Thivai as Philanthropist

I have been reading and blogging Thivai Abhor for years. Now he has put his bio online, his quest.

I was a high school drop out (10th grade), lived on the streets from the age of 15, survived in gangs and underground lifestyles, built a close-knit communal tribe that lasted for years and dissolved in a flash, worked as a roofer for 8 years, ended up working 22 jobs before I became a professor--I never had much tolerance for work that didn't provide me with some sense of doing something of value (as in making the world better somehow).

Learning, art, teaching, depression, gang violence, drugs, loving kindness, animality, the logos, and the quest as Thivai puts it for "foundations (under-standing)."  I am going to file this under, "What has this got to do with philanthropy?" Probably nothing, and maybe that is what is wrong with philanthropy, how dry it is how, how polite and brittle, how much it leaves out. No, philanthropy is what Thivai does.

Comments

[Thivai]

Phil,

Thank you for the kind words.

I always wonder how that story will come across to people and it is good to get responses.

Philanthropy operates in many forms and is not just a process of giving wealth/access, but may also be the sharing of "experience."

Noticing your profession I would like to mention that my quest is to develop a strong sense of personal morals/ethics and I believe that it is necessary for me to explore my individual past while imagining a better collective future in order to realize what I can do, now, in the present.

I guess philanthropy is simply the move to reach out to others and give something of yourself (whatever that may be) in order to help make life better.

Peace

[Phil Cubeta]

Philia means civic friendship. Philanthropy is to make the world a better place. Caritas is loving kindness. Your account stresses each, but connects realms and worlds, so many communities. I was personlly very interested in your story because I had tried so hard for many years to place your voice. Clearly, you are well read, in critical theory and the like, but your voice is not academic. Also you seemed somehow more more street smart, more wised up than most who cite crtical theory. The passion in your writing for both clarity and justice was something I don't see often, in any venue. So it helped to see how you had come to your hard won perspective.

[Thivai]

I'm glad it helped you to situate my various influences... I am and am not an academic (we all have to make a living somehow...)

Peace,

Michael aka Thivai

[Phil]

Well put, Thivai. "I am not an academic, I just work as one."