The Author.
I was born in, raised, and currently reside in Cincinnati, where I enjoy my life as a student and blogger. Having been raised with no formal religion, I eventually found a passion for Buddhism, as well as Universalist Unitarianism, both being major themes found in my writing. My other passions find their way into my blogging as well, including my love for philosophy, politics, music, and using commas.

I adhere to a strict regiment of kung-fu and heavy metal, as well as being a practitioner of Zazen meditation. As an avid computer junkie, I follow over one hundred blogs, ranging from lolcats to Guardian UK and since my switch to Linux in 2008, have happily given up Windows. I posses the rare talent to pass Freebird on Expert, and have already accomplished my life’s goal to crowdsurf. If you’d like to get more personal, check out some quick info.

My Title.
A lot of questions are asked about the nature of the title: Negative Zen. Simply put, it’s a culmination of my philosophy on life: Zen, with an emphasis on negativity. The cornerstone of my beliefs align with the teachers of the Dōgen (a Zen Buddhist) as well as a belief in suffering and impermanence. Even more simply put, life sucks, so meditate.

Blogging.
My blog was a hobby-turned passion in late 2004, when the curiosity and inspiration of my brother and sister’s blogging turned me on to the idea. My blog has chronicled my journey since I was a young boy, through the embarrassing fads and moments of enlightenment. My blog is home to my thoughts, my rants, and even my rare wisdom.

Projects
If you like my blog, or would like to trying something else, here are a few other projects I’m attached to.

Church Hop [Ended]
A co-venture into the world of religion, put together by my sister Erica. Each week we explored a new place of worship, leaving our small realm of safety to get a more worldly taste of what’s out there. (and eventually led us to our home church)

Defenders of the Hate
A blog created by myself and three other friends, we dive into our shared passion: the subculture of heavy metal. We explore some pretty awesome topics, and discuss the philosophical reasonings for why metal is the way it is: awesome.

Man, I Really Like ___
This is a smaller project based on Twitter, where I use the sentence structure of “Man, I really like”, followed by a product. This is just a twitter experiment to see what gets me followed, so check it out!