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Urchinism to an Urchin

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by Geo Ong

After uprooting and relocating to a new (York) city, I’ve come into contact with new people on almost a daily basis. And, naturally, the question that is asked of me is something along the lines of, ‘So what do you do?’

My answer is never an easy one. It’s never just one word, and when I do answer stubbornly with one word, it always necessitates explanation. Writer? Of what? Bookseller? How do you mean? Urchin? I don’t even… What is that?

What is Urchinism? UMmmmmmm...

Good question. What is Urchinism? My explanations vary, and they depend, strangely enough, on outside circumstances, such as who’s asking the question (my friend or my new personal banker), where we are (in a coffee shop or in a public loo), and how much time is allotted to my answer.

My explanations of Urchinism have teetered and tottered from false modesty (‘oh, it’s just this website’) to idealist grandeur (‘a budding artistic movement’) to genuine inexplicability (‘I don’t know, man – I just write for it’).

But don’t let this confession sully the boundless admiration you surely feel for the Urchin Movement. So what if a founding member of Urchinism couldn’t adequately explain to you what his whole purpose in life is? If you asked Ralph Waldo Emerson what American Transcendentalism was, would you actually expect an eloquent yet succinct explanation?

Okay, maybe you would, and you’d likely get one. (Emerson, that show-off!) All I can tell you is that Urchinism seems to evolve faster than we notice. As you may have read from yesterday’s post, the Urchin Movement is getting a website makeover, which isn’t limited to pure aesthetics. It’ll require every Urchin – the three of us running this site and any other Urchin out there – to ask what Urchinism means to her or him. All I can really say right now is that Urchinism means something to me. Otherwise, I would’ve gone to business school.

But I know that answer isn’t good enough. How about this one: What is Urchinism to me? Urchinism is my unexplainable future. That, I’m quite sure of.


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