DEPARTURE I’m not a Renaissance man, I’m a Renaissance, Man!
The experience of eternity here and now is the function of life. Eternity is realizing the greater scheme of things, and being a part of it.
The influence of my imaginary peer group They, the anonymous no one, once told me, Growing up is optional but growing old isn’t, as if my body were milk, with an expiration date stamped on the carton.
Half the agony of this kind of thinking is the waiting for that final birthday, where you hit the wall, and stop living, It is that very fear of dying, of playing it safe and secure that keeps risks in an acceptable range—like purchasing your freedom on the weekend, surfing in Manhattan Beach, or flying to Cabo for Spring Break.
Be careful when casting out the devil, Nietzsche says, because you are throwing away the best part. The Daemon, the DYNAMIC- and "They" are so against it, that they turned it into a DEVIL.
Advocating For The (Devil) Dynamic
My own powers of observation English chronology quite differently The QUEST for my own Dynamite is in the questions. Ask better questions and you get better answers. What age would I be if I didn't know what age I was? Boom! I am 20 with thirty-four years’ experience. I'm not just a dude. I'm Dyn-o-mite!
Aging for me is just a bad habit I blew up a long time ago in a science experiment. I'm not taking anything away from that rabid I-gotta-win-Rod-Tidwell's---"BOO YA! Touchdown! I make miracles happen!" line in Jerry Maguire.
As I begin to compile what I’ve lived and learned, and I become a help in straightening out lives in the friendSHIPS and "students" I’ve made/ meet along the way, my career after my career can affirm LIFE "chi"/Energy and LIFE wisdom in this new ageless "age" I've accrued. I'm a Renaissance, MAN!
MonoMYTH verses MonoCULTURE- YOUR story verses THEIRS
Sure Forty is the new 20, Fifty,the new 30; but my obsession with you(th) is purely EGOnomics---Health is Wealth, and in this story telling economy, you get paid in a currency- called The Divine Payroll. Going out to sea is the infinity of hope, the preview of life's coming attractions where I have final cut in my own movie that I co-create(d). This is not the manufactured ones (Following The Rules/ Doing What You're Told) obeying that monoculture and your inner circle(s) testify about you:
What other people say about me is none of my business. It’s never too late to have a better childhood, or to throw off your past and continue to live. It would be a disgrace to go out in a group, or join the cult of the amateur and do this. I put the ODD in God and Went Pro: Becoming my own AUTHORity and telling my own story.
Perfectly Imperfect-Making this right mistakes amounts to the opening of a destiny, simply by making "failures" into voluntary acts. This joyful participation in changing the way I look at things, changes the things I look at. Life happens FOR me not TO me.
The irony is as you take that big cosmic U Turn, it will be a unique, shape-shifting yet marvelously constant universally understood archi-typical story that we find. There is a human NEED not a want, to tell stories. Mine is The Hero's Journey Meets The Cruise Ship's Journey. (A Working Title).
Most of the time I over promise myself for things I can deliver in 365 days and under promise things I can do in a decade-But when it comes to travel, I have advanced confidently in the direction of my dreams, turned my can’t into cans, and exceeded my expectations.
It took Picasso 60 years to paint like a child. He said, “All you can dream about can become real.”. On my 50thBirthday, I left the Middle East and vowed that I wouldn't do gigs for the money. It was a return to innocence. I Got The Call. I had done things for money, for others, now I was doing something for myself. Part Indiana Jones, Part Peace Corp Volunteer, I was getting in touch with my inner NOMAD again, who I left abandoned in the streets of Tokyo, Paris, Brussels, and Barcelona, 15 years earlier.
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| Life at (20+30) in Bangkok |
“ You can only quit the company once” I was told by the HR guy, a GS11 who as addicted to his monthly salary. “You got a one way ticket back to your home of record, California right?” The correct answer to that question is always, “Bangkok, Thailand, Sir” He just rolled his eyes made the reservation, and said” The land of smiles. "Say Hi to the elephants and Buddhas”. I did. And the girls.
So I began (again) This time the gods of restlessness put me in a whirlpool of events and situations- a path that was waiting for me all the time- because I was following my bliss-well, actually my bliss was looking after me and following my progress, and everything was progress. The road to excess leads to the palace of wisdom.
Ultimately, striving through extremes to find the middle way. It's been a blessing and (with every wish comes) a curse to shed your skin like a snake The ability to throw off life and to continue to survive like a snake and just as the moon sheds it shadow. It's not good or bad, just NECESSARY. Find Out What You Love. Let It Kill You So You Can be Born Again
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| Life at (20+32) in Fiji |
After, 3 consecutive months @sea. Days of the week suddenly become countries (If it’s Tuesday it must be Belgium) and every time grid and dead line that came before is insignificant. I no longer run ON time, but run WITHOUT time in waves of probability. That’s when clock strikes 13, melding into a kind of temporal limbo. Some of my best material comes from that spaciousness- The Gap- the space between things, where you become the notice of things, is eternity. Blake says it like this -To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour.
Eternity, however, has nothing to do with time. It is that dimension by which thinking of time cuts out. The experience of eternity here and now AND is the function of your life,
Home is not where the heart is, it’s where your computer/brain is- It’s not a user friendly brain. It’s user illusionary. Eternity is realizing the greater scheme of things, and being a piece of heaven.
The YOUniverse is Karaoke Enlightenment On The Go ---A cheap imitation in a copycat fruit juiced-sandal wearing-hippie Los Angeles- land of fruits and nuts fast food monoculture. My universe is made of stories, not atoms: land, air and sea travel and the power of now. This blog has been an attempt to turn all that noise into storytelling. Instead of bringing back 3000 refrigerator magnets, I return from my trips with a collection of small but life-enhancing/ extending thoughts.
INITIATION Two Roads Appeared-I Got Lost
The cave you fear holds the treasure you seek.
The dark night of the soul comes just before revelation. When everything is lost, and all seems darkness, then comes the new life and all that is needed.
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| Life at (20+33)in Australia |
REAL travel writing is about leading an interesting life and having a good time. It’s less about where you go and more about who you go with or end up meeting along the way. Being who you are and doing what you like when you like where you like. Being There.
To live like a travel writer is better than to write about it. Travel by proxy, OPT Other People’s Thoughts, is not OPE, Other People’s Experiences. It’s not even OPM, Other People’s Money. The currency is DIY, Doing It Yourself and that is priceless. In fact Free is the radical price you pay for your own Personal travel of this sort. Sure there is the details of cost. Cost is what you pay but value is what you get. You can walk the painted line and do the Aristocratic grand tour of the world, the one in the Travel by proxy books, or you can go your own way- it’s more messy.
I went to Paris and ate a croissant and had an espresso at a cafe- What does that mean to you? It’s not what we call something that gives it its substance.You can’t get fed from the word croissant. You can’t read about this stuff, you must undergo it. It’s a transitory ephemeral and capricious. Take a bite. The Mystics call this One Taste, like all the oceans, the salt has one taste. How inappropriate to call this place Planet Earth because it is surely all ocean, both literally and figuratively.
Everything transient has a calculus of its time within itself. As I pick up the pieces of the mathematical dust created by PT (permanent travel) and connect the dots of these “mini-retirements, the hardest arithmetic to do is counting my blessings, a French word from blessure, which means “wound.” So, a blessing always has a dark side to it.
I am location neutral, untethered, unmoored, never dropping anchor too long; one of an ever growing number of the privileged homeless, where home is a feeling not a place.
Cruising hasn’t solved my problems (situations), it subsidizes them in a movable feast.
Doing the math, from Zero to Infinity:
5-2=7. I am doing less yet BEING more. because the fewer activities I DO the higher the value I can generate for them. I am one of the new rich-time affluent geeks with beacoup bandwidth of mobility and individualism.
1+1=infinity. Motion creates an emotional algebra where environment creates mood. Tomorrow may be the busiest day of the week, but the future is already here, and evenly distributed. It can come from nowhere else but the energies of the psyche.
2+2 = 5. Is the fuzzy logic in the superstition of materialism, that shared hallucination that says you MUST purchase freedom in a two week vacation.
Freedom is free. It is not for sale. The Secret is about results, flow is about process rather than achievement. The Law OF Attraction is misstated. I don’t attract what I want. I attract what I am. All the "happy" accidents, seem uncoordinated when they happen, fooled by the randomness, in reverse, seem more orderly, plotted out by a fiction writer.
Sailing around the world, provides a legitimate short cut for taking things with gratitude instead of for granted. My Adventures ,which are nothing more than bad planning, more often than not, turn into synchronicity--- being in the right place at the right time. Graced moments and a strong dose of magic lift the spirit and remind you that you are on the right path. The experiences at sea have turned my can’t into cans and leveraged my dreams into Serendipity-You Will Be Helped By Hidden Hands.
RETURN Sea Change- 20,000 Leagues Inside My Brain
The meaning of life- I Got One-the meaning of life is about the experience of realizing that your dreams have come true. That your make-believe world has become REAL.
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| Life at (20+34) in Panama |
Digital narcissism and singing my praises-me,me,me,me,me are over. No self/no enemy. When you get out of the way, you get more sublime. But you have to be a SOMEbody before you can be this NObody. Slaying the inner dragons of monoculture is easy compared to slaying the dragon of ones own holding on to the self.
It’s time to give credit where and when credit is due. The most extraordinary aspects of my being didn't come from me. The spark(s) of epiphanies that I occasionally get are less about being a genius and more about having a genie---Making Wishes.
My Sea Life as an Accidental Sailor , based on a true story is downright paranormal. How the hell did I get here? Whatever talent I possess(ed) is most def on loan from some deity, some unimaginable source and force for some exquisite portion of time, to be passed on when I am finished.
Showing Up. Being T/Here is 99%. But that other 1% is the difference between lightening and a lightening bug If you build it, you will leave- Fear is for folks who don't get out very much. Outdoors Is In!
"When you define me, you negate me'--so let me tell my own idiosyncratic story. My autobiography gives dignity and meaning to me and the universe.
I'm beginning to think that maybe it's not just how much I love being at sea. Maybe what matters is who I am when I’m doing it. I’m my best self. Character is doing what’s right when no one is looking.
All of ones problems come from the inability to spend time quietly alone in ones "room".
As much as I detest the travel (sometimes) —I love the writing and the introspection—the virtuous delights of organizing a disorganized country, itinerary or culture, and comparing it to my state of mind at that moment , stripping away the inessential and the second-rate, classifying all that remains in neat, terse blog posts, building a solid foundation with the bricks that these ports of call and at sea have thrown at me. Every blog post is an act of love and contribution. There is freedom to live in the wisdom and power to serve others and share the ecstasy of stepping into another world and not just do the ordinary day-to-day things but being a magical helper, continuing The Souls High Adventure - An I For An Island- There Is Life After Luau
All the time. It is miraculous. I even have a superstition that has grown on me as a result of invisible hands coming all the time - namely, that if you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in your field of bliss, and they open doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be. Joseph Campbell (1904 - 1987)
Thanks to Bill Moyers, and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, the Doubleday editor, whose interest in the ideas of Joseph Campbell was the prime mover in the publication of The Power of Myth.
WATCH EXCERPTS FROM THE POWER OF MYTH
RELATED FEATURES
I am not talking about staged authenticity, like my visit to Papette Tahiti. Most designers spend their time creating shopping malls. Re-creating the island paradise, however, is admirable.
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