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Mark

About Me


I grew up in Norwalk, CT playing lacrosse and sailing. I spent my teenage years immersed the heyday of a band called Phish (90-94) and other early 90's bands and in this experience my life was truly blessed. . . .After a couple hundred rock shows, I moved out to Bozeman, Montana to go to university - mostly to ski in the northern Rockies. I studied philosophy and studied on an exchange for a year at the Technical University of Berlin, travelling throughout Europe. I have also lived and worked in northeast Asia for about three years.
Some life changing events include: playing lacrosse, sailing 90% of the Caribbean, skiing in Vermont and the river hills ski club, discovering music at 12 through Led Zeppelin, going to rock shows, becoming obsessed with philosophy at MSU, my friends in Berlin, the German electronic music scene, 5 years living abroad, 5 years living in Montana, realizing that analytic thought is not the tool I once thought it was, living in Buddhist country, hearing of enlightenment, falling in and out of love, reading Huang Po and David Hawkins....More recently, getting into the best philosophy MA programs and coming to terms with walking away was a reflection of a deep shift in my perspectives on thought, analyticity, mind, concsiousness, existence and life.
Currently I am living in Seoul, South Korea and earning an MBA. I am pursuing a career in Real Estate development with emphasis on alternative energy systems in urban design. The next move may be to Dubai!
This here video is the ski hill next to MSU...
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My Interests

The Ocean

Mysticism

Buddhism

Non-attachment

Calming the mind

Consciousness

Enlightenment

Sufism

Recovery

Culture and Humanity

Travel

Philosophy

Live music

Collecting music

My ipod and the sound system

The history of rock and roll

Mountain biking

Reading The Economist

Sailing

Skiing

Hanging out in the woods

Not interested in people that try too hard to impress everyone

People watching

Women

These days I am most intrested in living in peace. I don't always succeed, but I try.

I'd like to meet:


Rumi

Dr. David Hawkins

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Paul Roberts

David Morgan

Roy De'Alvis

Huang Po

Alan Watts

Bill Wilson

Dr. Robert Smith

Henry Strange

Carl Jung

Aristotle

Ghandi

Eric Clapton

Robert Plant

Jimmy Page

John Paul Jones

Noam chomskey

John Searle

David chalmers

Nagel

Ned Block

Steven Hawkins

Kant

Thomas Kuhn

Popper

Sheldrake

Music:

Some of my favorite bands and DJs in no particular order are:

Led Zeppelin

Grant Lee Buffalo

Phish

Beck

Janes Addiction

Agoria

The Beatles

Sly and The Family Stone

David Bowie

Paul Van Dyk

Plastikman

Jimi Hendrix

Julian Bream

The Beastie Boys

Moby

Dave Brubeck

Charlie "Bird" Parker

Art Blakely and the jazz messengers

Robin Trower

Chopin

The Chemical Brothers

Oscar Peterson

St Germain

Morcheeba

Nirvana

Oasis

Blind Melon

Pink Floyd

Santana

Radio Head

Lynard skynard

The Smashing Pumpkins

Sun Volt

Strangfolk

Thievery Corporation

Massive Attack

Underworld

Ween

The Grateful Dead

Groove Armada

Bob Marley

Peter Tosh

Burning Spear

Kula Shaker

Paul oakenfeld

Paul Simon

DJ Tiesto

Danny Teneglia

Stevie Ray Vaughan

Paul Simon

Miles Davis

Herbie Hancock

Stevie Wonder

Red Hot Chili Peppers

David Clarke

Armin Van Buuren

Stone Temple Pilots

I've beeen listening to a lot of DJ shows and minimal sets lately.

Movies:

Shawshank redemption

The Pianist

Touching the Void.

Television:

www.allsp.com

The Office

Books:

Influential books include:
The Eye of the I, I Reality and Subjectivity, Power vs. Force, Discovery of the presense of God, - David Hawkins
Candide - Voltaire
Rumi
I Have a Dream: Writings and Speeches That Changed The World. - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Dr. Bob and The Good Old Timers
The Zen Teaching of Huang Po - On the Transmission of the Mind - John Blofeld
The Noble Eightfold Path - Bhikku Bhodi
In The Buddha's Words - Bhikku Bhodi
The Drop That Became The Sea - Yunus Emre
Living Buddha, Living Christ - Thich Naht Hahn
Die Geschichte von Hern Sommer - Patrick Suskind.
Das Parfum - Patrick Suskind
Explorations Into The Eternal - Ramesh S. Balsekar
Consciousness Speaks - Ramesh S. Balsekar
The Conscious Mind - David Chalmers
Consciousness Explained - Daniel Dennett
Kinds of Minds - Daniel Dennett
Minds Brains and Programs - John Searle
Minds Brians and Science - John Searle
Telepathy - Alice A Baily
Cognitive Ethology
The Structure of Scientific revolutions - Thomas Khun
Language Truth and Logic - Alfred Jules Ayer
An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science - Dr Gordon Brittan Jr.
Autobiagraphy of a Yogi - Paramahansa Yogananda
Zen Flesh, Zen Bones - Nyogen Senzaki
On The Geneology of Morals - Frederick Nietzsche
The Sickness Unto Death - Soren Kierkegaard
Zen and the Art of Motercylcle Maintenance - Robert Pirsig
Poetry, Language, Thought - Heidegger
A Treatise of Human Nature - David Hume
The Last Barrier - Reshad Feld
Fear and Trembling - Soren Kierkegaard
I am That - Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
Conversations With God - Neal Donald Walsch
The Giving Tree
The Moon is Down - John Steinbeck
The Alchemist
The Spirituality of Imperfection
A Course in Miricles
Faust - Geothe
The Sermon on The Mount - Emmet Fox
Fire in The Belly - Sam Keen

Heroes:

All Mystics

David Hawkins

Bill Wilson and all his friends, especially the ones that smoke.

Dr. Robert Smith

Henry Strange

Kant

Leibnitz

Dr. Gordon Brittan Jr.

Dr. James Allard

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Gahndi

Paul Roberts

Alan Watts

The late David Morgan.

My Blog

Letter to Geoff: Some recent thoughts . . . Richard Dawkins, evolution and form.

1. I've got some bad news. We did not evolve from apes . . . we are apes. 2. The separation of religion from politics "Freedom from religion" was an insight...a move made in the construction of the c...
Posted by Mark on Tue, 04 Mar 2008 06:18:00 PST

Walking away from grad school in philosophy

Howdy yall, I just quit grad school and made some fairly major life decisions in the past month. I tried to base them on intuition. I am mostly "constructivist" in my thinking about the world - which ...
Posted by Mark on Fri, 12 Oct 2007 06:22:00 PST

Random Memory

It was the love parade in Berlin back in 99. I was with my gypsy musician of a friend Roy DeAlviz: we are both acid casualties in our own way. We were meandering from Bahnhof Zoo over to Strasse 17 Ju...
Posted by Mark on Wed, 10 Oct 2007 05:20:00 PST

On transcending the mind.

"By understanding the source of the flow of mentalization, it can be transcended, revealing the silence out of which thinking-ness arises. Mentalization is of egocentric origin, and its primary functi...
Posted by Mark on Sun, 18 Feb 2007 04:51:00 PST

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.

  I sent my soul into the afterlife, Some glimpse of the truth to tell, and my soul returned to me and said, "I myself am heaven and hell."    ...
Posted by Mark on Thu, 23 Nov 2006 04:39:00 PST