ABOUT ME

I'm a geekyhippie or a hippiegeek. I think a lot about integrating the two and trying to figure out how I can use my chemical interests to further my hippie/radical agenda.

PHILOSOPHY

I'm a geekyhippie boy or a hippiegeek boy; still can't decide. I'm think a lot about integrating the two and trying to figure out how I can use my chemical interests to further my hippie/radical agenda.

I'm into whole body health; an interest which competes with my more recent attention for academics. As a student I've sacrificed sleep and other health-inducing rituals because I was curious about my mental and bodily capacity to produce. Now I want to be geeky about sanity and sleep. This means leaving time for human interaction, dancing, awesome breakfasts, and being outside. It's hard for me to find balance because I really do like thinking and talking about electrons.

Centres d'intérêt

backflips, handstands, rock or tree or other climbing, beat-boxing, poetry/rap, biking, blues dancing, eating HUGE salads, science. Things I would like to try more frequently but have yet to stick: singing, kayaking, tying knots, yoga, who knows (this is where you come in).

• poetry
• singing
• dancing
• yoga
• clothing
• traveling
• blues
• cycling
• kayaking
• boxing
• rock climbing
• science

Une aventure extraordinaire que j'ai vécue

Dean and I met when I was 14 years old. We spent a lot of time together working to maintain the gardens and performing other tasks around our village. When we met he was a fifty five year old recovering heroin addict who wore dirty clothes, smelled like alcohol, and carried the stature of a bum. He first strayed onto the property where I live in search of a place to reside, and we pointed him to the local mission. But he insisted that our village was his future home, even if it meant sleeping under a tree, so he joined the much younger campers who tend to come by our community.

Over the next weeks and months, I learned that Dean had a better work ethic than anyone else I’ve ever known. He worked endlessly on a myriad of laborious tasks from blackberry trimming to loading trucks with concrete and doing runs to the city dump. He also did household chores for a woman in her seventies who lives at our village. He did this all this despite chronic pain, addictions, PTSD, and a thin, mangled body. When winter rolled around, someone found him an RV to stay in. When the city towed the RV, we built him a small bedroom like the one where my mom lives.

Dean’s small stature is probably partially what led to his struggles with addiction, though it might have also have had something to do with his mother being a Native American prostitute, and his stepfather a violent abuser. In Vietnam there were underground tunnels created by the Vietcong for safe travel. Dean was chosen to crawl into these cramped tunnels and face the indigenous that awaited him there with firearms. Unlike WW II, when returning veterans were met with heroic praise, the only praise Dean received upon his return to the United States was a face full of spit.

In 2008, Dean tried to wean himself from his prescribed methadone. He was almost through the two-week ordeal when hospital staff allowed him to walk outside for some fresh air. He lost his balance, hit his head on the sidewalk, fell into a coma, and died a few days later.
Dean taught me that a person’s social status and the way they are perceived often do not correlate with their integrity, intentions, and positive effect in the world. Dean was a major influence in increasing my empathy for the homeless. I came to understand that people who are less fortunate are often not that way because of a lack of motivation but because of their situation, and that they deserve support.

Pays que j'ai visités

United States

Pays dans lesquels j'ai vécu

United States

•