Some people live their life like a tree… planted.
Some people live their life like a house… that they continually invite others into.
Others live life like a car.
I’ve learned … that I’m a car.
Mystic and philosopher Ken Wilber is described as, “the smartest man you’ve never heard of.” His work attempts to integrate all fields of study into one single model or framework of understanding.
“Nothing is 100% right or wrong, they merely vary in their degree of incompleteness and dysfunction. No one or nothing is 100% good or evil, they just vary in their degree of ignorance and disconnection. All knowledge is a work in progress.”
Traveling not only is my existential answer to emotional autonomy–while still connecting with others– it is a major source of challenges to me, and challenges help me grow. I’m 5’8″ … and shrinking. I wear glasses. I’m neither handsome nor brilliant. But.. I AM CURIOUS. And without curiosity, I would have either died long ago of alcoholic depression, been killed, or standing on the corner holding a sign besides the next mental patient.
Most people today don’t read, let alone read a book a month. To cope with this Tsunami of ignorance, the country currently seems to be filled with 
addictions … The Meth Epidemic so bad in San Francisco that addicts are shooting up on the street in broad daylight. Who are these kids? More often than not, today’s new addict is white and comes from a middle-class homes. So why are they having so much difficulty coping with life that they’re compelled to move to “Liberal” California and get hooked on drugs?
Heroin may be worst. Now that the military has, “secured” the Afghan poppy fields, the Midwest and Northeast are contaminated with “Heroin Epidemics.” From bucolic Vermont to ultra Right Wing Kentucky. The same activities addicts do in the hood to get money, are now being done on John Deere Tractors… prostitution, breaking into homes, selling stolen goods, etc…
It’s curiosity that can compel a person to find answers to their problems rather than ways to hide out and numb the psychological pain they bring. It’ curiosity that can keep a person in sobriety when confronted with the question: “… what happens if I stay sober just one more day…”
I have to admit that while I’ve always honored people with “Traditional Values” (as long as it’s not those who wrap themselves in the rag of terror and enslavement just to stupidly think they can find some identity in the barbarism we left two centuries ago), living here has taught me just how UN-Traditional I am.
I struggle HARD when I encounter people who lack any intellectual curiosity. I go into judgement… then I realize that the world NEEDS farmers and brick layers. It IS problematic when they talk about how much they believe in God … and then quickly reveal they have NO IDEA what the Bible or Quran is actually telling them. Therein lies much of today’s problems. Each person seems to only be able to understand as much as the level of personal development they’ve reached.
For “Christians”… if you’re afraid to read Ken Wilber, at least view videos by Bill Donahue. Bill is like the Joseph Campbell of theology. He brings all the world’s spiritual traditions together and decodes them…. because travel isn’t just an outward exercise… travel too, is a journey inside.
Black Traveler 