Vincent St. Clare

◆ NOTE: I am both the author and subject of this article, and I've written and published it here on EverybodyWiki in order to represent and introduce myself to the world in a comprehensive and honest way. It's clear that any self-assesment cannot be objective or unbiased, though with that in mind I've written this intent upon producing as impartial a judgement of myself as possible. Whether or not you choose to believe that that's the case is obviously out of my control. However, I do want you to know, if anything, that in this self-"introduction" I've done my best to avoid arrogance and egotism (even given the fact that all of this IS written in the third person) while also emphasizing what I view as my relative strengths, and I've otherwise attempted to make plain here my many ambitions, goals, and interests.

If next to nothing is ever known of my life, of my having existed as a human being, then at least this can serve as some sort of record—until the inevitable end of the human species, the Earth, the universe, or existence in its entirety, at least—for anyone who happens to wonder who this St. Clare person was.

I also hope that in the aftermath of my life I will have in some way aided the world: Perhaps something I have created or will create will, whatever the medium of expression, prove useful or meaningful or moving or beautiful or thought-provoking to someone (or someTHING—consider other sapient creatures that may well exist beyond Earth) out there. All I know is that, despite my many blunders and mistakes in life, plus all of the many instances that I've engaged in outright—even extreme—assholery, I've made countless attempts to be a good person (whatever that actually means), a loving person, and a kind person, and I will continue to do so until the day I give up the ghost.

I can only hope I will succeed in employing my senses of creativity and reflection in order to inspire awe, freedom, empathy, joy, illumination, and individuality. Despite my general weirdness and penchant for the surreal and outlandishly tragicomic, as well as what's often been my focus on the taboo, terrifying, disturbing, sorrowful, or painful aspects of life, I do genuinely hope that I will ultimately prove to be a force for good in in this world.

"LOVE, AND DO WHAT THOU WILT!" Signing off...

— Vincent St. Clare: May 23, 2024. ◆

Vincent St. Clare (born September 16, 1991) is the pen name of a writer, content creator, and self-declared "amateur philosopher", "laggard madman", [laggard] "magus", and "half-assed... mystic" from the U.S. state of Connecticut. Describing himself both as a "multicreative" and "omnicreative", writing (including expository prose and essays, philosophical and spiritual reflection, fiction, and poetry) has served as his primary and preferred creative outlet and medium, though in recent years he has broadened his focus to include various other modes of expression. His relatively new endeavors have largely centered on the solo production and editing of both long-form and short-form video content, works that span various genres and formats, touch upon on a variety of subjects, and emphasize various concepts and motifs. He has also made occasional forays into amateur photography, digital image editing, and the recording and publishing of audio lectures and monologues, namely spoken word, poetry readings, general rants and reactions, rhetorical expositions, anecdotes, and narrative accounts. He infrequently produces static visual art—typically drawings or simple illustrations that he openly states probably don't count for "real art". His work includes multimedia and mixed media projects.

St. Clare cultivates his creativity by producing content ranging in character from the humorous to the serious to the tragicomic. His work covers a massive spectrum of complexity, consisting of everything from half-second video clips to entire collections of poems. He neither shies away from making mundane doodles and momentary memes nor from penning novels and producing lengthy commentaries on a variety of subjects. He looks forward to making many detailed analyses of this curious world of which he has found himself a part, yet those intricate explorations are just as meaningful to him as photographing roadside weeds—as much a part of this infinite expanse of strangeness we call existence as our elaborate assesments of it.

Across all media and through many forms of expression St. Clare seeks to create material that effectively juxtaposes, and ultimately transcends, a variety of perceived opposites, transfiguring dichotomies into dualities, transmogrifying all that in life which we deem incompatible into partners in a dance and lovers in coition. He desires to blur the lines between hilarity and catastrophe, between fulfillment and deprivation, between profundity and profanity, between brilliance and idiocy, between thought and emotion and—ultimately—between the relative and the absolute.

Much of the comedic video and photo—and, to a certain degree, written—content he produces takes the form of simple and amusing shitposts, though he is also invested in creating things much "grander" in scope. His comedy (fairly often unashamedly "black" comedy) is intended as freeform satire or humor which can variously be described as existential, philosophical, ascerbic, surreal, crude, disturbing, striking, or absurd in character, a common feature being the intentional inclusion of, and emphasis placed upon, seemingly inharmonious elements.

Other writings and videos St. Clare produces, creations he intends as "truly serious", are explicitly meant to be affecting meditations on awe and sublimity, artistic projects through which he aims to evoke a deep perception of mystery and majesty, wonder and endless possibility in the face of life's vastness. These developments range from poignant aesthetic reflections to contemplations of—and odes to—the Sacred, from abstract expressions suffused with sorrow and longing and doubt, all recognized in the form of beauty, to visual and written "hymns" to the Mysterium Tremendum, indications of some numinous possibility, or perhaps supernal reality, beyond word or even conception itself.

Through his poetry St. Clare unflichingly delves into a pit of despair while at the same time rising to meet empyrean ineffability. He reaches down to the bottom of Hell to dredge up the summum bonum, a bliss beyond measure, and at the same time bitterly claws away any notion of goodness residing in any of the far-flung corners of this universe, purportedly "fallen" as it is. He seeks both to curse God and die and to plant a kiss upon the lips of the Devil himself. He is forever seeking to fall in love with the cosmos—to find supreme rapture in forever courting its Hidden and Nameless God—just as much as he desires to undo the "wrong" of being itself.

EARLY LIFE

Vincent St. Clare was born on the morning of September 16, 1991 at St. David's Medical Center in Austin, Texas. He spent roughly the first ten years of his life in Austin before his family moved to Connecticut in 2001. He has lived in Connecticut since then.

CAREER

Self-descriptions and pseudonyms

St. Clare has regularly described himself in noticeably diverse ways, self-descriptions he has composed and posted online fluctuating across various personal or official social media platforms and other Internet-based profiles and presences (such as blogs and websites) he maintains. Some of these self-descriptions he has made relatively lengthy, verbose, and even poetic, arcane, or mystical in style, possibly indicating an emphasis on his spiritual inclinations, while in other introductions he has been brief and irreverent in characterizing himself, eluding formal explanations of who he is. In yet other descriptions he has written in a manner plainer or more mater-of-fact, usually referring to himself as a writer first and foremost, though he has at various points also indicated that he is a—admittedly "attempted"—theorist or thinker, comedian or pseudo-comedian, spiritual seeker, and general dabbler in various creative media. He tends to emphasize his nature as a dilettante, and he's openly called himself "lackadaisical", "couch-locked", "indolent", "half-assed" or an "amateur" in his many pursuits, and in at least one instance has referred to himself as "hellbound".

List of self-descriptions and profile bios

Below is a series of biographical passages in current use that St. Clare has written, edited, and posted on the various "about me" and "bio" sections of his assortment of online (namely social media) profiles and presences across various Internet platforms (current as of March 21, 2024):

• "Nameless and empty sky. Evanescent light from the womb of the Unnameable. Fire loosed from void—infinity confined to an illusory core of selfhood, forever in awe of the divine tragicomedy. ... {𝟶=∞/‽/𓂀 [𝟿𝟹s]}... Crestfallen no-one cackling in ecstasy, beholden to a dream within a dream... A fledgling writer, amateur [quasi]philosopher, half-assed attempt at a holy idiot, and dislocated suburban madman. Couch-locked, an armchair magus facing an everlasting omnilemma, pissing away and passing by everything in existence. I've got a head on wheels and a heart aflame. I've been wandering in place for countless eternities, simultaneously waiting on death and running after the summum bonum, that mirage we like to call "the good life". I've searched every corner of the cosmos for reasons to tell it off. Between Heaven and Earth and Hell I've collected love notes to send to my darling universe, crowned in majesty, glory, and horror. I'd only believe in a God who could laugh at himself." (Linktree) ┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅ ┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅ ┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅
• "CÆLVM INNOMINATVM༻𝟶=∞☽God's favorite sad clown, void-drunk upon awe𓁿writer⸸worldweary quasiphilosopher⸸tragicomedian⸸laggard madman–magus–mystik–omnicreative." (Twitter/X)
• "Half-assed writer and couch-ridden mystic, wandering in place since 1991. A man-sized weeping heart coterminous with the entire universe... a void set ablaze." (Medium)
• "🜋Vincent St. Clare: writer and "omnicreative" unleashing a new universe.🜋 [𓂀]" (TikTok)
• "V.—or Vincent—St. Clare. "Empty Sky." A nom de plume. "V. St. C", even, though really you can call me by any name you prefer. (Examples include dipshit, burnout, creep, crackpot, misfit, screwball, a fluke [of nature], a flake [all the same], and so forth and so on.) "A fledgling writer, amateur philosopher, some half-assed attempt at a mystic, and a dislocated suburban cowboy. I'm couch-locked and hell-bound, an armchair magician facing an everlasting omnilemma, pissing alchemy into the wind and pissing life away with an overburdened spiritual bladder. I've got a head on wheels and a heart on fire. I've been wandering in place for the past countless eternities, simultaneously waiting on death and running after the summum bonum, that mirage we like to call "the good life". I'm ideally looking to ride out the latest eschaton, though frankly I'm not too hopeful about my (or anyone's) prospects, so these days I'm mostly just looking for reasons to tell off the universe despite my desire for true peace of mind. (And don't we all want that, in the end?)" (SoundCloud, PowerPoetry)
• "Writer (blogger, rarely-published poet, short story writer, would-be novelist, and essayist), armchair philosopher, half-assed mystic, professional a-hole, and so forth. I'm a dislocated suburban cowboy looking for enlightenment in the age of the eschaton." (Hello Poetry)
• "Vincent St. Clare is a writer and self-described armchair mystic from New England. He holds a B.A. in professional writing from Western Connecticut State University. You can view his work at The Grand Tangent. He would only believe in a God who could laugh at himself." (The Fictional Cafe 2021 poetry submission bio)
• "Despairing—in total love with—existence and its hilarity. Tragicomic writer, multicreative, and "seeker" pondering life and aspiring to its Fullness." (Instagram)
• "I’m a cognitive dissident: A wayfarer of the imagination. I’m an unconventional iconoclast, half-baked mystagogue, and catatonic amateur philosopher. I’ve got a heart on fire and a head screwed on backwards. I am an attempt at the everyman, philosophus and Fool, a lover of fate—though strung up by my fears—a boiler room hierophant, and “world on wheels”. I am an ever-transforming universalist seeking the interpenetration of the mundane and mystical. I try my hand at humility in the midst of self-promotion. I devote myself to the wind, neither coming nor going. That’s all there is at the end of the day. "… I entered the calamity Anno Domini 1991. Since then I have become a writer in various senses—a poet, editor, blogger, essayist, author of short stories, small-time journalist, and would-be novelist, as well as a freelancer-for-hire. "I am originally from Austin, Texas, and currently reside in the People’s Republic of Connecticut. (I tell people I’m a dislocated suburban cowboy.) We’ll see where life takes me from here. "I humbly deem myself one lackadaisical author, couch-ridden adventurer, and clownish seeker of spiritual experience, as well as an armchair revolutionary and otherwise a bullshit aficionado. (Poop-chute extraordinaire, Seinfeld devotee, and so on.)" (Smashwords)
• "🜋Conquering, this holy clarity..."·"God's/suicide/is/my/rebirth!" ... Half-assed mystic and armchair philosopher, riding out the eschaton. I write about pretty much everything (or at least I try to), and otherwise reasons to tell off the universe. (V.V.V.V.V. "A bell ringing in the empty sky...")" (Gravatar)
• "Rambling on, accelerating toward the end of time..." (LiveJournal)
• I hold a B.A. in professional writing with a concentration in journalism and public relations writing, plus a minor in philosophy, from Western Connecticut State University. (Danbury, Connecticut, U.S.—graduated 2018.) I’m near-totally self-taught on the subjects of religious studies and comparative religion, spirituality (including mysticism, so-called “psychospirituality”, and the intersection of rationality and the existential utility of spiritual practice), and esotericism and the occult/occultism (including ceremonial magic[k], fraternal and mag[k]ical organizations, and what’s often termed scientific illuminism), having had a fair number of first-hand experiences involving the “inner life” and what you might deem “transcendence” under my belt. I’d also say I’m well-acquainted with the humanities in a general sense, with a focus on philosophy—especially axiology, epistemology, existentialism, metaphysics, and ontology—in particular. (Though I’ll admit I’m very much still a humble student of the subject as, for as much as I MAY know, there’s so, so much more that I don’t!) I consider myself a sort of “amateurish” mystic, magic[k]ian, and spiritual “seeker”. I fully admit that I am quite lackadaisical and inconsistent in my pursuit of transcendence, largely due to battling with both mental/emotional and physical illness for most of my life. I’m mostly self-informed on environmental issues, especially those related to climate change and sustainability, these subjects ones I’ve studied primarily in the context of the possibility for civilizational collapse and cataclysm, as I maintain a general interest in collapsology. Additionally, I have a fair amount of “booksmarts” on the subjects of geography, weaponry and combat, and psychopharmacology—namely the nature, effects, consumption, and function of psychotropic substances, plus the use of psychotropic substances for recreational, entheogenic/spiritual, and medical reasons. Politically-speaking, I am perhaps most well-aligned with libertarian socialism, or I at least lean in the direction of libertarian socialism, anarchism—especially individualist and socialist anarchism—autonomism, and forms of leftism that emphasize free association paired with cooperation, individuality and individuation paired with mutual aid and community, and anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist paths of liberation generally. I’m an American by citizenship, specifically a long-time resident of Connecticut, though I was born in Texas. I maintain a “hub” or “nexus” website—a former Wordpress blog—at The Grand Tangent, and I am the founder and editor-in-chief of The Drunken Llama, a simple online arts and writing publication that, while I used to update it quite frequently, has been closed to submissions for a long while now. I sometimes blog about skeptical and practical spirituality at my blog LOGOS! and I write [about] various things at my Medium page. I maintain a number of other online presences on various Internet and social media platforms, and these links can be viewed on the link directory page at The Grand Tangent and at my Linktree page." (Quora)

LIST OF FORMER SELF-DESCRIPTIONS AND PROFILE BIOS

• "A half-assed mystic wandering in place, waiting on death and running after life." (Linktree)
• "I have a B.A. in professional writing with a concentration in journalism and a minor in philosophy. I’m mostly self-taught on the subjects of religious studies (and comparative religion) and philosophy; as well as environmental issues, especially those related to climate change and sustainability. "I am both a spiritual universalist and a rationalist. I have practiced the mystical techniques of both Zen Buddhism and the Western Mystery Tradition, particularly Thelema. "I’m a long-time resident of Connecticut, though I was born in Texas." (Quora)
• "𝙲Æ𝙻𝚄𝙼 𝙸𝙽𝙽𝙾𝙼𝙸𝙽𝙰𝚃𝚄𝙼∴𝟶=∞/‽/𓂀【𝟿𝟹】Holy Idiot for Horus: unwriter✦worldweary quasiphilosopher✦tragicomic madman✦deadbeat magus/mystic✦omnicreative⍼" (Twitter/X)
• "Fire loosed from the Unnameable—infinity constrained to an illusory core of selfhood, crestfallen in unutterable ecstasy, hilarity and pain. 0 = ∞/‽〖𓂀〗. 〘93s.〙" (Twitter/X)
• "No-one in particular." (Twitter/X)
• "Evanescent light from the womb of the Unnameable—infinity confined to an illusory core of selfhood, forever in awe of the divine tragicomedy❖❖𝟶=∞/‽/𓂀.〘𝟿𝟹s.〙" (Twitter/X)

Pseudonyms

Below is a series of pseudonyms St. Clare has employed at different times, having written, published, or posted online under these various "guises", though he does so no longer. Vincent St. Clare (and with it V. St. Clare, V. St. C., and V.S.C.) is his currently-preferred pen name, as it has been for quite some time now. The "evolution" or "timeline" of these noms de plume is shown below, the names listed in chronological order—that is, in the order they were adopted and employed—alongside variants and alternative stylizations with explanatory notes detailing what they represent:

• ^(1.) Anama ("Nameless") ➻ "Anāma" is the romanization of the Sanskrit word अनम (as it also appears in Hindi and Marathi), which roughly translates (in a number of contexts) to "nameless", "unnamed", "without name", "undeclared", "not declared", "without designation", or "anonymous", though St. Clare intended this name to be taken as "Nameless".
  • Anāma, as it is fully rendered in Latin script, featuring a macron.
  • _a-n._ A.nāma, a uniquely-stylized (the forename stylized all-lowercase) and intentionally playful variant of the name (Anama) depicted, in an ironic fashion, as a full name—a first name followed by a surname—featuring unecessary punctuation for the sake of simple visual appeal and intended to be interpreted as No Name No Name. (It can likewise be written out, following this particular style convention, as _no-name._ No.name.) St. Clare intended the name to require puzzling out, the first "No Name" implied by _a-n._ and the second by A.nāma. (Despite his original aim, St. Clare readily admits that there is no factual or truly coherent basis for the layout of this particular name, the peculiar method he followed to develop it, and the fuller "translation" of the name he intended the abbreviated pseudonym to represent.)
    • [m.] anāma, another abbreviated and "twisted" variant of Anama, completely stylized in lowercase, though one the actual meaning of which—as he first intended when he developed the name—St. Clare admits (as of 2024) he has long since forgotten. Even less decipherable is an alternative form of this very alternative: “[m.] a’n”.
• ^(2.) Yugen (a Japanese lacuna sometimes translated as—if only merely hinting at—"mysterious profundity", "abstruse elegance", "subtly profound grace", or "enigmatic beauty", among other potential interpretations) ➻ "Yūgen" is the romanization of the Japanese word 幽玄
  • Yūgen,
  • Anama Yūgen (at times rendered, with various combinations or subtitutions of one or more macrons, e.g. as Anama Yugen, Anāma Yugen, or Anāma Yūgen),
    • A. Yugen (the letter u with or without macron),
      • [A.] Yugen (again, the letter u with or without macron),
• ^(3.) Empty Sky (sometimes rendered as the abbreviation E.S.),
  • Koku (sometimed rendered with the letter u featuring a macron, resulting in Kokū),
    • 虚空,
• ^(4.) Vincent von Strauss (at times abbreviated V.V. Strauss, V.v. Strauss, V.V.S., and V.v.S.),
• ^(5.) Vincent St. Percival

WRITING STYLE

Through his written work, and especially his poetry, St. Clare typically presents a combination of existential and spiritual concerns, altogether personal, societal, ecological, cosmic, and metaphysical. He views the "intellectualization" and "philosophization" of emotion, the tendency of the mind to build conceptual systems upon the basis of its emotional content and insulating responses to painful stimuli, as a pattern of thought which occurs along a spectrum of experience, irredeemable tragedy on one end and ecstatic transcendence on the other. Yet he feels that these perceived antitheses—and both the tragicomedy and outright comedy which occur "between" them—are inseparable, and even necessary to each other's existence, that necessity belying the fact that, ultimately, all thought and feeling fail to grasp any true or fundamental reality.

Even so, St. Clare is, in his own words, influenced "just as much by pessimism, which fundamentally results from the pain of duality, as by non-dualism, which promises the joy of undifferentiated existence." Thus he maintains that there is absolute beauty to be found in what he regards as the "neverending interplay of profound suffering and profound joy", and absolute awe and majesty to be found in the interplay of all antipodes of experience, resolving themselves, in his view, in an "annihilation" revealing a latent state of inconceivable unity. These views reflect his experiences studying philosophical pessimism and antinatalism by way of Schopenhauer, Zapffe, Mainländer, and Thomas Ligotti alongside Nietzsche, Spinoza, existentialism, absurdism, Buddhism, Daoism, esotericism, and Thelema.

Weighing existential resignation and despair against defiant joy and affirmation, in his writings St. Clare displays both humorous and sobering treatments of phenomena which, in borrowing a phrase frequently employed by Sartre, he collectively terms the "inner life" (vie intérieure): esotericism, mysticism, the occult, religion, and spirituality; philosophy (especially issues presented by axiology, epistemology, existentialism, metaphysics, ontology, philosophical pessimism, and the philosophy of religion); psychology; and the possibility of salvation or liberation from suffering, meaninglessness, and the squandering away of potential and passion. His work stresses, either explicitly or under the guise of symbol and metaphor, the interpenetration of these phenomena, and ranges in focus from his own private sufferings to the aims and experiences of humanity as a whole to the conundrums he perceives as inherent to existence at large.

WORKS

Bibliography (writing)

Essays

• ESSAYS PROPER
  • "What is Thelema?" (2018)
  • "There's Nothing Special About Meditation" (2020)
  • "Learning the Joy of Existence in Thelema", originally titled "Learning the Joy of Existence" (2020)
  • "What is Thelema? (Redux)" (2021)
  • "The Multiplicity of Thelemas" (2021)
  • "Crowley and Evola: Comparisons and Parallels" (2021)
  • "The Initiatory Supreme Being Question: Esoteric, Philosophical, and Religious Considerations" (2021)
  • "Anarchist, Thelemite, Odd Fellow: A Conflicted Initiate (and an Account of the Initiatory Degree)" (2021)
• BLOG POSTS, REBLOGS, AND ESSAY REPUBLICATIONS

Visual art

Drawings and doodles ("handmade")

• Laughing at Lost Philosophers (2012)
• Abstraction Into Entity (c. 2018)
• Automated Vision (c. 2018)

Digital drawings

• Dream Spaghettification (2023)

PERSONAL LIFE

St. Clare states that he is a Thelemite, having adopted Thelema—a spiritual practice and system of thought strongly rooted in Western esotericism, among other traditions—as a guiding philosophy around 2016. (He has specified that the budding of his interest in Thelema, and Western esotericism as a whole, occurred during an earlier period of time around the mid-to-late 2000s, that interest gathering considerable momentum for him in the mid-2010s.) He views Thelema as a "rightfully enchanted" and "incomparably majestic" outlook on existence, one which, though immanent in its most fundamental sense in the lives of human beings, ultimately transcends all expression. As for many, if not most, other Thelemites, he regards Thelema as primarily a form of mysticism and occultism, as well as a unique spiritual path or sadhana of which the aim is nothing short of the optimization of all that a person is and can be. However, he also believes that Thelema is an expression of spirituality which can be lived out rationally (or at least reasonably) in a positive, creative, and joyful way on the basis of reason, discernment, and skepticism, though he has emphasized that it is one best paired with pragmatic considerations of subjectivity and the value of personal gnosis. Additionally, he values Thelema for what he feels is the attitude of freedom and adaptability it fosters among its adherents, encouraging Thelemites to maintain a fluid and dynamic process of thinking and evaluation and a state of mind both endlessly evolving and endlessly inquisitive, an independent and self-liberating mode of character by way of determination and self-realization. Ultimately, he sees Thelema as a path which opens a door to the possibility of being at once unremitting in love for all things and resolute in spirit to accomplish one's ultimate will. He views Thelema as a path for those seekers who would dare to both defy the world and to open their hearts to it, a path for those aspirants to supreme wisdom who have the courage to be open-minded, open-hearted, imaginative, and tolerant, yet also capable of thinking critically and responsibly, exercising cunning and wit to rebel against oppression and tyranny and to do what is "right". Through Thelema he feels that it is possible to discover a deep sense altogether of respect, dignity, meaning, "destiny", insight, and self-awareness, and a form of self-actualization which is paramount in the pursuit of life's fullness.

Despite all this, St. Clare has stated that he "is not very good at being a Thelemite," at least in practice, regularly returning from the existential life-affirmation of Thelema to a fatalistic, nihilistic, and pessimistic outlook on life. He attributes these frequent oscillations in worldview, what he calls being "philosophically bipolar", in large part to living most of his life suffering from severe mood disorders, namely major depression, generalized anxiety disorder, and C-PTSD, coupled with ADHD and "a slew of other diagnoses which may or may not actually apply to me". He has received numerous forms of psychotherapeutic and pharmacotherapeutic intervention for over two decades, and, though frequently describing his life as "an existential catastrophe," is resolutely unashamed of living with psychiatric illness.

GALLERY

• 

  In a screenshot from a video recorded in New Milford, Connecticut in 2015

• 

  Smoking a small cigar in New Milford, Connecticut in 2024

EXTERNAL LINKS

• VINCENT ST. CLARE || Linktree (relevant link "map" or "directory")
• The Grand Tangent – "Musings by V. St. Clare" (official hub website and former blog)
• Vincent St. Clare (@Empty_Sky_93) at X (official Twitter/"X" account)

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