Greetings! Thanks for dropping by, however you may have ended up here.

My name is Scott Campbell, and previously, for nearly eleven years, I maintained and occasionally posted to my previous blog, Angry White Kid. For reasons I elaborate on in my first post here, “Reorienting and debranding,” I feel a new outlet and approach calls to me at the moment. Hence, Falling Into Incandescence.

Explaining the name may help explain the purpose. Falling Into Incandescence is a phrase a professor of mine used to describe what Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was attempting to encourage humanity to undertake. In brief, it is the idea that were we to let go and fall into our authentic selves we would become incandescent with the fire of truly being alive. I make no claims to authenticity or incandescence, though I strive for both. It is that striving in written form which I aim for with this site, in particular pursuing an integration of personal well-being, spirituality and social justice. As well, I hope to encounter others who feel similarly.

If you’d like to get in touch, please leave a comment, send me an email, or connect with me on Twitter.

Some may be interested in my qualifications. Sentience and self-reflection are the two main ones. But if it matters, I have a BA and MA in Humanities and am entering a Ph.D. program in the fall of 2015. My work (writings, translations, photos and videos) have appeared in outlets ranging from La Jornada to Al Jazeera to The Jerusalem Post, though I’m more likely to be found on ZNet, Upside Down World or MR Zine. I am also member of the collective which publishes the bilingual website El Enemigo Común.

The banner image is from the piece “Plunge” by André Varela and is used with permission.

“Plunge” by André Varela

This is the farewell post from my old website, Angry White Kid, and feels like an appropriate first post on this new site.

And I promise to learn to love the way I’ve learned to fear
To unknot all the inhibitions tangled in my hair
To let my ego mound in piles around the barber chair
And make a graceful exit from my vexed and troubled years

– Saul Williams, Sea Lion

I open up Facebook or Twitter and immediately get hit by a battering ram of bad news. My social media feeds are seeing red. Once notifications or messages are tended to, I close the pages almost as quickly as I open them.

Up until a few months ago, I would have been spending much of the day online, tweeting and posting alongside my virtual comrades. Now, I cannot afford to engage in that activity.

There is a reason. For the past two years, I’ve been in an intense struggle to address a life-threatening condition. Something that has very nearly killed me. I’ve tried many different methods of treatment, and feel through much work and assistance I have arrived at an approach that, with vigilance, will hopefully keep the disease in remission.

Part of that approach has to do with me assessing the activities I’m involved in and engaging in those which are more true to myself as I’ve come to understand myself during these past two years.

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