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edworld
(Ed) 40 y.o., Male 
Looking for
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SetswanaCan help with
Last logged in 2 weeks ago
Last updated at 8:36am
BST on October 5, 2009
Joined on September 20, 2009
It is 8:22 am (NZDT) in edworld's time zone.
About Me:
Professional: I made a big change in my professional life midway through it: I started my career as a physician, and now I'm an organic farmer and beekeeper.
Personal: I'm a subversive computer geek with a penchant for etymology, romance, and history. One of my favorite words is thirlage. I own a copy of the Oxford English Dictionary and love to look up words and love to talk about unusual words with other word geeks. I also love to read books simultaneously (or nearly so) with a pen pal and discuss the book and its implications on life and the universe. This is one of my favorite things to do in the whole world.
Why I'm here:
On connection: I'm all about connection with like-minded souls.
On writing: my sole reason for starting this profile was to build strictly platonic relationships with people of all ages and genders through written communication. In other words, to have pen pals. As a kid I had many pen pals both inside and outside my country, and with people of all ages and genders, but when I started university, I got so busy with studies and local friends that I lost touch with all my pen pals. And the three experiences of (1) having pen pals, followed by (2) having only local "friends," followed by (3) having mostly professional relationships taught me a few critical facts:
(A) Communication defines personal relationships. (Not so for professional relationships; money defines professional relationships.)
(B) Relationships between people are very different depending upon the type of communication (written or spoken) that the relationship is based upon.
(C) Although there are certainly exceptions to this rule, I've found that relationships based on written communication have the capability of being much deeper and stronger than relationships based on spoken communication.
On time: looking back on my childhood and comparing my life then with my life now, I find that I miss the depth of the relationships I had with my childhood pen pals, and very few people in America make time for that kind of depth in friendships anymore. On the contrary, most people are much too busy with a frantic work and/or family and/or social life to make time for writing letters to someone. That's ok for them, but not for me. I'm busy with my new profession too, but not frantic; not so busy that I can't or won't make time for deep, strong friendships with like-minded people; not too busy for writing letters. In fact, having more time for many things---including writing letters---is one of the reasons for my radical change in career.
On teaching and learning: I have a lifelong love of learning and teaching. I'm well-educated, but I'm not an intellectual snob. Different than most well-educated people who I have found to be incorrigible snobs and who come to think that they know everything, I've found that the more I've learned, the more there is to learn. I'm like Isaac Bashevis Singer's fictional character Yentl the Yeshiva "Boy": I always want to learn more (although unlike Yentl, I truly am male; not female). And I've always learned something from everyone I've known, no matter how much or how little formal education they have had. Formal education is a very different thing than learning. Learning can take place in formal academics, but usually, formal academics (from elementary school to medical school) is indoctrination: it trains us not to think; it trains us not to learn; it trains us to do something that is very much at odds with human nature; to blindly, mindlessly, unquestioningly just believe what somebody else tells us is true; it's a disaster. I did learn in formal academics, and I know some other people do, but it's the exception rather than the rule. The practice of agriculture and apiculture and medicine have taught me that real learning comes from paying very close attention to nature: from things as vast as a star or a galaxy to things as small as a honeybee or a microbe.
On age: I enjoy communicating with and learning from people both within and outside of my generation, both older and younger. One of my best friends is 96 years old (although sadly, she's blind now, so we only communicate in spoken language). Another of my best friends lives next door, is twelve years old, and she helps me with apiculture sometimes. The bees teach us both a lot every time we open up another hive or capture a wild swarm, and we teach each other a lot about life in general every time we get together.
On gender: reiterating, I'm here for strictly platonic relationships, so your gender matters not a whit to me.
Above all, why I'm here:
I enjoy reading and writing long, rambling, philosophical letters about life and the universe and exchanging them with like-minded people of all ages and genders.
Personal: I'm a subversive computer geek with a penchant for etymology, romance, and history. One of my favorite words is thirlage. I own a copy of the Oxford English Dictionary and love to look up words and love to talk about unusual words with other word geeks. I also love to read books simultaneously (or nearly so) with a pen pal and discuss the book and its implications on life and the universe. This is one of my favorite things to do in the whole world.
Why I'm here:
On connection: I'm all about connection with like-minded souls.
On writing: my sole reason for starting this profile was to build strictly platonic relationships with people of all ages and genders through written communication. In other words, to have pen pals. As a kid I had many pen pals both inside and outside my country, and with people of all ages and genders, but when I started university, I got so busy with studies and local friends that I lost touch with all my pen pals. And the three experiences of (1) having pen pals, followed by (2) having only local "friends," followed by (3) having mostly professional relationships taught me a few critical facts:
(A) Communication defines personal relationships. (Not so for professional relationships; money defines professional relationships.)
(B) Relationships between people are very different depending upon the type of communication (written or spoken) that the relationship is based upon.
(C) Although there are certainly exceptions to this rule, I've found that relationships based on written communication have the capability of being much deeper and stronger than relationships based on spoken communication.
On time: looking back on my childhood and comparing my life then with my life now, I find that I miss the depth of the relationships I had with my childhood pen pals, and very few people in America make time for that kind of depth in friendships anymore. On the contrary, most people are much too busy with a frantic work and/or family and/or social life to make time for writing letters to someone. That's ok for them, but not for me. I'm busy with my new profession too, but not frantic; not so busy that I can't or won't make time for deep, strong friendships with like-minded people; not too busy for writing letters. In fact, having more time for many things---including writing letters---is one of the reasons for my radical change in career.
On teaching and learning: I have a lifelong love of learning and teaching. I'm well-educated, but I'm not an intellectual snob. Different than most well-educated people who I have found to be incorrigible snobs and who come to think that they know everything, I've found that the more I've learned, the more there is to learn. I'm like Isaac Bashevis Singer's fictional character Yentl the Yeshiva "Boy": I always want to learn more (although unlike Yentl, I truly am male; not female). And I've always learned something from everyone I've known, no matter how much or how little formal education they have had. Formal education is a very different thing than learning. Learning can take place in formal academics, but usually, formal academics (from elementary school to medical school) is indoctrination: it trains us not to think; it trains us not to learn; it trains us to do something that is very much at odds with human nature; to blindly, mindlessly, unquestioningly just believe what somebody else tells us is true; it's a disaster. I did learn in formal academics, and I know some other people do, but it's the exception rather than the rule. The practice of agriculture and apiculture and medicine have taught me that real learning comes from paying very close attention to nature: from things as vast as a star or a galaxy to things as small as a honeybee or a microbe.
On age: I enjoy communicating with and learning from people both within and outside of my generation, both older and younger. One of my best friends is 96 years old (although sadly, she's blind now, so we only communicate in spoken language). Another of my best friends lives next door, is twelve years old, and she helps me with apiculture sometimes. The bees teach us both a lot every time we open up another hive or capture a wild swarm, and we teach each other a lot about life in general every time we get together.
On gender: reiterating, I'm here for strictly platonic relationships, so your gender matters not a whit to me.
Above all, why I'm here:
I enjoy reading and writing long, rambling, philosophical letters about life and the universe and exchanging them with like-minded people of all ages and genders.
Requests:
Here's my request: for all the numerous people here (like jerrysblessings) who have introduced themselves to me, stop replying to me indignantly when interpals.net alleges that my response to your introduction comes from a computer located in a different country than where I claim to be. That's just rude.
First of all, interpals.net's allegation is not necessarily correct: there are many privacy tools available to mask one's IP address. Secondly, it's none of your business what computer I use to reply to you. Thirdly, instead of being rude to me in response, be grateful that I replied to you at all! And lastly, and most importantly, if you're interested in teaching or learning languages or being pen pals, then neither my actual location nor the location of the computer I use for correspondence (which need not necessarily be the same in a highly-networked society like ours) should matter to you at all!
People, I've got news for you:
I'm not a scammer, and if you can't figure that out from reading my profile, then don't introduce yourself to me! While I enjoy corresponding with good people (thus my profile here), I also jealously guard my privacy from all the myriad threats to it that exist on the Internet (and most of those threats come not from individuals, but rather, from organizations like corporations and governments). You should do the same.
If you're interested in my physical location (which I think is reasonable), then ask me where I am (it's not Antarctica) and accept my answer (regardless of whether or not you believe it). If I want to mislead you about my physical location (or anything), then I will do so. In this age of rampant cyber-stalking and real-life stalking, you have no right to expect otherwise from someone you're acquainted with only through the Internet and for only hours or days instead of years. There are many perfectly legitimate reasons why anyone might want to mislead an Internet-acquaintance. And this need not detract from a rich pen pal relationship.
This site is for connecting with pen pals through the Internet. It's in the name of the site, for goodness sakes. And that's a wonderful thing! Be glad you have access to it. Sometimes pen pals become friends in real life, but not always. Don't expect more than pen pals from me only hours after introducing yourself.
Have a nice day.
First of all, interpals.net's allegation is not necessarily correct: there are many privacy tools available to mask one's IP address. Secondly, it's none of your business what computer I use to reply to you. Thirdly, instead of being rude to me in response, be grateful that I replied to you at all! And lastly, and most importantly, if you're interested in teaching or learning languages or being pen pals, then neither my actual location nor the location of the computer I use for correspondence (which need not necessarily be the same in a highly-networked society like ours) should matter to you at all!
People, I've got news for you:
- A scammer does not write 5,000 characters (the maximum allowed) of error-free text (those two errors are bugs from interpals.net) in his profile description!
- A scammer writes you with a form letter, like jerrysblessings did when he introduced himself to me by writing: "[no subject] sent at 1:14pm EDT on October 3, 2009 'Hello. My name is jerry and i saw your ad so I thought I would take the time to write you. I am simply looking for a good friend. I hope you will give me the opportunity to get to know you and become good friends. I look forward to hearing from you. Take care. Bye. Jerry'" (Was I rude to him? No! I wrote him a personalized reply that was three times longer than his introductory letter, and gently reminded him that nobody likes form letters for introductions; a point well-made by oxan4ik and others in the Tips & Advice Forum)
- A scammer's letters often mention God and are written in all caps like this one I received from god_cares2002: "Hi sent at 9:44pm EDT on October 3, 2009. HELLO HOW ARE YOU DOING ?I AM EMMANUEL FROM SIERRA LEONE 18YEARS OF AGE AND PLEASE AS I SAW YOUR PICTURE SOMETHING TELLS ME TO EMAIL YOU SO IF YOU GET THIS EMAIL DO NOT BE ANGRY WITH ME BUT ALL IS ABOUT FRIENDSHIP,SO I WILL LOVE FOR YOU TO BE MY PEN PAL, I HOPE TO HEAR FROM YOU SOON AND GOD RICHLY BLESS YOU AND YOUR FAMILY ."
I'm not a scammer, and if you can't figure that out from reading my profile, then don't introduce yourself to me! While I enjoy corresponding with good people (thus my profile here), I also jealously guard my privacy from all the myriad threats to it that exist on the Internet (and most of those threats come not from individuals, but rather, from organizations like corporations and governments). You should do the same.
If you're interested in my physical location (which I think is reasonable), then ask me where I am (it's not Antarctica) and accept my answer (regardless of whether or not you believe it). If I want to mislead you about my physical location (or anything), then I will do so. In this age of rampant cyber-stalking and real-life stalking, you have no right to expect otherwise from someone you're acquainted with only through the Internet and for only hours or days instead of years. There are many perfectly legitimate reasons why anyone might want to mislead an Internet-acquaintance. And this need not detract from a rich pen pal relationship.
This site is for connecting with pen pals through the Internet. It's in the name of the site, for goodness sakes. And that's a wonderful thing! Be glad you have access to it. Sometimes pen pals become friends in real life, but not always. Don't expect more than pen pals from me only hours after introducing yourself.
Have a nice day.
Interests, Hobbies, etc.:
Learning, birding, beekeeping, organic farming, windsurfing, kayaking, canine obedience training.
Favorite Music:
Later
Favorite Movies:
Children of a Lesser God (because of what it teaches about the nearly lost art of effective communication), Shawshank Redemption (because of what it teaches about the best human emotion: hope), Contact (because of what it teaches about idealism, stubborn dedication to one's dreams, and the unfortunate reality of how rare these traits are in most people), Happy Feet and The Hurricane (for the same reasons as Contact), Yentl (for Barbra's singing and for what it portrays about learning and teaching), and The Hours (for too many reasons to list here).
Favorite TV Shows:
I very rarely watch TV. However, I own these on DVD, and they're superb: HBO's "The Wire" (because of what it teaches about governments), Alex Haley's "Roots" (because of what it teaches about humanity's phenomenal and ever-present skills at self-deception).
Favorite Books:
Some of my favorite authors: Ayn Rand (although I'm no Objectivist groupie), Михаил Афанасьевич Булгаков, Robert Heinlein, יצחק באַשעװיס זינגער, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Carl Sagan, David Brin, Daniel Quinn, Simon Funk.
Favorite Quotes:
'I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I'm not absolutely sure of anything and there are many things I don't know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we're here, and what the question might mean. I might think about it a little bit and if I can't figure it out, then I go on to something else, but I don't have to know and answer, I don't feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without having any purpose, which is the way it really is so far as I can tell. It doesn't frighten me.'
-Richard Feynman
-Richard Feynman
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Profile address: http://www.interpals.net/edworld
Profile address: http://www.interpals.net/edworld