If it were possible for anything to be "self-evident," the point of this site would be very close. Still, it seemed like the most natural starting point for an about page. Humans create things; some of these things are called art. In either case the most common reason for their creation is also the most underlooked: unexamined want. I'd say ~25% of my day is spent operating automatically. There's purpose, but it's not "deep." So too with this site.

This site has a number of pages. I hope you can tell as much...I'm not sure how you could be reading this otherwise, unless you have some kind of sadistic "friend" forcing you to read my word salad. And sure, they reveal things about me for what they contain.

At least as far as this site is concerned (ALAFATSIC), ...

• I'm more interested in writing than anything else. Coming in at a distant second is photography—but I don't post anything remotely identifiable. Instead I try to capture a mixture between natural and unnatural: cityscapes and water both glitter, but the former only at a distance; the moon is held in place by powerlines; no matter what peace we find now, it is only a brief shade; etc.).
• I'm pretty terrible at visual art, [web] design, and related areas. My persistence can be a saving grace, but I'm still extremely limited (not necessarily in an insurmountable way. I could probably improve with practice, but that's lame).
• I'm pathologically incapable of creating a list with fewer than three items. More generally I guess you could say I have a "particular" or "exacting" character, if you wanted to be nice. (Thanks).

However, I'd say they reveal more for what they don't contain.

• Set goals. In fact there are no measures of commitment beyond those implied by the existence of a site log. I'll admit, to you Internet strangers, that I struggle to commit in life. To projects of a non-personal nature because I have a volatile temperament, and to projects of a more personal nature because I feel discomfort strongly and have been unable to train myself to withstand it. I can tolerate a fairly large flesh wound, but a moment that calls for me to swallow my conscious mind, belie myself, or accept inauthenticity and I crumble.
• Third-party involvement (even when it would be extremely beneficial). Now, to be fair, this is where ALAFATSIC comes in. At least part of my reasoning here is providing myself a programming challenge. I won't pretend to be a one-man island. Nevertheless, it brings my personal style into sharper relief.
• Dispassion, or worse, antipathy towards passion. Like most people on Neocities, I want this site to serve a number of interrelated roles: a (more) public-facing persona, repository for things I may want easily accessible, foot in the door of a niche community, vehicle for experiences in and with that community, statement about existence, proof I ever lived. In essence, that is the purpose of this site.

Though much of this is clear from the previous section, I've been thinking up a design philosophy for this site, in large part while I've been designing it. Anyway, I like the bulleted list format. I think it'll help me condense my thoughts into a form better suited for this section, which I call a "philosophy," but is really closer to a code of honor.

• Again, as little third-party involvement as possible. I haven't incorporated a single line of code I haven't grappled with. That means not just no copied and pasted code, but no code of any origin I haven't come to understand enough to include. Basically, this applies to third-party services of all other kinds as well. It's difficult to balance this and features I strongly want to implement. At the moment—and this could be completely my fault—I haven't been able to make my guestbook work without using an external CORS proxy. I also have to rely on third parties to serve audio and video (as Neocities won't allow me to upload any). Still, I consider these use-cases acceptable because, as far as I figure, I wouldn't need them if not for external limitations.
• A secure and private user experience. These words hardly mean anything in the modern Internet landscape/discourse, but I'd define them according to this scheme:
• • Security: keeping user data in-house as much as possible.
  • Privacy: collecting as little user data as possible.
• I like this scheme because, let's be honest, what can I really do as an amateur webmaster from a site I'm effectively renting? Not much. The worst I can do is what you enable me to, which I'll admit is still quite a bit, technically speaking. But as of right now, I don't collect (let alone store) any user data whatsoever (except what you purposefully upload to /guestbook). I don't know why or how I would...yet that uncertainty makes this criterion all the more important.
• User choice within the limits of HTML/CSS/Javascript. You may have noticed that you can (quasi-)drag and resize most containers on the site. On /log (and hopefully elsewhere, eventually) you can sort content and increase and decrease the font size. I'm looking into rearranging the elements within containers as well, and I'm even considering allowing you to substitute your own image for the staircase. I'm committed to allowing anyone experiencing my site to alter that experience. The Internet is adaptable down to the fundamentals; I just wish that adaptability were more championed.
• MORE TO COME

Nice try, lol.