a general picture

i was about to send out an e-mail on my blog, and realized I should give a general impression of what I'm doing.

I left Washington, DC almost a month ago and have been making my way across the country at a combination of friends couches and people I've met through www.couchsurfing.com (an amazing website by the way). I am currently in Washington State visiting one of my very best friends and playing with his extremely cute 8 month year old. It is my 12th stop, and probably my most relaxed.

Soon before I left DC I decided to make an effort to be consciously open to everything I can learn from people. For my entire life up until now, I had been very diligently seeking the answers to questions I found important mostly surrounding trying to define for myself what an ideal society would look like and how to concretely get us there. Even as I began to piece together an answer to those questions, I was still very focused on learning and developing this answer. In a social context, this translated into being interested in people who could teach me something about that end or who were interested in seeking the same answers.

I think two things inspired the desire and effort to listen to people without imposing my own priorities on the relationship. The first was a realization that the only way to ever solve the problems of society was to understand people in a very personal sense through listening. The other is the realization after working in government, that you'll never be able to understand everything and the importance of trust and delegation in working in government, and a desire to improve my ability to communicate to people about their priorities instead of mine.

So, the plan is to travel the country until Christmas, and then move to the Middle East. The plan is to spend 4 months there and 4 months in China, but I might extend my time in the Middle East. I'll talk more about that plan, later, but wanted to give a general impression of my approach to my plans.