Mark Koester’s Online Professional Resume

Welcome to my “webbed” space, Markwk.com. For some time and on multiple occasions, I have sought to try to establish a “theme” for my blog with little success. Philosophy, sociology, web design, cross-cultural experience and understanding, religion and atheism, storytelling, language study, travels and life abroad  (specifically in France and China)  and recently starting a business abroad are all part of my ever-evolving trains of thought and regularly appear in my writings. I am a lay philosopher and indoctrinated foreigner.

I stake no claim to authority nor truth. I am human and search for answers humanly in the Nietzschean genealogical tradition of the “art of mistrust” and Husserl’s phenomenological approach. In the spirit of the Islamic Mystic Ibn ul’Arabi’s words, “Deliver us, oh Allah, from the sea of names,” I avoid name dropping and referencing. Saying “according to So-and-So” or “he said that” does not improve human thinking, it is only a technique to makes you seem more informed. I am open to mistakes and thoroughly enjoy criticism and intellectual challenges I am neither guard but simply a guardian of critical thinking

I grew up in the United States and I have lived abroad in France and now China since 2005. Apart for readings across multiple disciplines, I have a background in philosophy and sociology. Until recent difficulties with Google in China, I used to have two blogs hosted on Blogger/Blogspot entitled “The Mystic Atheist” and “Reflected Space,” whose spirits and writings I have absorbed here. I am self-taught and fluent in French, Spanish and Chinese as well as in web design and certain web languages like HTML, CSS, PHP, and SQL. I am a geek who can speak computer.

My primary targets of thought are situated in “in-between” places where the certitude of our normalized ways of thinking and our everyday assumptions cease to provide the answer. It’s easy to talk about our homelands when we are at home but once we’ve been abroad, à l’étranger, guowai (国外) or outside of your country you begin to feel all homecomings as fragile. The fragility of our homes and these awkward feelings of our own alienation (as a person and as societies) speak a truth that I hope to call more attention to.

There is no god guarding the light, only us homely humans minding the borderlands.

Mark Koester
Chengdu, China

PS – If you enjoyed something you read, I’d love to hear from you or read something you’ve written. Please send me your comments and questions to mark at marwk.com.

MysticAtheist: Understanding what it means to be “the still point of the turning world”

Reflected Places: “There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.” - Edith Wharton

Check Out Some of My Favorite Posts

• http://www.markwk.com/2009/04/hearing-the-unexpected-and-finding-the-unmistakable-est-ce-que-tu-mentends.html
• http://www.markwk.com/2008/12/knocks-and-noises.html
• http://www.markwk.com/2008/11/let-me-paint-you-a-picture.html
• http://www.markwk.com/2008/10/maps-postcards-and-the-fragrant-remainder-constructing-a-world-that-feels-like-home.html
• http://www.markwk.com/2008/09/her-legs-were-shaking-and-her-back-was-arched.html
• http://www.markwk.com/2008/09/getting-rubbed-down-at-yoyo-an-anecdote-from-a-chinese-toilet.html
• http://www.markwk.com/2008/09/chinese-water-coolers-dont-cool-the-water-finding-and-losing-your-place-in-a-world.html
• http://www.markwk.com/2008/06/walden-globalized-or-life-paths-in-the-world’s-language-woods.html
• http://www.markwk.com/2008/03/the-reader-became-the-book.html
• http://www.markwk.com/2008/03/strangely-not-at-home-being-at-home-and-away-from-home.html
• http://www.markwk.com/2008/04/universality-or-transculturality-of-human-rights.html
• http://www.markwk.com/2008/02/imaginary-studies-in-individualistic-island-living-on-lost-pt-1.html
• http://www.markwk.com/2008/02/imaginary-studies-in-individualistic-island-living-on-lost-pt-2.html
• http://www.markwk.com/2008/02/france-one-nation-under-the-french-language-unseen-tensions-in-the-national-fabric.html
• http://www.markwk.com/2008/01/the-future-of-economic-political-socio-cultural-and-ethical-interconnections-what-if-all-borders-were-abolished-part-1.html
• http://www.markwk.com/2008/01/the-future-of-economic-political-socio-cultural-and-ethical-interconnections-what-if-all-borders-were-abolished-part-2.html
• http://www.markwk.com/2008/01/mapping-our-place-in-the-virtual-world-pt-1-universal-and-planetary-human-right-to-freedom-of-internet-speech.html
• http://www.markwk.com/2007/12/the-loser-within-on-bukowski’s-ham-on-rye-1982.html