Chris Awalt

Recent submission:
Sorry, Charlie
as of May 9, 2012

Chris Awalt often finds himself the most liberal person in a room full of conservatives. Or the most conservative person in a room full of liberals. Or the most passionate person in a room full of moderates. He is, that is to say, a contrarian, a fly in the ointment, an outlier, a misfit. Having wasted his youth pursuing a life of Christian fundamentalism he has made every attempt to correct the balance at middle life by going off-grid, indulging in profligate mindfulness, and sinking his teeth into a principled and undisciplined wastrelism. He is full of contradictions and not above a little bombast.

Having grown up on a small horse farm in Texas in a town that was built around two things and two things only – oil and Friday Night Football – Chris came to have the small-town values that are characteristic of bible-thumping country. Though he was a Baptist, he learned to read, and eventually came across works by the likes of Emerson, Nietzsche, Gadamer and Ayn Rand. Through reading these and many, many others he became convinced that the purpose of society is basically to form a structural system for bossing people around. He struggled against Foucault but had to admit that the guy had a point. When he became a man and put away his childish philosophies, therefore, he came to appreciate those who ask questions and march to their own drummer.

Chris has degrees in Political Science and back in the day he thought he would eventually become a professor and the Next Great Thinker. Alas, life had other plans. He has been a traveling salesman, a college paper churner, a poet, a curriculum expert, a VP of marketing, a freelance writer, a wannabe artist, a father, a carpenter, a boy toy for a wealthy woman, an unemployed drain on society, a Pollyanna, and a hermit. He blogs about politics at truthtomendacity.blogspot.com and operates an artful living website with his two little girls at chilledart.com. He likes to take photos... boy, does he like to take photos. He also likes to think. He hopes you do, too.