On Permission and Finding My Way

For much of my academic journey, I did not feel as though I belonged in the world of academia’s upper echelons. During my first year of doctoral study, I struggled with a sense of inadequacy. I remember confiding in one of my professors, who simply asked, “What got you here?” I answered that it was my love for a blending of various ways of thought from both Eastern and Western traditions. He pressed further: “What do you love about those things?” I replied that, above all, it was their basic simplicities, their yielding to Mystery, and the permission they gave me to be myself. He looked at me and smiled, saying that seemed like the answer I needed. From that point, I was freed: I focused on the simple nature of my own being, not on trying to become a philosophical titan, but on understanding who I was and my relationship to the world.

Ironically, this act of permission did not result merely in a personal philosophy, but in a new way of interpreting reality—of considering how our consciousness interacts with reality, and how it continuously creates new realities through such interaction. In graduate school, this shift allowed me not only to hold my own within the classroom, but to excel. That permission to simply be myself granted me access to a part of myself that no one else could offer. With it, I was able not just to absorb and master the academic material, but to think creatively, to apply my unique knowledge and experiences, and to color the philosophical landscape I was beginning to sketch.

Academic achievement, however, did not wholly prepare me for the practical realities of life after graduate school. Tenure-track jobs were not forthcoming; even community college interviews often resulted in confusion about whether I was a philosopher, theologian, or religious scholar — although my program was unique, hiring committees sought narrower expertise.

At Middle Tree: Reforming What Education Can Be

So I chose a different path: I took my experiences from having been in academia and my own academic work and founded Middle Tree, a nonprofit dedicated to education reform on all levels.

Our model at Middle Tree takes shape around three core practices—each rooted in the same kind of permission and possibility that changed my own life:

Any learner can access Middle Tree’s programs — regardless of their capacity to pay.

Students are given unlimited time to work through their studies — free from arbitrary deadlines or artificial pressure.

Every student’s path is personalized — no one-size-fits-all, but an academic journey shaped for the individual.

This is what reform looks like for us: not another system layered atop the old, but a place where anyone can find their way — without barriers, without clocks ticking in their ears, and without having to relinquish their own individuality.

Being Called Back

Though, as Middle Tree grew, something continued to draw me back to the original questions that had motivated my academic work. Questions like: Why do we interpret the world in the ways that we do? Why have we as human beings shaped our consciousness as we have? These were subjects that many thinkers take the time to approach; but I was fascinated by them.

I could not let go of the ideas that originally compelled me. Eventually, I decided to self-publish my book, simply for the sake of sharing what I had produced. I did not seek out publishers or journal editors. I just made it available. Unexpectedly, the book found its audience, and the feedback was affirming. One reader in particular — Wade Franson, founder and CEO of Something or Other Publishing — insisted that my work needed to be published more broadly.

Today, I’m grateful to be able to say that, thanks to Wade — who saw something worth sharing in this project—A Philosophical War will become a publically-available three-book series, and will have a chance to reach a wider audience.

If there’s a thread winding through all of this, it’s that the best paths are often not the ones mapped out from the start — they emerge when we give ourselves permission to listen, adapt, and return to the questions that have always mattered most.

Thank you for reading, and for walking along with me on this journey.