Hello, Good Morning, Greetings, Howdy, Bonjour, and most importantly, Welcome.
The form and substance of this publishing space are still as of yet undefined. The ethos and intention of this publishing space are well known. The actual mechanics of drafting, editing, and publishing the content that my brain construes for this space are still under development. So for now, let’s just focus on that second point and let some flow of consciousness brain blabber fill this first trial balloon of a post.
In 1962 Aldous Huxley, the English author, philosopher, and intellectual powerhouse published his final novel, Island. The novel’s protagonist, Will Farnaby, shipwrecks on a small island halfway between Sumatra and the Andaman Islands named Pala. The novel takes the form of a first-person ethnography of Palanese culture as Will is given shelter and medical attention from several leaders of the Palanese people. The Kingdom of Pala operates as a quasi-utopian bastion that has successfully remained isolated from the rest of the developing world. It has a decentralized cooperative community economy modeled after Georgism, a spiritual practice that refutes superstitions and hybridizes elements of western science and Mahayana Buddhism, multi-family child-rearing, coming of age psychedelic rituals, humanist medicine, a guilt-free embrace of human sexuality through tantric practices, and even birds that have evolved to patrol the island and caw out, “Attention!” and “Here and Now!” to help reinforce mindfulness practices.
Huxley was inspired to write this novel as a counterpoint to his famous dystopian novel, Brave New World. It attempts to offer a solution to each of the tragedies described in that work and had a profound impact on me when I first read it in my early 20’s. Since then, I’ve grown disillusioned with some of the concepts present in the work, but many of its principles are still key to what I’m attempting to accomplish in life. I think a lot about what it means to live a good life and what tools or mechanisms we have that can help foster more broad human flourishing while also improving your own states of health and happiness. This also requires a reflection on the myriad methods that others have devised to try and help that have backfired stupendously. I’ll be attempting to explore this space with humility and curiosity while hopefully mapping out the borders of what my personally updated Palanese protocols would look like.
I’ll be writing this blog pseudonymously, but I’ll provide some background as to where my mindset and experience come from. I’m currently in the early phases of training to become a Medical Doctor. I still have some time to decide on a specialty but strongly lean towards practicing Psychiatry. Before this, I spent time working as an assistant in research labs at a major state medical school and a large international technology company. Before that, I attended a large state university and worked closely with many administrative and student groups. I’ve spent a large portion of my adult life seeing how the sausage is made within academia and private industry. Which may or may not have to do with some of my disillusionment from the utopian concepts outlined above.
The plan is to write about the topics that interest me, which will mostly stem from the fields of bio-health science and technology. Though it will probably include much more knowing my way to get lost in topics and blabber. This is an experiment for myself as well as any of you who choose to join me in these writings. Hopefully, we’ll discover some cool things along the way together. Maybe we’ll even stumble upon some ways to manifest our own personal Palas.
(Image Source :: More of Sean Conway’s fantastic orthoimagery renders can be found Here)