Announcing 'Conscientia'

September 27, 2004

My dreams were of the Nobel Prize (physics), or poet laureate; of stardom on the soccer field or the rock stage; even dreams of the Presidency. Though practical reality was never truly far from my thoughts, one cannot say my hubris lacked imagination. And at its core, I always saw this striving as a singular thing done by individual men (in the neutral sense; I've always been for equal opportunity).

The dream of the Presidency was the first to go; great achievement in physics was the last. Ever since the first time I nearly dropped out of graduate school (which actually occurred the day before registering for classes), I have struggled to gain a coherent vision for what I might do with my life. Perhaps my oldest and most resilient dream was to be a tweed-clad professor of physics (or philosophy or … ), leading classes, publishing, attending salons with other great minds. But when I began to question the very idea of getting a graduate degree in physics, the track I had laid before myself as a senior in high school, I felt utterly lost.

I still feel lost at times, but at nearly 28 I feel that I am getting a bit closer to figuring out what I'll do with my life. Most importantly, I now see my place not as some singularly important leader, but rather as one of the countless nodes working to reshape humanity. Just as I now see an interconnected network of life all around me instead of fundamental particles, I now see a network of actors in the social domain, each striving with gods, with but few achieving "some work of noble note" before their own deaths. It is the striving that I value now, with or without the global recognition I once sought, and the knowledge that others are working toward the goals I now hold dear: "[to] create cultures of peace, justice and healing for the Earth and all living beings." (URI charter).

Within this network, I see myself acting from an eco-religious perspective (I'll explain that one some time), working to reshape humanity and achieve sustainability, social justice, and a more harmonious, unified society. A tall order to be sure, but one that my faith tells me is attainable.

And thus I announce a true name for this blog: Conscientia. In Latin the word means "joint knowledge." The purpose is not for me to share my wisdom and knowledge — for what small matter I may possess is but gleaned or inspired by those before and around me, and in no greater measure than anyone else. Rather, it is to share what knowledge I may encounter as I strive to learn from those who would share with me, and invite a further sharing and spreading of wisdom through the occasional or even frequent comment below.

Eleanor Roosevelt once declared that "the future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams." Though I may be a bit more cynical, a bit less dreamy, and hopefully more mature than the dreams of my high school days, I still believe in their beauty. Rather than a beauty of achievement, it is now the beauty of order arising from our chaos — of unity in diversity, of individual threads weaving a gorgeous tapestry together.

[Thanks to the use of shuffle in iTunes with over two-thousand songs to choose from, this little piece was composed to the aural inspiration of Pavement, Rhea's Obsession, R.E.M., Lyle Lovett, Simon & Garfunkel, Radiohead, Beethoven, Bon Jovi, and Soundgarden.]