**I tried/failed to not be a little too intense in this post. I’ll try not to let it happen again.**
Hey. Ok, so:
1. I am joining the Peace Corps. My assignment is to spend 27 months teaching secondary English in Malawi. I consider this assignment to be very meaningful…
2. As humans, we engage in the perpetual struggle to assign meaning to things – the right things. We perceive, interpret, and judge information. We decide; choice is simultaneously a liberating privilege and an unavoidable, heavy responsibility. I choose to assign meaning to my Peace Corps service and the energies it perpetuates: freedom, justice, and love. Peace Corps service is a way for me to actively live out those energies.
I love philosophy. I love art. Creativity. I love humanism, existentialism, absurdism – Sartre, De Beauvoir, CAMUS. I love literature, drama, Theater of the Absurd – Beckett, Ionesco. I love social justice. Feminism. I love freedom and equality and believe they are energies inherent in nature. I believe in nonviolence. I believe in constant and peaceful revolution of consciousness. I believe in social democracy. Choice. I believe in the struggle. I love nature. The Earth. Wildness. I love hippies. Vegetarianism. I believe in free love. I don’t believe in god but I do appreciate Buddhism. Ram Dass; being here now. I believe in liberation through critical thinking and I believe in education as liberation…
Albert Camus: brilliant AND good-looking
Eugene Ionesco: brilliant AND grandfatherishly cute
…And I’m moving to Malawi. In a month. July 1. To keep thinking, to keep creating art, to keep exploring the Earth and its beauty – and to do these things in collaboration with a community of people who will undoubtedly teach me as much or more as I teach them. And I’m stoked to reorient myself. Stoked to see what happens to the philosophy, to the art. Stoked to see what happens to me and to my community…
…I believe in openness.
Yup so I hope to use this blog to share insights, stories, inspirations, photos, etc. from my Peace Corps experience.
Good times…
P.S. I MUST give credit to Christina, my beautiful sister, who I will miss very very much (along with the rest of my wonderful family) for taking the photo that is part of my blog’s heading.
I’m so very excited to see where this experience will take you, Maria! I think this post is such an incredible exploration of your intention to grow and learn, and there isn’t a better place to do this than the Peace Corp. I can’t wait to live vicariously through your experiences!
Love, Matt D.