The Journey of 1000 MILES!

My Response to James:

Fantastic Post. Thanks for the analogy to the gay community, it helped clarify some things in my mind.

Particularly, I don’t think I’m ready to help build community as of yet. I only have a few years of trying to have good relationships under my belt, and I still have lots to learn in that department. I think for me my eyes have been bigger than my stomach when I thought what effect a system of my friends and I could have on the world around us. 

In my own personal journey of self-knowledge, I went through a phase of attempting to free others before I was free from some of the most basic shackles of my own history. I wanted people to accept my arguments, not because they were true, but because I wanted to convince the parts of me that were skeptical about the value this wild ride of philosophy through other people.  I think that my perspective on community has been similarly pre-mature in its nature. 

I have tried to build “community” and change the world before I really even know how to create it or even prove that I know how to live in one myself. So far, all I’ve been able to do is build upon the happy and wonderful interactions I have with my friends who live close by. At the moment, I am content with this. Perhaps one day our closeness will create a passionate desire to spread our happiness further into a public awareness. However, I think it must be an organic process.

People are able to do things based on hard work and effort with a goal in mind. Someone can start a business and be successful based on planning, thought, creativity, open-mindedness and intuition. I don’t think this is the case with something as cutting edge and revolutionary as building the type of philosophical communities that fly in the face (and can potentially help cure) people’s evolutionary dependence on mythology. To me, that’s too large a goal to try to consciously achieve…in those cases I leave that to the unconscious, which is much more powerful.  

So, for now, I’m just going to focus my energies on the inner world of my own mecosystem, my individual friendships, and the awareness of how all of us act as a system. Any other goals are more than my conscious mind can attempt to achieve at the moment without sacrificing my ability to continue to facilitate growth in those aspects of my life. Seeing as growth in those areas is the first essential step for any public community to be legitimate, I will not let that focus go.

Maybe one day my friends and I will not have to be as conscious of the growth we experience together because we will have so much practice doing so, but for now, I’m going to try to not put the cart before the horse.

James, thanks. I really appreciate how much thought you put into this :-).

lifeofjames:

There has been a lot of feedback on what I’ve been posting around “community,” and I’d like to take a little time to respond to some of the criticisms and comments that have been made about this pursuit.

Before I launch into it, thanks to everybody who has weighed in with their thoughts,…

I love this post by my friend. I would add that a perception of “nerdy” as pejorative I think comes from nerds who perceive themselves as being superior based on their passion.

For example, I’ve recently started a new diet, and have become much more aware of what things are healthy to eat and how to approach it. It encompasses a lot of my time and I’m starting to feel the food nerdiness coming on. However, my choice to eat “healthy” foods is just a choice based on giving up short term pleasure and hopefully getting a long term payoff. I meet loads of people who talk about nutrition in a very “my way or the highway” type of way. They may be nerds about food, but they are assholes about it. Those types of nerds give nerdiness a bad name. 

gregmintyfresh:

I’m a nerd, as anyone who knows me even a little bit can attest. I’m proud of it. Marco Arment gave the best definition of “nerd” I’ve ever heard: someone who cares an incredible amount about something that “normal” people don’t. I’m paraphrasing here, but let’s go with that definition.

The…

ceasaigh:

This is a fun and somewhat cringe-inducing piece.

A friend recently reminded me of my first AOL screen name: beachebumm85. Cheeseball for sure, but when I was 14, I thought it was so clever. Because I lived at the Jersey Shore and loved the beach and all.

What was yours?

Jazzalujah. Pretty appropriate.