Having read Ran for many years, I can tell you that he is definitely "giving back" by sharing with his readers and the world his thoughts and himself in a most

Having read Ran for many years, I can tell you that he is definitely "giving back" by sharing with his readers and the world his thoughts and himself in a most honest and kind way while living according to his principles. Yes his ideas are provocative, and I wish more of us were able to critique our own thinking, our own group-think, and our own society as he does. He reminds us constantly how our willingness and need to identify--our allegances--become an easy way for us to stop thinking for ourselves. It takes real work to maintain a remove from the propoganda around us, to be able to see it for what it is, and act against it by helping others to open their minds a little (or a lot). A couple of you have noticed his "Land Blog." See how he uses his land project as a laboratory for his own thinking, and to test the concepts that so many people are only talking about yet seem to have such strong opinions on while never having actually DONE anything like that. It might also interest some of you to know that he used to accept donations, but lately due to having come into a small amount of money, discourages them. Though he has manners and will accept a gift graciously. It is clear that so many of the commenters here work quite dilligently to defend their own closely held beliefs and ways of living, while trying to find faults with alternative ideas that are not THAT far removed from your own. What is the threat you perceive? That maybe some of the life choices you have made and the belief systems you have invested in may have been a wrong turn, a dead-end, or at least not the ones that create joy and happiness? Rigidity of thinking is widespread, and some of the most rigid minds I've encountered are those that consider themselves far-left new-agers! (though I don't mean to suggest that describes the posters here).