Non nobis solum
Non nobis solum is a text document stored in the Blue terminal.
Contents
Non nobis solum
AUTHOR: THABANI J. CALVIN
An extract from Thabani J. Calvin's final essay, posted to a "newsgroup" designated alt.noematics.moderated shortly before his death:
It's a very harsh reality to face: not only that my life is about to end, but that I am not satisfied with it. I know I did my best with what I was given, but that's not enough. Needing money to survive, I spent the most significant part of my life writing idiotic software, most of which is already obsolete.
I didn't see much of the world. I know that there is a transformational power in experiencing the reality of different places which cannot be replicated by reading about them. To truly know that another place is real changes who you are.
I didn't read enough, either. Our civilization is growing increasingly disdainful of reading, and I realized far too late how weak and unformed our minds are without reading. There are so many incredible books and I know that my mind isn't half of what it could've been, and I am intellectually and spiritually poorer for it.
I could go on and on, but time is a luxury I can no longer afford. What it comes down to is that despite my best efforts, my life was dissatisfying. I did not grow enough. I look at myself and I can feel the absence of the person I should've been. Because a world based on scarcity was a world in which writing crappy software was what I had to do to live at all.
There is only one hope left for me. If the theoretical work I've done these last few years has any kind of impact, if it helps builds a better world in which people no longer have to waste their lives like I did, then my life will have been worth it. Each generation has to justify the life of the previous, until some day it all truly pays off. That's the gamble of being human, I guess.
Be well, friends.
GCS/IT d+ s++: a++ C++++ !U !P L+++++ E+++ W+++ N++++ o+++++ !K w+++(++) !O M-- !VMS PS+++ PE-- Y+++ PGP++ +++ 5++++ X++++ R? tv+ b++++++ !DI D++ G++ e++++ h* r- y+
Barzai
The theories advanced by Thabani J. Calvin and other members of his circle eventually became the basis of the Institute for Applied Noematics.
Trivia
The string of letters at the end of Thabani's post is written in Geek Code. Developed in 1993, it is a series of letters and symbols used by self-described "geeks" to inform fellow geeks about their personality, appearance, interests, skills, and opinions. The idea is that everything that makes a geek individual can be encoded in a compact format which only other geeks can read.
There are various online decoders that can decrypt an instance of Geek Code you have come across. Here is the decryption of Thabani's profile by the website United Computer Wizards: