My Manifesto:

A quick survey of this website might give you the impression that I engage in a lot of curious yet unconnected activities.  This is correct!  Why should we pigeonhole ourselves and only allow ourselves to be one type of person?  Why should there only be one answer to the question "What do you do for a living?" 

I believe we should ask more questions and demand better answers.  First and foremost we should ask more questions about ourselves.  What do I want to learn?  What do I want to experience?  What do I want to contribute?  What do I want to leave behind?

We should also demand better answers from those making claims on our allegiance and attention such as politicians, as well as spiritual and thought leaders.  

I believe we should learn more than we think we need to know.  Most of our education focuses on learning just what we need to know to get a degree, a new job, or a promotion.  But, knowledge is more than this and the value of learning goes much deeper than having functional knowledge.  As the physicist Richard Feynman put it, we should learn for the "pleasure of finding things out."
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I believe we should create something of beauty and value.  We are all creative in different ways but often do not utilize this ability to a sufficient degree.  I create educational experiences, music, books, photographs, wooden bowls.  None of these may earn me a sufficient living but they serve the more important human function of artistic expression.

I believe we should read 1000 books.  In the age of computers, smartphones, iPads, and the internet there are still few better ways to really learn something than to read good books.  The more books you read, the more you recognize the deep interconnectedness of the world we live in.  It's an amazing perspective!   I have read 1,000 books and I think you should too!
  Take the 1,000 Books Challenge.

I believe we should each ask ourselves these four questions; 
What do you want to learn?
What do you want to experience?
What do you want to contribute?
What do you want to leave behind?

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