CURRENT MISSION

New playmates, new ways to play

ABOUT ME

Young adult male, grew up in the countryside, studied psychology (the social kind), work in the creative industry. After a couple of years of bouncing around the US for work and adventure, I've settled down for a while in Orlando.

You'll get a feel for me much more quickly by talking to me... I like to be around ideas, and around people who look at the world and themselves with open eyes.

PHILOSOPHY

It's still an open question for me. A few things I'm somewhat confident of: I believe that I know myself only through the way "not-me" interacts with "me." There's no real me or not-me, just the sparks that flash when they bump against each other.

And that works both ways: by interacting with the world, I can help illuminate the world to itself by contrasting it with me. So it's my responsibility and joy to throw my mind against others' minds, my habits against unfamiliar habits, and so forth. That process, when conducted without preconceptions or intentions or malice, brings constructive energy to both me and, I hope, to the world.

Yeah, personal philosophy needs some work. Siddhartha's probably right, positivists miss the point in important ways, and the idea of "no self" is liberating and fun not depressing.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

The Internet brings people around, many of them interesting. I play with them. So far, at least, we've all been happier and better-informed afterward.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

Surfed, a little. Hosted, a lot. Met a few good friends that way. Don't really get involved with the local couch-surfing scene too much.

Interests

There's very little that I can't get interested in. I spend a lot of time around food and gardens, and artists of all sorts. Outdoors I cycle somewhat seriously, hike less seriously, and play in the water, among other things. Culture-wise I'm easy; I like watching people perform--music, theater, anything.

Lately the athlete roommate is building a parkour gym, and the other two of us are helping.

In the world of ideas, I recognize that big systems drive big changes, and I'm interested in how large-scale change can be responsive to the lower levels of social order that it affects. That's not very concrete, though, is it ... hmm ... for example, lately I've been curious about how individual-level dynamics like ethics behave at scale--that is, in the context of the large, inefficient social organisms that get big things done. Nice prosocial cooperative ideas like tribes and communes and local economies and even orderly picket-fence communities... the ethical imperatives that keep them humming all seem to decay as the patterns scale up, and there seems to be convincing evidence that ties that failure to the scaling factor, independently of any weaknesses in the underlying ideas. So anyway. Things like that are fun for me.

• horses
• arts
• culture
• theater
• performing arts
• documentaries
• ethics
• dining
• athlete
• magic
• music
• piano
• outdoor activities
• cycling
• hiking
• surfing
• psychology
• science

Music, Movies, and Books

Movies: those are work more than play. I enjoy a few people's movies as art... Almodovar, Greenaway, and Jeunet give you some idea. Singh's The Fall was really good too. Music: The people that come through here, decent amount of improvisational jazz, less rap these days, blues, bluegrass, some hippie music. Books-wise ... well, recently, a couple of Rumi collections, Lockpick Pornography, a bunch of Calvino, Russell's Swamplandia, and Levi's The Sixth Day; on the nonfiction side, an older translation of the Larousse, Gleick's The Information, Gazzaniga's latest, Myrhvold's new giganto set of cooking-science books, some of Stewart Brand's newer stuff, and Andres Duany's series on American new urbanism.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Saw lightning strike two horses right before my eyes. Glanced at the horses, lightning struck, to the horses' misfortune. I've been worried ever since about my eyes' magic powers.

Teach, Learn, Share

Hmm. I'm really good at making video look good; it's what I teach for a living, and I can teach you too if you promise to use it for good. I previously made a living doing computer programming and some human/machine interface kinds of work. And I'm happy to share what I can about some of the areas I've done softer work in, like ethnographic documentary and psych research methods and fire.

I really love to teach and learn in the kitchen. I've come to know quite a lot about food arts and science over the years, and I enjoy sharing new ideas both ways.

As to some of the more esoteric stuff, I can help you start out with the musical saw, poi, piano, distilling, welding, fake art, the game of Go...

Teach me to work glass. Teach me about magic, not illusions. Teach me anything, really.

Countries I’ve Visited

Albania, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Denmark, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Madagascar, Malaysia, Morocco, Netherlands, Norway, Panama, Peru, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, United Kingdom, Western Sahara

Countries I’ve Lived In

United Kingdom, United States

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