all over it.
2. It had to be something that wasn’t already taken, of course.
3. I felt that if there was any hope of making a blog work on a collection of bizarrely diverse subjects (and there may not be), it had to be pretty strongly-branded to give it some cohesion. I have a LOT more interests than are reflected here, most with no immediately evident connection to each other, and I don’t know if I’m going to add more here as time goes on, or split them up into blogs of their own, or, as of this writing, whether it will attract any interest at all, so for better or worse the name and the guy behind the name are almost the only things holding it all together.
4. I wanted the name to be easy to remember, and easy to search on. I’ve never had to tell anyone twice about camelcamelcamel.com, it’s an example of a truly admirable name for the Internet (the site has nothing to do with camels). Hopefully “Robert the Wombat” will be hard to forget. Maybe hopefully. If I really disgrace myself… well… next time it might be “Robert the Armadillo”. Has a certain ring to it, maybe I should reserve that domain now…
5. I wanted it to be something politically and socially neutral and non-intimidating, something likable and unlikely to offend anyone even in this age of professional and practiced takers-of-offense always on the lookout for opportunities, sort of like “Tux”, the Linux mascot penguin. I don’t know of any group anywhere who is outraged about or offended by wombats. Yet.
6. Two of my best friends are feline brothers, one of which is a friendly, shaggy mostly-black sort that generally looks quite majestic, but from some angles, occasionally, he reminds me of a wombat, especially belly-up and asleep. Since I never met either of his (biological) parents I often tell him that I think he might be part wombat. He doesn’t seem to care at all.
P.S. – This could be trouble. I’m picking up vibes that “womb” may be a forbidden word on some forums etc., so “wombat” is also banned. Sigh.
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Q. I get the impression you’re not Australian. Where do you get off calling yourself “Robert the Wombat”?
A. Seriously? Are you familiar with the Holden truck line called “Colorado”? I’ve got news, pretty much nobody in Colorado has ever heard of Holden trucks. Most probably don’t know there even is an Australian truck manufacturer. If my possibly not being Australian really bothers you (“cultural appropriation”?), you must be positively outraged at the rumors that I’m not even really a wombat.
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Q: Shouldn’t these diverse subjects be in separate blogs?
A: Maybe. I mean, sure, it’s possible… is that what you want? At the moment this is just more-or-less a dumping ground for thoughts and ideas that I want to make available to share with some family members and a few friends but don’t want to impose on anyone (as emails would), hopefully with less time spent than sending emails, and a way for me to “get my feet wet” in blogging. I don’t know if it’s going to find a broader audience than that. IF it does, and IF I can eventually successfully monetize it enough (without annoying folks) to at least pay for its own expenses (with just voluntary contributions, some paid links etc) and IF I get good enough with the tools that multiple blogs are not a huge time-sink, I may well consider creating more blogs in the future. Aside from the subjects here, I have a LOT of diverse interests that I haven’t included.
On the other hand, though, separating the subjects might make it more difficult to present the logical connections that DO exist between them, and the connections are important. As Ted Nelson says, “Everything is deeply intertwingled”. Truer words ain’t never been spake.
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Q: Why aren’t there more pictures?
A: It’s coming, it’s coming, I think. It’s just not a high priority yet. I’m looking for something classy and tasteful that adds to the theme, like a lady wombat in a bikini. These artistic decisions take time.
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Q: Is this site about politics?
A: I hope not. I’m trying hard for it not to be, an an age when everything is about politics. It’s not easy to avoid. Of course, some of my opinions will be clear from context and many more might be inferred, but that’s unavoidable, and some of the subjects I deal with like MGTOW certainly have a political element to them (although it could be argued that they shouldn’t have to), it’s essentially a human rights issue), but I have no problem with people disagreeing with me. I’m not interested in offending people in general, and don’t want this to be the sort of place where someone is making a political decision just in reading the posts or being here. I’m hoping it’s about ideas. If you disagree with any of the ideas here, feel free to say so. I do have very strong political opinions, but I don’t intend to use this as a platform to inflict most of them on strangers.