About Paul
December 3, 2007
I live along the Front Range of the Rockies, near Cheyenne Mountain.
I like walking about the town, hiking the hills and mountains, camping in the wilderness, and soaking nude in hot springs.
I paid my college room and board to study philosophy by fighting fires for the city.
I once owned and operated a small business with 13 employees, including my bimbo ex-secretary, who I was especially fond of, in part because she taught me — better than anyone else — that people with absolutely no intellectual interests could be lovely, wise and compassionate.
When I was 16, I hitchhiked around the Western United States, living on the streets of the cities I found myself in. At that time, I was one of four people I met who were 16 or younger. Nowadays, there are thousands of kids younger than 16 living on the streets.
I didn’t figure out I’d married my first wife for her looks until after I was divorced — the obvious often escapes me.
I was raised in a tiny Mid-Western American town of 2,500 people in which the dogs were allowed to vote in local elections on the theory they knew everyone in the community just as well as anyone.
My second marriage was to a brilliant, but abusive woman who herself had been abused as a child, and it created in me an intense interest in fighting against all manner of abuse.
At thirty-seven, I lost nearly everything I owned, including everything I’d built my self-identity on, and consequently discovered the art of dying. I haven’t felt afraid of death since.
Apart from the nine things mentioned above, there is nothing else about me that could possibly interest anyone. That’s the greatest tragedy of my life: I haven’t enough personal stories to keep up my end of a good bar conversation — a fact I feel compelled to compensate for by indulging in endless jokes about farts.
Please enjoy the blog, and feel free to comment on any post!
Paul Sunstone




















My StumbleUpon Page
December 3, 2007 at 11:25 AM
Oooh, I just love to be the first one to comment on the about page! So here I am! I think you are going to absolutely LOVE wordpress Paul. And you will build up traffic in no time as you not just post regularly, your posts are really good, and very interesting.
Have fun!
December 3, 2007 at 6:12 PM
I can’t think of a better person to be the first to comment on my About page, Nita! Thank you!
December 12, 2007 at 11:54 AM
OK, so your here, and you are over there too…on my blogroll I mean.
Thanks,
Poetman
December 12, 2007 at 4:58 PM
Thanks so much for the link, Poetman!
January 19, 2008 at 8:03 PM
Paul, the detail about the hot springs caught my attention. There is a place south of where I live called Warm Springs, where FDR built a home called the Little White House. He established a cure center for polio there. Hot springs are one of the planets little gifts.
January 20, 2008 at 3:53 AM
I think I’ve been more at peace with myself and this world while soaking in hot springs than in nearly any other situation, Mariacristina. I agree they are one of the planets little gifts!
February 8, 2008 at 12:02 PM
I don’t know why I just found your blog today, but feel fortunate to do so. Intelligent conversation, clarity, willingness to consider topics necessary to think about – a lot to like. I’m putting you on my blogroll. G
February 23, 2008 at 10:16 AM
Isn’t it funny how chance things take us to another possibility? Looking for the Galway Kinnell poem, When One Has Lived A Long Time Alone, this blog appeared. Perhaps the long and hard winter, the seemingly endless gray–whatever, that sense of my place in the world and its place in me as I hibernate was huge……..nice conversations here.
February 25, 2008 at 11:58 PM
Thought provoking conversations indeed… I Liked your blog a lot, and I am adding you to my blogroll.
I will visit again.
February 27, 2008 at 11:19 AM
@Suburban Life: Welcome to the blog! Thank you so much for adding me to your links! I hope I continue to deserve the honor you’ve done me.
@Julie: Welcome to the blog! Thank you very much for the warm compliment!
@Anamika: Welcome! Thank you so much for adding me to your blogroll! I hope you continue to enjoy the conversations here.
February 27, 2008 at 5:02 PM
I stumbled upon your site. I was looking up something about soul mates. I like what you wrote on here. Thanks for the insight.
March 19, 2008 at 4:55 PM
Came over here via Enreal, looking for one Paul and finding another.
Just today I was speaking with a colleague of mine wondering how on earth my interests can be so widely spread, torn between studying quantum physics or brain plasticity, while thinking about starting Arabic (in an Alzheimer’s prevention fight), enjoying business yet longing for creative writing and feeling that I’m betraying marine biology.
So it felt good to read about your ample interests and I’m looking forward to reading more of you.
May 17, 2008 at 9:35 PM
Paul, I have given you a Thoughtful blogger award. Do check it out.
May 17, 2008 at 9:37 PM
Its so weird, I wrote that comment while I was not signed in to my wordpress blog (I am right now not in town), but typed in the url of my blog, but even then my avatar didn’t appear.
May 20, 2008 at 12:46 AM
Thank you, Nita!!!
I guess they haven’t worked out all the bugs from the avatars yet.
May 28, 2008 at 8:41 AM
Nude Hot Springs Soaking, eh? So that’s what brought you by my blog!
May 28, 2008 at 4:09 PM
Hi Nerd! It’s good to see you again! Well, I heard you had a hot springs on your blog and just had to investigate!
June 23, 2008 at 10:48 AM
Paul – It appears to me that you put the “calm” in common sense (rare enough these days by itself), and while I haven’t read much here yet, I have greatly appreciated what I’ve seen. Thanks for providing your thoughtful insights, attracting more of them, and judiciously handling the inevitable “outliers”.
Best of luck to you in the future.
- Tim Prosser ( I have several wordpress blogs)
June 23, 2008 at 10:56 AM
Tim, thank you so much for those kind words! I look forward to exploring your blogs!
By the way, Tim, what has most made this blog meaningful to me has been the commentators like yourself who share their insights on it.
June 27, 2008 at 7:38 AM
Hey Paul! Thank you for the link. I didn’t even realize you had included it till I started seeing traffic show up from it. I appreciate it.
June 27, 2008 at 3:53 PM
You’re very welcome, Mr. Blues! You’ve got an excellent blog!
August 19, 2008 at 5:40 AM
Paul, Thanks for visiting my blog. It must be great to live by the Rockies. I love nature too.
September 5, 2008 at 12:37 PM
I notice you have me in your blogroll, Thank you. I was subscribed to your blog and I will add you to mine
.
September 5, 2008 at 3:40 PM
Thank you so much, Dinesh! I love your blog!
September 18, 2008 at 10:32 PM
Hi Paul,
Came to know about your blog through Nita’s magnum opus.
Congratulation on the award she has given you and from what little I read of your posts, you deserve it.
Will be back to ruminate at leisure.
Cheers!!!
October 9, 2008 at 9:10 PM
Thanks, Mavin! Those are very kind words. I hope you enjoy the blog!
October 31, 2008 at 9:03 AM
So you are still alive!
It’s been too long since we exchanged lengthy streams of words.
Care to fill me in on your summer? With as much colour as possible, please! >.<
November 1, 2008 at 7:30 AM
Hi Eryn! Good to see you again! I’ll email you.
November 20, 2008 at 7:55 PM
Paul:
A personal note for you (you can delete this after reading if you wish)–
I feel a sense of bonding with you (if it makes any sense in the virtual world), even though we differ a lot in our approaches to life in its various aspects.
In that sense, I often write comments directed to you that may sound acerbic or critical. They are not meant to be. I mean what I say in genuinely benevolent ways with only fun and humor. Because of the understanding I think we have, I don’t put in smileys when I write to you. I hope we understand each other clearly, and that you do not feel any offense at my jokes and jibes.
November 20, 2008 at 8:17 PM
Hey Doc! I feel the same sense of a bond between us. The teasing that goes on between us reminds me so much of the teasing that goes on between me and my two brothers. It never offends me. In fact, it delights me!
I’ve noticed, though, that at least a couple of times other commentators have read what you or I have written to each other and assumed that we were serious. I’ve tended to dismiss that as their problem not ours.
November 21, 2008 at 12:03 AM
Absolutely!
January 21, 2009 at 1:47 PM
I love the line about when you figured out what attracted you to your first wife. Sometimes it takes a while — or things have to smack us between the eyes for us to get ‘em.
Saul Bellow has a character (Henderson the Rain King, I think) who is chopping wood when a small chunk bonks him in the forehead and as a result he changes his life, traveling to Africa …
Could it be you have more for your “About” page than what has bopped you on the noggin so far?
January 27, 2009 at 5:15 AM
Thanks, Ben! I really can think of much that’s really interesting to add to my “About” page — except a fart joke or two.
February 3, 2009 at 2:17 AM
Paul, I ahve been here before. But now I have decided to subscribe, if only to look at the portraits, nudes and other artwork you put up time to time.
February 3, 2009 at 2:46 AM
Poonam, I am honored! Thank you so much!
March 13, 2009 at 10:55 AM
I just want to know where there are hot springs I can soak nude in.
/love being naked
March 13, 2009 at 12:13 PM
paul…i found your site looking at various other sites on pascal’s supposed “god shaped vacuum” quote…what he actually said is…
What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself. [Pascal, Pensees #425]
I choose to believe pascal is correct as is “ralf” that you quoted…
I must respectfully disagree with you also when you said… “Bluntly put, what Ralf has told me about his god doesn’t turn me on, for I don’t care if my god-given purpose on earth is to be tested for whether I merit an afterlife in a heaven or a hell.”
Bluntly put…we all merit hell…for all have sinned and fall shot of the glory of god (romans 3:23)…you and I both fall in that category…it is our sin that has caused the vacuum within us…
your (and my) god-given purpose on earth is to glorify him…the one who created you, us…at least that is what I believe…
the vacuum is filled when we acknowledge we are sinners, need a savior, and accept Christ as that savior…then and only then can life have purpose and meaning…
March 13, 2009 at 12:28 PM
i forgot to click the notify me of follow-up comments about my comment above…
March 14, 2009 at 11:48 AM
@ Wolfshowl: Google up Valley View Hot Springs in Colorado.
March 14, 2009 at 11:50 AM
@ Richard: Welcome to the blog! Sin is a religious concept that I do not happen to believe in.
March 16, 2009 at 10:01 AM
Paul: thanks for an honest response…i don’t have time to talk now…but i would like to continue to communicate…OK with you?
March 16, 2009 at 10:03 AM
Sure, but please contact me by email at paul_sunstone@q.com I’d prefer not to clutter up my “About Page” with a long discourse. Thanks!
April 16, 2009 at 11:57 AM
Hi Paul – great blog you have here, I’m adding you to the Blogroll on my nascent blog … it focuses on synchronicity/coincidences, but will be dealing quite a bit with mystical experiences and awareness as well, since it was one of those experiences that led me to my first synchronicity, and I’ve never been able to get back to my former snug, smug, and secure fundamentalist rationalism ever since.
Right now I have about a dozen of your blog posts open in different tabs, I look forward to catching up on your archives and keeping up with your explorations going forward. Thanks for blogging.
PS – are you familiar with the recent studies done at Johns Hopkins regarding magic mushrooms, mystical experiences, and their effects? The study came out in 2006 and a 14 month follow-up was recently published – very interesting stuff!
April 16, 2009 at 12:12 PM
Hi Teapotshappen! Welcome to the blog! Thank you for your kind words and encouragement. It’s quite interesting how our experiences in life have a way of challenging our “fundamentalist rationalism”, isn’t it? Obviously, there are limits to the purely rationalist model. I am looking forward to reading your blog and hearing what you have to say.
Oh, and thanks for the heads up on the John Hopkins study — I’ll see if I can find it through Google.
April 22, 2009 at 7:43 PM
Nice to meet you Paul. I seriously doubt you’d be a boring bar conversationalist!