[OCOC] Can I have your experience please?

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