On Rethinking Everything

  Contrary to public perception, I am in all actuality a withdrawn introvert. That may come as sort of a enigma to some who witnessed my recent prodigious technological outpouring. While it is true that I have made a lot of videos and posted a lot on this blog, I have done so mainly, not to inform or entertain others but to help me rethink and reconsider my positions. If I had it my way, I would immediately abandon American academia, politics and theology and again become a recluse on an uninhabited part of the Hawaiian Islands or dwell in a little abode on the coast of my beloved California.

 In fact, I have spent much time in contemplative solitude on the North Shore of Oahu, Hawaii and lived for over twenty years near the beach in Orange County, California in thought and contemplation. I crave solitude and contemplation above everything else. I think I would go back to this way of life if it were not for a conflicting tendency within myself to somehow justify my nomadic existence to the external world. I am a deeply scarred and flawed individual who has been burned by the Southern Baptist Convention and American Evangelicalism and cannot tolerate much religious absurdity, so I like to contemplate things on my own.

Part of the reason for my desire for solitude pertains to my inherent contrarian and iconoclastic tendencies. I generally question everything irrespective of the setting and context. If I am in a conservative school or church, I will more than likely tend to ask questions from a liberal perspective. On the flip side, if I am in a more liberal or progressive academic or ecclesial context, I attempt to formulate questions from a more conservative perspective. I do not like to be defined or hemmed in by anyone or anything. Above everything, I crave autonomy and freedom from conformity. I realize now that I agree with Socrates who said, "The un-examined life is not worth living."

I have a confession to make. I want to become a Stanley Kubrick type individual. A reclusive artist who keeps to himself or herself until they find a need to pop up and express their creativity or opinions to the world. I realize that I am not a good leader of people but I do have a few things of worth to say on occasion. I am now studying on the east coast to explore some significant theological and political issues that I have been thinking and rethinking for many years. I need to blog and shoot videos far less and take advantage of the tremendous resources now at my disposal. I know, deep down inside, that the day will come that I will bemoan my lack of appropriation of the incredible libraries here in the Princeton area.

Thus, I want to communicate to anyone out there who may be a regular reader or viewer of my blogs and videos that I plan to do that less and study more. I need to rethink my positions and use these great resources more. So, if I do not blog or vlog as much, don't worry, I am more than likely still there, but studying in some dank and musty library, longing to be on the Northern Shore...