CURRENT MISSION

Engage with my experiences.

ABOUT ME

Dynamic Jew-Bu digital hobo INFP. 13-year nomad in search of connection, community, companionship, courage, and other good things (but apparently only if they start with the letter 'c'.)

So far I have lived in USA, Nepal, Australia, China, Germany, Mexico, Nicaragua, South Korea, Grenada, Israel, Thailand, and Egypt (Sinai), and now I'm turning towards the goal of rooting in one place as a home base.

Work is content writing and online English teaching. Play is organizing events for digital nomad communities. Dinners, mafia nights, and events where we get high on super strong cacao and do connection-building activities.

If you are a digital hobo dharma bum environmentalist dumpster diver gypsy traveler who enjoys abrasive folk-punk music and vegetarian food, we are probably destined to be friends forever or perhaps get married and you can definitely sleep on my couch in the event that it's available. And if it's available you can sleep on my couch without that stuff too, and we will be friends anyway :)

PHILOSOPHY

Mindfulness. Engaging with everyday experience, including suffering. Feeling stuff fully. Appreciating feeling. Letting go gracefully. Often failing at this philosophy, and trying again every time.

The best way to solve a problem is to make friends with it.

By the way, I am definitely more introverted than extroverted. I like to spend time with surfers/hosts--that's the whole point--but not ALL the time. I'm independent and prefer to spend some hours hanging out and getting to know my host or surfer, but also some hours being quiet to recharge.

Spices take up a disproportionately large amount of weight in my travel bag and running out of whole cumin seeds is a major emergency. Let me cook for you! Compliment my food. This is my love language! Just kidding (kind of)

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

This is a question I'm struggling to answer for myself. Maybe you can help by sharing your opinion. So, sometimes I couchsurf, but mostly I host, and I can't seem to reconcile two opposing viewpoints on how couchsurfing should be used...

1. The first viewpoint says that people should be encouraged to write personal couch requests instead of spamming people in cities with generic requests for free accommodation, treating them like a free hotel instead of a human that is on this website for connection and exchange rather than simply a free service to be exploited. This viewpoint leads me to decline couch requests from people who copy/paste and don't read my profile, and leads me to often try to explain (as gently as possible) the way couchsurfing is "supposed" to be used, and send people a link to https://support.couchsurfing.org/hc/en-us/articles/200640010-How-do-I-write-a-good-couch-request- .

2. The second viewpoint says that although couchsurfing was invented and marketed as a service for cultural connection and new friendships, it's not necessarily "bad" that most people aren't using it this way, and there is a lot of growth and joy to be had from simply giving (offering a free place to sleep) to someone in need without expecting something special in return (like their everlasting gratitude and friendship or whatever.) Maybe expecting something is inherently selfish. This is the viewpoint that feels more genuine and helpful to me, yet somehow I still feel that tinge of annoyance every time I receive yet another copy-paste request. Also, I did an experiment (only once, not a great sample size, I must admit) and hosted one person who did not write a personal request. It was not a great experience.

What do you think?

Interests

I have a very love/hate relationship with most of my interests, which include: Writing, hosting events and workshops and dinners, reflecting on experience, philosophizing about the nature of things, workaway/wwoofing, relationship psychology, conflict resolution, Jewish ethics/philosophy (super beginner in this area), Buddhism/Buddhist Modernism, council circles, tight-knit communities, self-development, eating tasty snacks, eating tasty snacks with other people, cooking in community, cooking for others, talking about eating tasty snacks, potlucks, intentional communities, ecovillages, traveling, climbing and bouldering, baking cookies, meditation, popcorn, cookies, sustainable living, self-sufficiency, nutrition, talking about nutrition while eating crap, psychoanalysis, hitchhiking, dumpster-diving, good food, board games, and nice people.

If you like the board game Settlers of Catan, please come here and play it with me, it is my favorite thing ever aside from table soccer and apple pie. Actually I don't even have it right now, I left it in Germany, but if you write to me and say that you are already an avid Catan player, I might just buy it and play it with you when you arrive.

• arts
• dining
• cooking
• baking
• vegan
• meditation
• traveling
• dumpster diving
• bouldering
• music
• punk music
• buddhist
• rock climbing
• hitchhiking
• food
• sustainability
• buddhism
• religions
• sharing economy
• ecovillages
• workaway
• judaism
• wwoofing
• eco-living
• sustainable living
• acro yoga
• eco-construction
• conflict resolution
• eco-building
• acro-yoga
• eco-communities
• buddhist philosophy
• jewish philosophy
• pema chodron

Music, Movies, and Books

My favorite author is Dan Millman and his books "Way of the Peaceful Warrior" and "The Journeys of Socrates". "The Alchemist" is up there as well.

Also "Drifters" by James Michener. A 70's classic on the early wave of nomadic backpackers. I'm convinced that if there are past lives, I must have traveled during that era, because that book makes me feel inexplicably strong nostalgia.

I like folk-punk. And folk. And poppy singer/songwriter indie singer songwriter stuff.

Daniel Kahn and the Painted Bird, Michael Jordan Touchdown Pass, Kimya Dawson, Formidable Vegetable Soundsystem, Fun, I'm from Barcelona, Ben Kweller, Frank Turner, Pat the Bunny/Ramshackle Glory, Cosmo Jarvis, The Mowglis, Catnaps, King Charles, Jaymay, The Shins, Rosa, The Corner Laughers, Defiance Ohio, Nana Grizol, The New Pornographers, The Eels, Guster, Watercolor Paintings, Plan-It-X-Records, Best Friends Forever, Alix Olson

Favorite movies:

-Fiddler on the Roof

-Formula Lyubvi (Formula of Love). It is a weird, enchanting soviet-era movie about a famous magician and a boy who falls in love with a statue.

Tv shows: Master of None, Another Period, New Girl, Broad City

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Once I bumped into Matthieu Ricard, better known as "The Happiest Man On Earth". I mean that literally--I was entering a gate, and he was exiting, and I wasn't paying attention, and I bumped into him. He didn't seem very happy at that moment, but I don't blame him!

Teach, Learn, Share

Meditation and mindfulness techniques and history.
Card readings with a unique technique.
Low-budget long-term travel advice.
Long conversations about social sustainability in intentional communities, and relationship psychology.
Lessons in Indian cooking.
English practice.

What I Can Share with Hosts

Food, adventures, philosophical conversations about the meaning of existence or whatevs

Countries I’ve Visited

Australia, Cambodia, Canada, China, Costa Rica, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Grenada, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Laos, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mexico, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Poland, Portugal, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Thailand, United Kingdom

Countries I’ve Lived In

Australia, China, Egypt, Germany, Grenada, Israel, Mexico, Nepal, Nicaragua, South Korea, Thailand, United States