Re: Can I have your experience please?

Marcus,
It is wonderful to recieve an email like this, because to some extent making an encounter like this email exchange (and all the surrounding thoughts) happen, is why I've done a lot of what I've done in the past.

Possibly we could be dream-buddies- people who have the same sort of questions and who get a huge amount out of working out those questions together- but more time should tell.

Maybe you've found http://experienceart.org ? That was, in someways, designed from the perspective of my childhood wish to know what it was like to be someone else (er, one person in particular, the girl I mention below)

(that site might give you a better idea of whether you can stand what I'm doing.)

I'm reading over your post now (I got it last night so I've had time to consider my response, which has been good).

I have a feeling I'll be rambling about things that don't concern you-- I'll try to stick to what your main questions might be after the initial exception I've already allowed myself, below.

one difference between us:
I've never smoked pot. Never been drunk.
If you study my site I attribute it to being in love with a girl in 2nd & 3rd grade, partly because I thought she loved everyone. (but before her there was a girl in Kindergarten)
Because I valued that experience so much, I stopped playing soccer with david soskins (and we were awesome), and spent my recesses with her.

This led to others singing: "Colin & Kyle sitting in the tree -..."

I do think that learning that only you can decide what is best for yourself may be the most important thing anyone can learn.

At that point I learned (I think) to be skeptical of pressure to ??? (being a swimmer and early riser also contributes to avoidance of the party crowd)

but that is an ongoing challenge. (re, the pressure)

>   Pretty sure I don't
(regarding UNH)

That's pretty clear. (the feeling, I mean)

> 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

> were the first.  I'm very excited about the prospects of these
> forums, EcoVillage Belize, Dragonvale, and possibly meeting some
> people like you.

> 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.
>
> 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.
>

(books are often the best essences of real people- I find that fascinating. In cultural creatives they talk about allies from the past-- even when the people around you are tied to the boob tube, you can access these minds - but if you can live among the living minds- a renaissance say? to some extent the OurCultureOurCapitol question is the renaissance question. How can we make a renaissance?)

> 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

No! (it depends on where you are and who you're with - ) but yes, I agree with you.

> 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.

The challenge is creating that ideal environment you're imagining, and where can you find the people who are dreaming the most, along those lines? I'm not sure myself. But http://edge.org, http://www.ted.com/ are attempts to address that question in real-life.

St Johns- a school in annapolis, and Deep Springs College, also come to mind-


At the University of Washington, a huge school, I had access to enough people I could find almost any kind of person if I tried hard enough. It was hard, but after making it there I had the feeling I knew what I needed to do to make it anywhere.

(basically, I made advertisements that I myself would like- personal ads that I would answer. I think George on this list does that. Harry Browne in _how I found freedom in an unfree world_ also writes about that. To some extent, all my current web projects are similar-- work on what you like and you can find others who like what you like. If you don't, at least you like what you're doing.)

have you read "the history of the being group?" http://experienceart.org/cleath/docs/being/being_hs


I do admire those most who had something to do with themselves without going to college- many of the people I admire, (harry browne, tom elpel, tom brown (I think) - the list goes on-) I went because I had no clue what else to do (after trying one idea). This list is about addressing that cluelessness with something better than college, or the military.

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 think that is the mythology of our culture. I try to be ok doing nothing. Masanobu Fukuoka's _one straw revolution_

But I also recognize that in myself. Ram Dass in Tony Schwartz's book talks about being nothing, trying to be something, trying to be nothing.


> 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.

This sounds amazingly like some of my grand plans for the being group-
I had found a way of meeting that was so powerful, everyone would love it and spend their time doing it (instead of the other things they might do).

>   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.


Well it's not that amazing. You dream up this way of meeting, and then you find...surprise... so have others!

the quakers (and others) have "spiritual friendships" - some thoughts of mine inspired by this are: http://experienceart.org/cleath/docs/xroposal.htm

There's all sorts of related stuff going on.
In fact at one time I thought I'd be studying it.
search on
salons
conversation cafe
meetup.com

the ishmael group!

>
> -Marcus

one thing I did find was that after a while I didn't want to talk with others or learn who they were as much as I used to.

I got good at it- making a point of asking people I was drawn to for some time to talk (often walk) with them, and making the conversation intimate /meaningful quickly.


==============

>From this interaction I am reminded:

there are others like you and like I used to be (still am?)- who suffer(?) because they don't know there are many others who have done/ are doing what they end up re-dreaming all on their own.

That process can be a strengthening one though.

One aspect of this is that many of us who have gone off this way are not having children!

Some of us are being evangelical -

For these reasons, and others (one is that many people who achieve their contentness are quite silent, while many of the ones striving ineffectually are making the most noise along the way), my focus is not on making a new cultural movement larger, but on finding / creating the best environment for myself, allowing for the possibility that people like me will always be a smaller set of the larger population. (the amish, hasidic judaism communities are some not exactly appropriate examples -- chinese hermits are a better example.).

-------

I'm not sure I leave the group with any solid direction here.
I need to get working on some other projects, and eventually, what I will do besides live with my parents and live off some savings. That is not a huge concern though. I do have my goal of being somewhere warm and ecovillage-like by November. There is a co-op near here where I can work for food. I work for my parents at least 10hrs / week for rent. It is nice to do physical work, not computer work. I also have a garden to plant and to practice growing food in!

I did take another step in walking away / experienceart--
not filing a tax return - where ~$500 federal and ~$100 state were owed.

I can't quite call this war-tax resistence, obviously.

The question I did want to bring is that there is this balance between practicing your art, and not getting squashed by political circumstances or consequences of your idealism.

I am sort of venturing further into the same no-man's land Marcus is considering, but- many people live there-

I have yet to share my story of sleeping outside in Prague and NYC from 3/14-4/6, but I will sometime.

what should we do?
["Nothing." is a fine answer]
Colin

I was about to finish, but I note a significant part of my current satisfaction is that I have these long-term projects to work on- experienceart.org, carfree this and that, finding /creating an ecovillage, starting a garden, working at the co-op - these are things to look forward to.