Welcome to Contemplating Resonance!

I have wanted to tell this story for a long time.

Some people have heard it. Some people have seen tiny snippets on my blog. A few lucky folks have even been granted access to the Super Secret Google Doc™ in which I have captured quite a few vignettes from my journey.

There are bits of poetry and prose that only I’ve seen, tucked away in a special Moleskine.

But most of it is still very much hidden in my brain. And in my heart.

And I’ve finally gotten up the gumption to start sharing it with you.

Who is this person?

I'm Matt Stine - child of the Oregon Trail generation, resident of the Bitter South

I work professionally as a software engineer, and I've been tinkering with computers since I was seven years old. I was dialing in to bulletin board systems (BBSes) by 1987, and I was on the Internet by 1991. Fast-forward about 20 years and I'm starting to surf the early cloud wave. In 2015 I published the first book with the term "Cloud-Native" in the title, and by 2018 I was very briefly a cloud startup millionaire. Cool story, huh?

Well, along the way I became a 150K air miles/year road warrior avoiding a dysfunctional marriage, self-medicating depression and anxiety with free booze from sales guys. That entire period began with what I'll call an unconscious deconstruction (after growing up Southern Baptist and spending parts of 2001-2011 teaching adult married Sunday School and knocking on doors doing Evangelism Explosion -- yes, the rabbit hole is deep), exploded into a period of militant atheism around the time of Trump's ascension, and around 2019 settling into my current mix of agnosticism, mysticism, existentialism, buddhism, and the kitchen sink. 

Also post 2019 came divorce, new job, a miracle match on Tinder to whom I am now happily married, and lots of dad transitions (drivers, graduations, college students, etc.). Shew...OK, abridged life story...SHIPPED!

So what is this Substack?

You’re going to find out with me. All I can promise is you’re going to hear what it’s like to be me and live inside my head.

For you, that could be amazing…or it could be agonizing! Unfortunately, over that I have no control.

All I can do is give the gift I have to give. That’s what this Substack is. It’s my gift to whomever needs it. Even if that’s just me.

But I’d love it if you’d subscribe! That gets you full access to the newsletter and publication archives. Paid subscribers, for now, are just going to be providing me with additional motivation to keep this thing going. But I’m thinking about some extra goodies to include just for you.

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Contemplating Resonance logo is by Ben Mathis Seibel on Unsplash.