A boy was born in South America whose back yard was the rainforest. He had always been rather introverted and even introspective, and he had an “old man” personality, so much so that a good friend of the family nick named him “Priest Man.”
This boy was a bit of a storyteller and had about two or three friends in primary school who would follow him about and seemed to enjoy his imaginative personality. But the boy was also bullied by some, partly perhaps due to his softer nature, or partly because his family was considered well-to-do by local standards, and he was envied.
He was brought to the United States when he was nine and he took to school, since he loved learning and he was insatiably curious. He loved the sciences first and aspired to becoming a solar physicist, harnessing energy from the sun, until he discovered English literature in high school and Philosophy in college. So he eventually graduated with a Bachelors in the History of Modern Philosophy from Brooklyn College and a Masters in Liberal Studies from Fordham University. Seeking to “find himself” in the real world afterwards, having already long searched for himself in academia, he ended up in Florida, and he eventually embarked on a long period of traveling about the United States as a big rig truck driver. For he had also developed the notion of “finding” his fellow Americans. Out of this experience he self-published his book “The Socratic Trucker: An American Memoir,” but his not finding a traditional publisher was his first essential disappointment.
No, I tell a lie. His first disappointment was a spiritual one--
When he was a young adult in college he experienced stirrings of divine love, not knowing that this meant that he had mystical aspects to his personality and that his life would be deeply misunderstood and enigmatic. But he could not find a home in the monasteries which he then courted, so he had to return to an oblivious world and become lost again.
During his years traveling the country he conceived of an American social movement of the People, one from the bottom-up, housed at
www.newamericanspring.org. He earned a Masters Certificate in Nonprofit Leadership from Park University in order to launch and lead this movement, but today he remains saddled with student loans from his rich education which his working poor family in the United States could never have afforded. What’s worse, his original choice to pursue such a liberal education was at the behest of a monk who, after having turned him away from his monastery, advised him that he had a mind for education and should pursue this development so that he might serve God’s calling for his life more appropriately.
Today, this boy now man (yet boy in idealism) is actively advocating for a “social movement” no American seems to be able to appreciate, and he is wondering if his life is indeed in vain. He took a government job of ridiculously low pay (less than one half what he was making as a common truck driver) in order to serve his country for 10 years and receive student loan forgiveness. And all this despite having pursued his education in the first place, to give to his world and country. This is his third great disappointment.
So here is the question: is he truly a loser? Gee I hope I’m not!
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