Jacob

"I'm egotistical enough to accept that," he says with a grin, replying in joking philosopher-speak.  That means I can write about him.

He used to live in Kalamazoo.  Today, though, Jacob pretty much lives here, in the local campus coffee shop. Some might say he's the stereotype of the coffeehouse hound:  sweater-wearing, bearded, spouting off about Sartre and Kant.

But that's not him.  With a six-foot-plus frame topped with a shock of blond hair, he towers over most of the people at the Moose Cafe.  His goal is to try and piece together the limits of human thought.  At 19, he's also been published in an academic journal, but he won't tell you that offhand, or lord it over your head.  He wants to discuss, not dominate.

This is just where he puts his thoughts together, over a cup of Mexican Organic, hunched over a dimly-lit tall table next to the carriage doors and self-serve coffeepots.

"I come here because of the pleasant aesthetic," he says, "I like to come here for the academic kind of environment that it offers, as opposed to my house which offers distractions.  The library's reserved for the most intense work, which is why I frequent the Moose more often."

He glances down at the outline he's working on for class:

"You think this is a good enough outline of Socrates, in sentences?"

It probably is.