Hello, this is William Sander.

I plan to make a website about people who I think are important and/or have majorly influenced me. Jaron Lanier, Dostoyevsky, Lao Tzu, my friends, and my family. I'll also do a page about my goals in life.

Jaron Lanier: Main focus will be on his humanist philosophy and data unions. Jaron Lanier is a programmer, technology philosopher, cofounder of VR, researcher at Microsoft, classical music composer, collector of rare instruments, musical artist, and generally awesome person!

Dostoyevsky is far from a perfect writer or person, plenty to critique, but the way he confronts modern materialism, and life itself, is such an amazing introspection into humanity. It majorly influenced me in highschool. His novel, The Idiot, my favorite of his works, is an uncoventionally written masterpiece featuring such memorable quotes and ideas -- I'll post one of the quotes I love “Do you know I don't know how one can walk by a tree and not be happy at the sight of it? How can one talk to a man and not be happy in loving him! Oh, it's only that I'm not able to express it...And what beautiful things there are at every step, that even the most hopeless man must feel to be beautiful! Look at a child! Look at God's sunrise! Look at the grass, how it grows! Look at the eyes that gaze at you and love you!”

Next is Lao Tzu. Taoism is something opaque yet clear. It doesn't seem to really offer much of an answer at all to any philosophical questions -- but in doing this it soothes so much pain. In highschool I struggled massively with the idea of living -- what is death? Lao Tzu gave a sort of answer which soothes me, but it's more a cancelation of my question.

My friends. They've compelled me into many areas of interest and motivated me through their kindness. They're a big part of why I am the person I am today; sadly I think without meeting them I'd trust others a lot less and be more isolated.

My family has, my entire life, encouraged me to value kindness and self introspection. On one side of my family Quakerism seems to have impressed itself upon each generation. Much like Lao Tzu Quakerism, as I understand it, emphasizes self knowledge and self truth. Quaking means to meditate, silence yourself, and wait to speak until internal truth to come forth.