CURRENT MISSION

Avoid homelessness until the end of september, or I find a new apartment. Also, invent flavoured words.

ABOUT ME

I am character in an unwritten Dostoevsky novel, one facet of the muddied diamond that is collective unconsciousness. Don't worry: that didn't make any sense to me either, but I try not to be to rigid in demanding sensibility from the world, and hope that in return the world be accepting of my whimsy.

Which is to say, I am perhaps a little eccentric, but only to the degree appropriate to any situation.

More prosaically, I am a scientist, or makes claims to that effect. Unquenchible curiosity is my thirst, and for fun and laughter I hunger. Occasionally I consume food and drink too, but that's quite beside the point.

I like to sing, to dance, to discuss all manner of things, to soak up ideas and beauty like a sponge, and squeeze them out from time to time a little changed.

I wear all types of masks, and can generally adopt a character that fits most any place or person, and yet I try to ensure that each role is made my own so that the act does more to reveal who I am than conceal it.

I love games, formal ones with rules, but most of all the spontaneous ones that just arise like a chemical reaction from the mixture of playful personalities and the catalyst of circumstance.

And, well, as you can probably tell, I sometimes like to waffle on and on, but I never take offense to being cut short when I hav--

PHILOSOPHY

This threatens to become another mini-essay, so I'll try to keep it short and pungent.

I believe in the basis of all philosophy is not cold logic, meaningless wordplay or mathematical attempts to formalise reasoning, but that it derives most immediately, and retains most potency from direct experience. And so, to study philosophy, one must live!

And to determine the universals that apply not just to oneself to all people, it is necessary to escape the confines of individual solitude, and to live through other people, to feel the pain, desire, awe, and love of other people.

I believe that from this basis, there is no need to accept or propose arguments for morality, or for ethical laws and constants, instead that these truths will be understood through the faculty of aesthetics, as one appreciates the beauty of morning rain on a bed of flowers, or the force of a great symphony.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

This remains to be seen. Early days yet!

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I think I am most at home as an urban nomad, spending brief periods of time on a newly discovered and fertile land of a chance aquaintence and their friends. The dynamic energy that emerges from a novel encounter and the unraveling mystery of stangers is something I am always drawn to. And so, I like to follow the winds, taking nothing by memories and leaving nothing by footprints.

In this respect, I have on a few different occasions swung from vine to vine in the jungle of social networks -- spent a few days with a family in the suburbs, at week or two in a shared city house full of artists and philosophers, a weekend at a nonstop party venue, an unending night of conversation with a random person met on the street.

Interests

I won't say everything; that would be a lie. There are some things which to a greater or lesser degree don't interest me, for example: fashion, popular music, celebrities and their lifestyles, and other such trappings of cultural dumbing-down. On the other hand, when someone is enthusiatic about a subject, when they have knowledge of it, or even just strong and self-examined opinions, then it is almost always easy to find it interesting. After all, it is people that are the ambassadors of ideas...

• cats
• writing
• books
• singing
• fashion
• beauty
• dancing
• dining
• walking
• partying
• drinking
• flowers
• billiards
• music
• logic
• science

Music, Movies, and Books

My recollection is better than my recall. I have watched a lot of films, enjoyed a fair bit of music, and read a reasonable amount of books. But for the life of me, I can't list them! Let me just say, I'm very eclectic!

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I slept next to an actual space rocket when I was 8, in the science museum london. I stole some special headed letter-writing paper from the House of Lords, and left a scarf tied to the statue they had to break to remove a sufferagete. I've been to the pyramids, around Jerusalem, held a piece of the Berlin wall, and had a thousand moments of profound mystic realisation, all swiftly forgotten.

Teach, Learn, Share

I can teach your how to fold some pretty things from paper; how to recite the soliloquy from Shakespeare's Hamlet; how to play pool, the proper (British) way; how to talk backwards (not really, but that would be a fun thing to learn!)

I want to learn: ALL AND ANYTHING! If you're willing to teach something, I'm definitely up for being taught. If not, we can just pick something random to try, like making stilts and walking around town playing GIANT CATS CRADLE, or perhaps something less random...

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