CURRENT MISSION

I am on a pilgrimage. Or maybe a treasure hunt, where pieces of my self were dispersed all over the world before I was born, and I am stumbling upon them as I go.

ABOUT ME

John is a good name for me. I have always wanted to be unique, so I am happy the gods gave me such a commmon name to remind me how much I have in common with all other life forms.

I am the oldest of seven children to a single welfare mother. It says a lot about my personality and my ideas. I am a recovering Christian. I haven't drank alcohol or done drugs since 1998 (it's a good thing, I assure you). That all said, I have no desire to make you like me, and just as I live with my decisions, so do you, so have at it.

Anyway, I am almost six feet tall. I am dark skinned in the summer months. I like long walks on the beach and roses by the dozen. I like to snuggle, sometimes. But I don't think about all of that very often.

PHILOSOPHY

I am still summoning the words for that myself. I think it shines through in all of the other descriptions here. I am doggedly dedicated to knowing life in all of its intricacies and grandiosities. I am downright pissed that my days are numbered on this fantastic planet. I always wonder how I will do everything I want to do in this lifetime. I hope reincarnation is a reality, although it takes a distant second to immortality, if you ask me.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

My strengths are in conversation and attentiveness. I believe in being a good guest. I am almost a gypsy, so you could never really stay with me. I lived in a tent for six months this year. Otherwise I lived on random couches, in a hammock near the Caribbean, in cheap hotels and hostels, on my little brother's lower bunkbed, and I guess other places as well. My boots carry the earth from many lands, and maybe you would like to meet them.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I have just started. What I know about myself is I have a hard time accepting acts of kindness without feeling like I owe somebody something. I guess I have always been afraid of Karma. You know how Jesus let the woman wash his feet, and his apostles were affronted--I feel mostly like them, but I am trying to be more like Jesus (by the way, its a good metaphor, I am not a believer in the religous sense of the word). So far I have experienced these senseless acts of kindness and beauty. I am very impressed!

Interests

It would be easier to list what I am not interested in, but that sounds too negative. So...I love art; food and cooking it; travel, as you can see; risk and its friend adrenaline; playing my acoustic bass guitar; sitting in a coffee shop with a coffee and perhaps a cigarette and listening to the intellectual pulp that you always find there.

• arts
• books
• beauty
• dining
• cooking
• coffee
• shopping
• traveling
• music
• guitar
• whitewater rafting
• rock climbing
• anthropology
• geology
• tourism
• beaches
• mountains

Music, Movies, and Books

Music: Lately I have been really into Electronica. I enjoy playing classical music on my bass guitar. I listen to anything my mood requires.

Books: I have read addictively since I can remember. Mostly I love literature, although I have a soft spot for Stephen King, and a bit of fantasy. To better know me, you should read Walt Whitman, Ernest Hemingway, John Steinback, Milan Kundera, J.M. Coetzee, Hermann Hesse, Rumi, Ayn Rand, Jon Krakauer, Henri Thoreau, Umberto Eco, Anais Nin, D.H. Lawrence, Louis L'Amour....

It's hard for me to sit long enough to watch the tele or movies, but I am captivated occasionally.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I don't believe in once-in-a-life-time experiences. I am living this life as if it is a book I would read. I was lost in Greece near Delphi one night. I dislocated my shoulder climbing a mountain there. I thought Pan was following me. That is an interesting story.
I was surrounded by angry and beligerent street children in the West Bank...that was something like interesting, though more after the fact.
I hitchhiked across the Sinai Desert.

I don't know.

I free-soloed a 150 meter rock face. I free-dived 19 meters. I wrote thousands of pages. I breathes millions of times. It all seems pretty paltry in the face of the miracle of life. Yes, that is the most amazing thing I have seen.

Teach, Learn, Share

I am a jack of all trades. I can discuss the effect of peer pressure on the Aboriginal educational experience, and ten minutes later I can enjoy a conversation about modern music with a fouteen-year-old girl (this happened last night, in fact). As employment, I have restored a delapidated crackhouse, worked as car mechanic, worked in a machine shop for 2.5 years as a machine operator and tool and die maker, worked as a landscaper, worked as a local furniture mover, worked as a long-distance driver, worked as a field geologist, worked gathering firewood in the mountains, worked as a surveyor's assistant, worked as a bilingual tour guide in Costa Rica, and my passion these days is working as a whitewater rafting guide.

I hold a Bachelor's degree from UC Berkeley in Cultural Anthropology. I am compelled to learn. I am compelled to teach. I can't help it, nor do I want to.

Teach, learn, share, that's what I do.

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Belgium, Belize, Egypt, El Salvador, France, Greece, Honduras, Israel, Jordan, Luxembourg, Mexico, Morocco, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Panama, Philippines, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, United Kingdom, Vatican City State

Countries I’ve Lived In

Australia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Italy, United States

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