Plans for a Better Life

I'm not all that happy in life and am attempting to devise a way to ameliorate this.

 I think life is much simpler than we make it out to be. People want good company, intimacy, and the necessities of life (food, shelter, etc). Take a minute to wrap your mind around that.

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 So if I want to be happy then this is where I should start. This is why I want to bring together the people I most resonate with to live and work together. We can come up with some way to produce goods or services of economic value.

There are also things that people need to avoid in order to be happy. We have so much shit going on in the modern world. So many devices and businesses and accounts. So many things to worry about. We need to minimize this to a comfortably manageable number. We need to strip away all of that clutter that takes up space but contributes nothing. Really, it's just like cleaning the garage. Isn't it a wonderful feeling once half the stuff has been thrown out?

Minimizing dependence is another key. We ought to try to replace all of the goods and services we consume that we can efficiently replace with our own labor. We all know it's much better to labor on our own terms than on others'. So why not grow our own food and concoct our own meals? Why not fix our own toilets and rooves?

 So am I trying to say that I want to build a commune? Maybe halfway. I don't want to be too disconnected from mainstream society, just enough for comfort. It's about the right balance. I think the way to go is to strip away layers until the the tripping ceases to produce beneficial results. Let me know if you'd like to join me :)

Making It Happen

I feel very anxious right now. Being part of the Los Angeles StartingBloc Institute for Social Innovation (2/16 - 2/20) really amped me up, but I'm having trouble productively channeling that energy. I've had some great Skype chats with StartingBloc Fellows, but can't wait to do something concrete. I've had plenty of ideas for a long time, but have not done much with them.

Partly to blame is my problem choosing an identity. I want to be a serious scholar, but also active making changes in the world. Moreover, there are many types of scholarship I am interested in as well as many types of social changes I am interested in. I want to study economics, sociology, psychology, and philosophy of social science. I want to promote deep and critical thinking, educate about the European Enlightenment, promote non-polemical dialogue, promote student-centered education, promote humanistic organizational structures, create a framework to facilitate knowledge gathering about social issues and to help organizations and individuals collaborate on tackling those issues (If you're a talented information designer passionate about positive social change, please come work with me). I need my life to be rich in scholarship, conversation, collaboration, and production. When one of those elements is weak, it hinders the development of the rest. Okay, I have an idea; I'm gonna go try again now!