Title: Sustainable Philosopher

Gender: Male

Age: 22

Sun Sign: Aries

Chinese Sign: Fire Rabbit

Location: Mount Airy, MD

Effing the ineffable…

Incidentally, I'm a junior at Haverford College, a small liberal arts school near Philly in PA. I'm majoring in Philosophy.

I started a grassroots environmental group in my hometown this summer, Citizens for a Green Mount Airy. Check us out: www.greenmountairy.org Also, read this Baltimore Sun article about us if you're interested: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/carroll/
bal-ca.richards09sep09,0,3054071.story
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That's some things about my physical being. Here's a bit of my thoughts/ feelings/ lens:

I believe in change, yet have trouble fully committing to the idea and at times still grasp for firm objects in an impermanent existence. I want to commit to the chaotic nature of life and experience a different existence each day, rather than perpetually creating for myself the same diurnal reality.

I don't want a comforting lens of certainty over everything. I don't want to feel as if I have figured anything out, although many feel that I am “advanced” and have so much “figured out.” When you start to think you have things figured out, you cease living by that much, because life is about constant searching. (Read the last chapter of “The Stranger” by Albert Camus for more insight to this.) I'd rather live uncertainly and be committed to experiencing life in variegated ways rather than be certain in a false, illusory reality that I convince myself of, when fundamentally we can know and be certain of nothing (existentially speaking).

I'm stuck in an insular existence of comforts and controlled climates, separation from nature, and so on - is this reality or just the modern American one? I'm able to appeciate suffering as much as joy, because at least it's an emotion, some experience that feels remotely real. Like something is actually happening to me. I wonder what it would be like if I didn't have the luxuries of thinking and philosophy, living somewhere like tribal Africa where my immediate needs of food and survival take precedence entirely. I sometimes feel that animals without the capacity of language or reason as we know it more directly experience the world. We mediate everything with language and logic and lenses and worldviews, but it seems that other beings have a more immediate and direct role in the world. I'd like to try living like that. Unspoken understanding and collaboration, direct connection and intense emotions of now. Enthralling, effusive life. Post-lingual, post-mental?

I try to weave a patchwork quilt of experience. I want to be excited about life, but sometimes I feel thrust into it involuntarily. However, I saw a quote the other day that I found apt with regard to this sentiment. “What you can't get out of, get into wholeheartedly.” - Mignon McLauhlin

If you have liked, disliked, been interested in, hated, intrigued by, or disgusted by anything I have written, please talk to me about it, no matter how minute nor menacing. I'm reaching out here; trying to communicate with other humans who can or can't relate to what I write and experience. If you're really enthralled or appalled, please take some time to look over the writings I've authored and shared in my blog; I think you may find some things to chew on and I'd love to hear what you think, as well as engage in thoughtful, deep discourse.

Member Since: Saturday, August 19 2006

Last Visit: 72 days ago.

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