Re: Can I have your experience please?

Marcus,

Through reading your post, I wondered: "Do you know who you are?". 
I don't mean this as an attack, simply as a question. 
You seem to know some things about yourself, and yet at the same time 
you say things like: "I was dying at Brandeis because I had 
restricted myself to the same experience with the same people, day 
after day.  I am somewhat better off now, I think, but not by far.  
Books don't compare to real people.  Unfortunately, I don't know 
where to look.  Maybe I'm afraid to look." 
2 things on this. You are creating your world and your reality, if it 
does not fit, change it to something you would like it to be. 
Then the only way to look, is to look within. 'Real' answers can't be 
found without, only within.

"I know now that was incredibly idealistic and naiive of me" (that is 
when you talk about your vision and experience of college). Why be so 
harsh on yourself? You could not know what type of institution 
college is until you make your own experience of it for one, and then 
who says that your vision might not be a better one??

" feel like I'm submitting to the awesome grinding of the 
machine by going to class each day to take my daily factual rations 
of logic, calculus, anthropology and mythology.  I want to go 
somewhere, do something, work *towards* something.  All my life I 
had a feeling of building toward an ultimate end"
Again you create where you are at. If it does not serve you, do 
something else that suits you better.
Then you want to go 'somewhere', 'do something', and you don't 
exactly know what it is. It is like walking in the fog and not 
exactly knowing where you want to go. You first MUST know where you 
want to go and what you want to achieve (and the direction might 
change on the way, which is ok too). 
And I guess what I find important to understand, the human being was 
made at the 'image of God', and that does not mean physically (though 
it could as God can take any shape He/She/It wants), and it is more 
in the a sense that God is the ultimate Creator of the world we live 
in, and we have been given the power to create. We can create 
happiness, and we can create pain, we can create health, and we can 
create dis-ease... and the list goes on and on. Create create create 
and experience.... You might get a better understanding of this in 
Conversations with God from Neale Donald Walsh.
Then maybe the voice within you might speak up and tell you where to 
go....

S.


--- In [email protected], "cybrmarc2001" 
<marcusg@c...> wrote:
> Colin, 
>   I tracked down this site through your posts on one of the other 
> forums you're on.  You might recognize me from the Belize 
EcoVillage 
> forum, where I usually post under "Marcus S Gardner."  
>   I just read your first post, the chronology, and while I know 
it's 
> wrong to want your life, I do want your experience.  It seems to me 
> like you've done everything I've ever wanted to do, met so many 
> people, and so on.
>   Many of the things you said/listed in that post struck close to 
> home.  But among the strongest are these two:
> 
> -Began to consider developing a practice (like monks have practices)
> -Started the being group (for the discussion and creation of 
> experience).
> 
>   I posted my story on the Ecovillage forum, but I'll fast-forward 
> it for the other two people on this forum  (I like your list 
method):
> 
>   Grew up as sheltered, intelligent, pseudo-nerdy spoiled boy
>   Family relocated in 7th grade - new town was rich and had really 
> nice school - Alex, Rob
>   Depressed because I didn't have a zillion childhood friends in   
> this new place - spent a lot of time on the computer
>   Family spoiled me once again and moved back (for my sake) in 10th 
> grade
>   Wrote 53-page journal/pronouncement of love to my crush and best 
> friend since 5th grade - didn't talk to her for 6 months - when we 
> finally talked "it" was gone - didn't talk for 2 years
>   Sarah (1 week - she didn't really talk, so neither did I)
>   Jessica (2 weeks - she had smelly hair)
>   Maria (3 weeks, all we did was make out)
>   Sharp departure from my straight-edge past, began having parties 
> in my detached garage to make even more friends
>   Kevin, the cool crowd
>   New friends convinced me smoking pot was cool
>   Accepted to Brandeis University and University of New Hampshire
>   Went to Brandeis because UNH was my safety school
>   Using this new knowledge I got cooler and cooler, until I was too 
> cool to care about being cool anymore (that was my perspective)
>   During this time I met up with a number of other kids that 
believe 
> in the smoking pot=cool ideaology, gradually became disenchanted 
> with their disenchantment with the world:    Nick, Jon, Joe, their 
> girlfriends
>   Over freshman winter break told "coolest girl" in my HS class 
that 
> I loved her
>   Spent the next 6 months telling her I didn't love her through my 
> actions
>   Ashamed
>   Taking ancient Greek language, picked up the translated apology 
to 
> help me do my homework - fell in love with Plato and Socrates
>   Read Republic in 3 days - hiding from family with it in the 
closet 
> at Thanksgiving, also influenced heavily by Brave New World (scary) 
> and Neil Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death" (it was a 
> spontaneous decision to read all of my course books in order to up 
> my grades, starting with Postman, but after him I decided I wanted 
> to read where the wind blew me)
>   Wrote a note to Jeanette (the journal girl), apologizing - not 
> really sure why/if I should have, but I was inspired at the time
>   Decided to leave Brandeis (this and the letter came on 
> Thanksgiving break)
>   Returned home and taking classes through the Dept. of Continuing 
> Education at UNH
>   Read almost all of Plato (in English - so I went and forgot most 
> of my Greek)
>   Called Jeanette, cheap conversation
>   Jeanette showed me around UNH, felt obligatory, I felt bad
>   Kevin "accidentaly" introduced to Daniel Quinn (not by someone 
> with an open mind, I mean)
>   Read all of Daniel Quinn, brancing out to Jensen, + others
>   Asked myself what sort of Tribal operation I would want to run
>   Lyceum --> Extazeum*
>   Waiting for my application as a full-time student @ UNH to go 
> through
>   Wondering if I really want this
>   Pretty sure I don't
> 
> You'll notice that there aren't any names after I transferred to 
> UNH.  That's because, among the friends I had in high school (town 
> next to UNH) that went to UNH, I for some reason can't stand most 
of 
> them.  They're on track, I'm trying as hard as I can to leave it, 
or 
> to convince myself that it's okay to leave it.  I play racquetball 
> occasionaly with Pat, but I really can't talk to him.  There's a 
> girl I'm somewhat enamored with, but she has a boyfriend.  That's 
> about it.  I've had 1-2 stimulating conversations since returning 
to 
> NH, but then again, maybe that's not so bad, because maybe those 
> were the first.  I'm very excited about the prospects of these 
> forums, EcoVillage Belize, Dragonvale, and possibly meeting some 
> people like you.  
> 
> A few weeks ago I e-mailed a girl I remembered from Brandeis.  I 
> remembered a few observations I'd made to make an outline of her 
> story - her being a whimsical pothead putting out a strong 
> projection of herself - her sitting in her dorm room next to a huge 
> pile of books telling us she didn't know where to buy because she 
> quit.  So I e-mailed her asking her what her story was.  A few days 
> ago she called back.  She had found God, she said.  She told me 
that 
> it sounded like I was crying out.  And that's exactly what I'm 
doing.
> 
> *Why I like your two comments on experience is because I believe in 
> those so strongly.  For me, my own experience has been my pure 
> sustenance for the past year.  I was dying at Brandeis because I 
had 
> restricted myself to the same experience with the same people, day 
> after day.  I am somewhat better off now, I think, but not by far.  
> Books don't compare to real people.  Unfortunately, I don't know 
> where to look.  Maybe I'm afraid to look.
> 
> When I came up with my idea for a modern-day Lyceum I thought it 
> could be a place to do what I'd always envisioned as the goal of my 
> academic career: open discussion, decision making and problem 
> solving.  I had always thought college and it's constituent classes 
> would be significant, that my peers and I would be adding to the 
> history of knowledge while we were in the class.  I thought 
> discussions would be incredibly fertile, people would open their 
> minds to new possibilities, finding answers in nooks and crannies 
> never before uncovered.  I know now that was incredibly idealistic 
> and naiive of me.  College is, if anything, less like that than 
high 
> school.  I feel like I'm submitting to the awesome grinding of the 
> machine by going to class each day to take my daily factual rations 
> of logic, calculus, anthropology and mythology.  I want to go 
> somewhere, do something, work *towards* something.  All my life I 
> had a feeling of building toward an ultimate end, maybe that was 
the 
> mythology of our culture, but at Brandeis it disapeared.  At first 
> the feeling to replace it was ecstacy, then desolation.  Now I just 
> want to get that feeling back - at all costs.
> 
> I later expanded on my idea of the lyceum and changed it's name.  I 
> learned that the lyceum in the 1800s was essentially the precursor 
> to college lectures.  So I changed the name to Extazeum.  I looked 
> the ancient Greek word up for examine and it was Extazo.  I wanted 
> to have it mean self-examine, but auto-Extazo kind of sounds like a 
> oil company.  As far as I've gotten, I think the format for an 
> Extazeum would be for the members to each share a process of self-
> realization, perhaps one would speak for hours, or maybe 10 
> different members would speak over the course of two or three 
> hours.  When a member finished his story, other members would ask 
> questions, and both the speaker and the audience would discover why 
> the speaker made the choices that he did.  And they would also 
begin 
> to see the mind of the speaker before and after this knowledge.  I 
> think this would not only be an incredible source for individuals 
> and have an effect on modern discourse (opening a public channel 
> other than the radio, TV or newspaper) but it would also build 
> community like no other institution.  Neighbors would know the 
> intimacies of each other's lives.  Everyone could be friends.
>   I was stuck on this idea for a long time, but lately I've had no 
> real additions to it, other than a few relations or mini-ideas I 
> have while reading my books.  Part of this stagnation, I think, is 
> that I've had no one to talk about it to who can take it 
seriously.  
> I believe that's now changed.
> 
> -Marcus