From: Reynold Ruslan Feldman
My Creative Contribution: Some of my “Stand-Up Wisdom”

My Vision:

In this 25-minute video of a talk I gave last November on Maui, 59 years of latihan meet my Yale Ph.D. education and tradition of Catskill-Jewish shtick: https://www.reynoldruslan.com/wfl.html. (Click link to see video). Lots of Subud USA members know me and might enjoy this taste of my Stand-Up Wisdom. They might even be moved to buy my co-authored new book, WISDOM FOR LIVING–LEARNING TO FOLLOW YOUR INNER GUIDANCE. Thanks for all your consistently excellent work on behalf of us Subud creatives here in the US of A. Cheers and blessings in this time of the plague, Ruslan

Bio:

I was born in New York City on November 6, 1939, the first son and second child of Jack Newton Feldman, grain merchant, and Estelle Potash Feldman, housewife and mother. I grew up in a secular household in both Manhattan and the nearby suburbs. My first spiritual guide, from age 18 months to age 16, was Florine Tolson Bond, who was what was then called “the Colored maid.” She became my mother of choice, role model, and the reason my Kindergarten teacher sent a note home about my “speech problem”: This blond-haired, blue-eyed Jewish boy was speaking Black English!

When I was 11, my parents sent me to Peddie, in 1951 an American Baptist-affiliated boarding school in Hightstown, New Jersey. After four years and two summers there, I graduated and went on at age 16 to Yale. An undergrad there for three year—I spent my junior year as an exchange student at Heidelberg University, Germany—I graduated near the top of my class in 1960 with a B.A. in English. After a year of work in Chicago, I returned to Yale to get my master’s (1962) and doctorate (1966), also in English. My subsequent teaching and administrative career (1965-1991) took me to Queens College of the City University of New York, the University of Hawaii, the East-West Center (Honolulu), the University of Maryland in Germany, Northeastern Illinois University (Chicago), Metropolitan State University (The Twin Cities), and the Minnesota State University System. During those years I had such titles as professor of English, intercultural activities officer, academic director and dean, academic vice president, and assistant to the state-system chancellor for international programs. From 1992 on, I worked as a higher-education and nonprofit consultant, administrator, and fundraiser. More recently I have been a tutor, language teacher, and editor as well as a high-school English teacher, both in Hawaii and Indonesian Borneo.