ABOUT ME

"Each time you try to expand the bounds of sense you run the risk of failing to persuade. If you assume this risk too often, and lose too frequently, you are deprived of the means to distinguish in yourself sanity from madness. If, however, you undertake the risk too seldom, you can discover only those truths about the world whose expression is allowed by the necessarily limited conventions of an established community of speech and perception."

PHILOSOPHY

I regrettably hold the most popular and irrational superstition; that of some mediated universal system of reciprocity. The ubiquity of this 'golden rule' prevents earnest investigation into its flaws--and there are flaws. The universe is not a bank, though I cannot but feel that my good deeds accumulate and are paid me later. This belief is so inculcated that it is distorted into a love of suffering based on the faith in repayment. Rationally, I see this is foolish and naive, but I cannot pull myself from this universal asceticism.

Interests

books and cigarettes, girls and finesse, wits and internets, wu-tang-clan

• birds
• books
• design
• dining
• cooking
• running
• drawing
• survival
• chemistry
• computer science
• etymology
• history
• languages
• science

Music, Movies, and Books

last.fm : exalangumna ; nv gogol, dh lawrence, wc williams

Teach, Learn, Share

I can teach general/comparative/historical linguistics (specifically morphology and etymology); english tutoring and compositional editing, chemistry (sp. electrochemistry and food science), history (sp chinese, russian, and american), computer science (sp. hardware assembly, network design, unix administration and use), pioneering and wilderness survival. I'm very inquisitive so I know broadly, but seldom does my knowledge extend very deeply. I love to explain things, but I teach those who are quick and keen in their criticism best. I'd actually like to be taught in any of these things; for all my knowledge in them, I can surely learn more.
I want to learn more languages, but not all of them. Besides those I've listed, I'm very interested in learning some form of persian or arabic, and even more interested in finding someone who speaks both of these (really any combination of multiple languages is interesting), who could explain the two languages' peculiarities relative to each other. Teach me to draw birds, explain musical theory using physical concepts, explain cooking with steel pans, or whatever you can so long as you're enthusiastic about it. I learn best from people who answer questions well.

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