Alive and well! Currently 18,439 people in game as of this moment, according to Steam stats.

Nice! Of course you did.
I do miss the days of having an in-game console that allowed for that much power.

Strafe jumping and rocket jumping..
These are important skills to pass along to the next generation.

I opened a LAN center in 99’ shortly after high school. Four glorious years of my life.
I might still boot up a little Quake Champions from time to time.

This is so good!

At what point do we need a set of filters for who has been personally vouched for? (is this WoT?)

Not many. Unless you’re in an area that just had its internet shutdown, then everybody who can is using it.

There are a number of heatmap websites that show real time global usage. Apparently people have been able to determine where the next big news will come from based on a spike in geographic usage.

I would agree with you that I experienced a contracted version of Christianity.

After I left, to continue my journey alone, I did grasp at other religions for some sense of structural stability. I studied a number of them, large and small, and attended the various gatherings. Each rasped against my spirit in the same way Christianity had. After each attempt the quiet whisper became a little more obvious and was saying something like “what you seek is not in religion, it’s an absolute surrender.” A trust fall into the vast bottomless unknowable.

In comparison to that, every ‘ism’ or ‘anity’ is contractive, limited, and acts as an intermediary.

I suspect anyone who’s had a profound moment that led to a conversion or dedication to any religion, had exactly that experience of unbounded, surrendered ‘isness’, ‘forgiveness’, and ‘innocence’. But the mind is so quick to try and label and understand and attach to something in the world as the cause, or the way to ‘get back to that experience’.

ARC Raiders

At the urging of my uncle I began reading the Bible every day, twice a day. I was 12 years old when I began.
I would read and then pray and contemplate.

I read and contemplated so much more than was ever discussed in my church, family, or community.

Over the next 6 years, until I graduated high school, I read the Bible cover to cover twice, and then the New Testament 3 more times.

One of my daily prayers was to be given the wisdom to understand. In time I started noticing that my interpretations weren’t always the same as everyone else’s.. but in my heart I knew they were for me.

By the time I was in my early twenties I stopped going to church. It was clear to me that I the God I knew was taking me beyond the community. It was so disorienting at scary at first. But in time as my intimacy and understanding continued to develop and expand I knew I was on the right path.

By the end of my twenties I could no longer call myself a Christian. I couldn’t abide by the label or all that came with it.

My journey has been deep and dark at times, and yet my intimacy and faith has only grown more rapidly than I could have ever imagined.

My understanding has overlaps with Christianity. I absolutely love and continue to model myself after Jesus. But my understandings are often heretical, and are impossible to unsee for me.

So should you read the Bible for yourself?
I believe so, and do so without letting any man, woman, or institution tell you how you should interpret it. Let only God speak to you through it.

And deep awareness of my entire body and emotional system. As well as subtle energetic system.

When I first started this practice, all those years ago, I had no access or awareness of anything but my thoughts. It took an initial process of asking a series of questions to even get the first inkling of awareness of “myself” beyond my thoughts.

Though once I started sensing my greater system I became absolutely obsessed. The things I began to uncover and contend with, then get freedom from, were stunning.

I dropped out of society, relationships, and spent about14 hours a day in this meditative/contemplative practice for three years.

I started the journey deeply uncomfortable with myself and life. Depressed, anxious, contracted, in constant dread, and ready to check out.

On the other side of that multi year deep dive I was liberated from the worst of that. Interested in life again, and able to rejoin society. Little did I know that was only the beginning!

Those next handful of years were like jet fuel to the process. I had to meditate frequently throughout the day, to contend with all the new “strings” that were being plucked.

But in time the frequency and amplitude of those disruptions grew ever more gentle. Until one day I was laying in bed and realized it had been days, or even weeks since the last time I had been significantly triggered.

This is such a freedom.

And so, to answer your question more directly “when do we stop interrogating reflections and start recognizing deliberate smoke?”

In this case, I would only change my behavior towards the reports after I can’t find any more charge around them.

I know for myself the reaction to the smoke would only be the first layer, or the first approach, there would likely be more.
And I’m happy to explore this with you if you need help discovering the next one after this first one is discharged.