CURRENT MISSION

Writing an astral fantasy trilogy called Zone Girls.

Pretty out there.

Using the Web to help Earth survive and thrive.

Plus writing a fantasy trilogy to create a new global mythology.

Maintaining a strict yoga and meditation practice.

ABOUT ME

I have traveled to over 70 countries and have lived in four.

More by accident than design.

I have also lived in many monasteries with Buddhist masters.

I guess that's a psychic kind of couch surfing!

Pretty weird karma....

http://www.scars.tv/harvest/gems.htm

I have plunged into the internet for the last fourteen years and I have guided global virtual teams in order to accomplish all kinds of artistic projects. I'm something of a crowd-sourcer.

A global mind is being born and climate change and information smog now threatens us all.

We need more Gaian literacy!

Plus more meditation practice.

My site:

www.spiritualscififest.com

I am the writer/producer/director of the web comedy: The Daily Minute which is being turned into a new musical with transmedia dimensions.

http://www.youtube.com/user/DAILYMINUTE

I'm also working on a big animation project:

http://gingersmudge.com/gs/

My Twitter profile:

https://twitter.com/#!/Michael_Finberg

I have also 15 books on Kindle.

No big deal.

I'm a financial trader and former CEO.

OK, now Crowdsurfers, what's on your delicate minds?

PHILOSOPHY

The wise man takes no action until that final necessary moment.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

Mostly surfing. I surfed on the east coast, California, and Utah. A smaller echo of a bigger and longer ten year California and global quest that occurred twenty years ago.

I must say this right now. My hosts have been a miracle. Real generosity. They have taught me a lot too---despite the usual emotional ups and downs.

This year my couchsurfing went to southeast Asia.

I have had nine hosts in Vietnam.

A few hosts in Sri Lanka and Cambodia.

The big lesson?

Keeping an even mind keel has been the REAL test and reward of this epic journey.

Homer and Kerouac are real living people for me. I'm doing their kind of adventures and like them I'm documenting them in order to inspire other people.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

It's about making meaningful and personal connections in a shrinking world.

Here is my ode to my American CS hosts in 2012-14:

Dear CS hosts and guides,

What a great journey it has been.

I left Oakland by train in March of 2012 and the CS adventure began in Chicago with Yakov.

I then arrived in NYC and made it my base of operations for the next two years.

Thanks to all of you I was able to visit cheaply a wide urban arc of the east-coast from Salem/Boston all the way down to Richmond.

Some of you, I have not heard from since my visit to you.

Some of you, I have corresponded briefly since my visit.

Some of you, I have not only had long correspondence with, but have visited you multiple times.

Two times, three times!

It's all good.

I had hosts as young as 21 and as old as 70+

Hosts of both genders and of different sexual orientations.

Hosts from India and other countries and of course many American hosts.

25 hosts in all.

I had stays of a single night to almost ten days to five months plus.

I was given a car to drive around Rhode Island by one host.

I slept on couches, floors, and in private rooms.

I want to thank you all for your hospitality and to urge you to continue to extend hospitality to other couch-surfers.

The cultural and spiritual exchange was superb.

There were sometimes some social frictions, but that's all part of traveling and being alive on our planet.

CS despite new challenges today does work and continues to make a difference.

It was great being hosted in Salem, Boston, Hyannis Port, Providence, Stamford, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Philadelphia, Philadelphia's New Jersey suburbs, Washington DC, Baltimore, and Richmond often by multiple hosts in the same city.

Utah for five months plus was great.

NYC was a huge challenge, but I made many new friends and had some big media adventures and I finally created a new animation brand and a new dark sitcom.

So life has been good.

CS has been a bold experiment.

Thank you!

Michael

Interests

Too many things. Yoga, Buddhism, systems thinking, film, books ,sci-fi, fantasy, psychology, psychotherapy, history, music, meditation, internet, social media, video, travel, religion, geopolitics, comedy, comics, languages.

• writing
• books
• design
• yoga
• meditation
• comics
• tv
• traveling
• music
• surfing
• buddhist
• animation
• communications
• geopolitics
• history
• languages
• psychology
• religion

Music, Movies, and Books

Too many to jot down....

2001, Solaris, Midnite Cowboy, Catch 22, Breathless, Tootsie....

Beatles, Doors, Bach, MOZART, Stravinsky, world music, techno, disco, TV show themes, electronic music, jazz, soul, reggae, Dylan, Nirvana, Rolling Stones, Eagles, Dead Can Dance, Eurythmics, Sting, Big Band, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Pink Floyd, movie soundtracks....

Finnegan's Wake, On the Road, Catcher in the Rye, Climate wars, The Turning Point, The Third Wave, Norton Anthology of Poetry....

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Dropping into the Tibetan rabbit-hole by accident for two hairy weeks in 1984.

Teach, Learn, Share

I can pretty much talk about any subject. If I don't know a subject well. I can quickly ask the right questions.

What I Can Share with Hosts

An interesting visit and unusual ways of seeing things.

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Bahamas, Belgium, Bermuda, Bhutan, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Canada, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, El Salvador, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kuwait, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, Monaco, Myanmar, Nepal, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Philippines, Poland, Russian Federation, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Thailand, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Vatican City State, Viet Nam

Countries I’ve Lived In

Indonesia, Israel, Mexico, Sri Lanka, United States