About · 461 days ago

I meet wonderful people wherever I go, who in revealing a part of themselves to me, enhance my experience of life. In the Young Philosopher magazine I’ve interviewed belly dancers and astrophysicists, wine makers and gang members whose unique views overshadow the empty labels of dancer, scientist, wine maker or gang member. On this website I will continue to post interviews but I will be doing a lot of journal posts and putting up photos and quotations from books I’m reading.

A few years ago I was studying with Dominican monks in England and I asked one of them what pleasure he got out of his studies and he replied that through his studies of philosophy and theology he was taking part in a dialogue that spans the ages of time. Then, when I was doing volunteer work in Richmond, VA and talking with people who lived on the street or in public housing and I was hearing them express some of the same ideas that I’d just spent four years studying in a university, I decided to just hang out and listen to more of their ideas. I got a tape recorder, did some interviews and shot photos of people who lived on the street in Richmond and made this the first issue of Young Philosopher. Six more issues have followed and they all reflect the environment in which they’re created and the collaborators I work with. Lots of people have given me photos, submitted stories, and sent drawings. Please continue to send anything you want to me, I’d love to include them in this project.

Young Philosopher is an ongoing oral history project.

Young Philosopher prepares us to reclaim the existential moment that we miss when we channel our time and senses into the gimmicks and trends that bombard us from magazines, billboards, and television. Young Philosopher does not depend on devices that place a filter between us and the reality of other people. Such devices only create and control our reality instead of allowing the experience of life and the world around us to unfold. Young Philosopher opens up the possibility for transcendence by tearing down the obstacles of gimmicks and filters.

The website is a work in progress so please be patient. Share it with anyone you’d like and please e-mail me if I put up a photo of you that you don’t like.

Take Care,
Albin

This site was set up, and is sometimes administered by Ben

— Albin