teen, military, & colligiate years

living in Latvia

present & future perfect tense todd

Introduction

Perhaps an advantage to this medium we use, the Internet, is that the stages of friendship and introduction can be shortened. At least I have discovered that a few paragraphs about myself have helped encourage dialogue with total strangers, some now close friends. Slowly over time I have been welcomed into a circle of friendship with people whom I have yet to meet face to face. So, I leave a few paragraphs here not only for those who know me and want to know what I am doing these days, but for the potential friends. The world is becoming ever 'smaller' and the level of cooperation that is increasing is worth more than material wealth - or at least I prefer this wealth over the horded reserves that old-time economists would examine and affirm as 'real'. A network of friends is a better and stronger wealth in the form of a community.

Overall I would describe myself as an affable, whiskered lover of wisdom, nature, and people. As a child I would be known for giggling alot; a sense of humor and enjoyment out of life are important elements in my life still.

Childhood was a great time for me: looking for frogs in local ponds, reading gobs of books, becoming a naturalist and birdwatcher - these are some of the events that shaped my life. I am the youngest of three sons. While we each had very distinct personalities, somehow our parents found ways to nurture each of our talents . I became a bookish excurb boy...Diverse interests led me to many means of attaining varying states of consciousness and awareness. Via meditation, breath control, sensory deprivation and such, I would go exploring for new types of consciousness with the enthusiasm that Sherlock Holmes would have had searching for a culprit. Nor did I know that it would lead me to live abroad permanently.

teen, military, & colligiate years

When most kids were going outdoors, my friend V.M.W. and I would go hitch-hiking and end up at Zen Monastery, taking part in zazen. I have spent formally over 6 years studying Philosophy to understand reality's tricky little secrets - and I have never regretted it! Besides enabling me to win most bar debates (except while drinking with other philosophers - and then it gets ugly), I have learned to know from Western Philosophy when to not think. Very zen-like, yes? Or conversely I've learned to thinkwell.. I love paradoxes and am a paradox at times. When I was in high school I already knew I wanted to study philosophy in college. Then my convictions were based upon Buddhist-like principles of mindfullness and compassion. I halted up my undergraduate studies to join the U. S. Army with the intention of making a career of it. On a psychological level I believed that a person who knows exactly how bad it is to kill should be the one who is in the position to kill - in the hope that a better possibility of refraining from killing was possible or could indeed be avioded. Thus I became an expert grenadier and sharpshooter both left and right handed. Studying bombs as a Combat Engineer and enlisted man would prepare me for my already preset and qualified route of being an officer. What was my motive? Reading perhaps too much G.F.W.Hegel probably affected my young impressionable mind. His view is that the three pinacles of any culture are found in Academia, the State, and in the Church (or religion) led me to believe that I should become acquinted with the State. But I came out of it transformed into a conscientious objector, realizing that the very institution that leads a nation to war is the very same one that keeps those who would go to war from going to war. I really loved learning more German while stationed in Heilbronn, West Germany. It was then that I was deeply affected by Jung's Psychology and Alchemy and Buckminster Fuller's Critical Path which brought me back to my politically pacifist view of life. I learned important lessons about love, people, and culture in Germany.

After coming back to the United States I continued my philosophical studies continuing through to an MA while also taking up the soft form of martial art called Tai Chi Chuan. Tai Chi is more of a technique of 'self-mastery' and method of attaining 'enlightenment' than a way to defend myself. At one point I was practicing over 4 hours daily while learning acupressure from Dr. Gangyi Dong. He came from mainland China's Anhui Medical College were he taught. Since I wanted to learn more about heterodox belief systems and I was fostering a new interest in the philosophy of science, it seemed natural to learn about meridians, chi and such. Still I practice chi kung - a method of circulating and excersizing chi. While I had a massage practice which helped support me during my final graduate classes in Philosophy, I had then taken on a quest for a new 'holy grail'. I sought a new answer to the problem of universals. On this problem I would mull over and procratinate for almost five years before finally finishing my thesis on the subject. But before writing that I had some intense life experiences in the Latvia.

present & future perfect tense todd

Investigations and the contemplation of the problem of universals, as mentioned earlier, resulted in an MA. I'm intensely interested in various belief systems that work yet are seemingly contradictory. I love equally both science and the study of religion (or should I say spirituality ?).

I firmly believe that people on this earth can get their act(s) together, that a world government with limited yet strong powers will occur in our lifetime, and that there are those who are already team-members working to solve in the global problems and quandries before us in the form of environmental damage, global pollution, over-population, terrorism, and uncontrolled commerce. While no individual person or institution may bestow absolute peace, it does look like things may get better.

Presently I have taken on the cloak of "webmaster": part entreprenuer, SysAdm., graphic designer, and editor. Looking back to the 'clickable todd' page you may see some endevours I do on the Internet. In this position every week I am in touch with people globally and locally who are fellow world citizens - netizens. May you too will see yourself first as a world citizen, and then secondarily in an ethnic and/or national sense. Maybe you will affirm as I do that I am owned by the world and nature and not vica-versa. If you would like, you may see an 'editorial' explaining why I publish these things.

clickable todd