50 Shades of Blue

 How inappropriate to call this place Planet Earth because it is surely all ocean, 

When you sail on a cruise ship  around the world , you start to borrow happiness from tomorrow; not because there is anything wrong with it, but because you will never have had such experiences like this, and the nostalgia-the suffering of remembering the past-will always be part of your future thoughts. Today is a reminder of why I do it: That Blue Stuff

 

Getting ready to join the Disney Magic on February 8th. I have managed to sail  since 2011 (Disney Wonder) 2012 (Disney Magic); 2013 ( Disney Magic); 2014 (Disney Dream) and now 2015--The Magic Again

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An I For An Island Makes The Whole World Kind

Fiji

I had an expression  "I haven't been everywhere, but it is on my list."

Living Well Is Not The Best Revenge, Moving On Is!

 I used to think working on cruise ships was bad, but I stopped thinking. I am looking BACK  at some of my adventures, which were nothing more than bad planning! And looking FORWARD to the unexpected which is nothing lesss than letting  go of the past and creating  a more AMAZING future.

There is no doubt about it, the exhilarating state of mind that travel can evoke, when everything seems suddenly fresh, vivid, intensely interesting, and memorable.

Stockholm, Sweden-The Power of New

Living well, then, isn't anything other the best way to try to live.  As I connect the dots, I am reminded: 

Seven Cruises I Had to Go on Before I Died

These next three links, however,  are before my LEFT brain got good at telling my RIGHT brain what to do:

An I For An Island- Living Well Is The Best Revenge

I think of my job as Art Director  as leading people to those moments of awe – ecstasy that overtakes you when you encounter a new idea, or place.  After all, the definition of ecstasy is that you are not doing your ordinary everyday routine....essentially stepping into an alternative reality...

Let The Orinoco Flow- One Year @Sea

In answer to the Question, "How long has he been drifting?"Celebrating One Year at Sea this week.It started in Rome Sweet Rome, then Santorini...I haven´t been everywhere, but it´s on my list...

Tranquility Base The Ego Has Landed

Space travel sure is fun. Greetings from the user-friendly universe---The Peoples Republic of Santa Monica;Home of The Mac Store, and Apple, the forbidden fruit.

First in January, I was in the Majik Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a bit like Mars.

         Then in February, I went to The Land of Smiles, Thailand, and walked on the moon.

              Finally, in March and April, I had my head in the clouds with The Helium Report, winning and losing the American dream in Macau every night, playing high-stakes no limit- poker, on The Hong Kong Express...

The best ships are Entrepenurships---

There is an I in Team--Me!

SHIP Happens-Everything that happens once will never happen again; but everything that happens twice, will surely happen again...and again...and again.

Here Are Some Of My Best Ships

Costa Atlantica-Who is driving the ship Capo (Schettino)
if you are here toasting champagne?Va Veni-Microsoft!

Pacific Pearl P&O Australia 

Celebrity Solstice- That's Greek To Me

Crystal Serenity- Why Pay Less?

Azamara Journey-Check Please

Golden Princess- Nature is More Cruise Ship Less

Princess Cruises-Alaska The GR8 Land

Royal Caribbean-Oasis of The Seas-
An Embarrassment of Coconuts

Disney Magic- As John DeLorean said "I'm going to Disneyland."

On The Disney Wonder looking at last years ship
that I was on, The Carnival Splendor that caught fire,

MSC Poesia- The  YOUniverse

MS Noordam-From Zero To Infinity

Life After Luau-American Hawaii Cruises SS Independence

An I For An Island

Travel is pied piper leading the masses to those moments of awe – ecstasy that overtakes you when you encounter a new idea, or place.  After all, the definition of ecstasy is that you are not doing your ordinary everyday routine....essentially stepping into an alternative reality.

There is an I in Team Ed 

I feel that way about living and working on a cruise ship- hours of boredom tinged with moments of hysteria, and those moments are provided by Team Ed, fun informative and entertaining  special events.

The weather is here wish you were beautiful

Call it faith!  A passion for the possible. I am full of it, and shooting from the hip that is to say,   as I stated, having an adventure is something more but nothing less than bad planning.  When I cold-called for my first ship job, and got it after a 12 minute elevator pitch, I began to trust myself, and my elevator pitch, and only when you trust yourself can you truly begin to live it up.


  

 In fact, the only thing you need if you work on a ship to finance your world travelling is a love  and passion for travelling and for what you do---- the time and opportunity is onboard the ship, and the money flows based on your commitment, focus and determination(if you are commissioned).  You get there. Your attitude will reflect your altitude. Instant gratification takes to long. You get there slowly. 


Jean Paul Sartre, the French existentialist said, 

Freedom is what you do to what has been done to you

 I would value-add that by saying ,

Freedom is what you do to what has been done to you by your own thoughts, words and actions.  (See my blog post As Seen On TV).

Malcom Gladwell's 10,000 Rule  of  practice is required to achieve a level of mastery and being a SME, Subject Matter Expert, I put in the time. His   book is about outliers, about men and women who do things that are out of the ordinary. I would have to say, living  and working on a cruise ship, is somewhat extraordinary, and definitely unusual. 

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The Experience Project-Gonzo Blogging From Cozumel

The Have And The Have Yachts-Dubai

If you love your job you’ll never work a day in your life. I decided to play it safe and just never work another day in my life, that is to say, earn a living. I'm more concerned with how to live with the space between and making the invisible real

It's the space between the bars
that holds the tiger

Write? Right!

Proust decided he’d done enough living by age 30 and decided to spend the rest of his life processing the life he’d lived in a book called Remembrance Of   Things Past.

A Zentrepeneur

 I found the loophole in The System too - If  I started my own blog- Hotel @nyware,  then I automatically had a job. Yet I continue(d) to travel because I needed more “content” and continue to do freelance work whenever I run out of cash.

Every day is a journey," wrote Basho, "and the journey itself is home. I am Basho on a frequent flyer pass, with complimentary mojo on take-off. What am I on?—I don’t do drugs I am drugs. I’m A 1 man National Geographic ON that everywhere trip.

Self-Employment was made harder because I had such a difficult boss, and, more than that, in a digital economy- Information wants to be free. Jay Z said it best “ I’m not a businessman. I’m a business, man!”  They say, until you get paid for something you love doing--it's just a hobby. I am on the divine payroll.  The Myth of Homer's Epic Odyssey are  public dreams. My dreams of cruising around the world  are private myths. Until now.

YOLO, Stuck between the Hotel California Syndrome---Check out anytime but never leave--- and Hunter S. Thompson’s "If you're not living on the edge, you're taking too much room" approach.  I have been able to fuel both worlds, living large on cruise ships, MAXING OUT and blogging about it- Literature in a hurry. 

If you're going to be crazy, you have to get paid for it or else you're going to be locked up (on a cruise ship). Hunter S. Thompson

Hours of boredom, moments of hysteria, everyday I go out of my  ind in order to come to my senses at sea.  Cruising is the IN to my sane, my own private religion where the bulk of my soul and spirit has been invested. Ed Reif Read More 
@Sea-An I For An Island

 My T.O.E. Time On Earth  doesn’t always read as a legible diary or even a larger than Life  BIO that is so off-the-chain  that I have no time for reflection and need a ghostwriter. The best thing I can say is that I am ACTING AS IF- As if it had been my intention all along- With that very empowering thought I evoke my WILL and get to say Life happens FOR me not TO me.
 The whole damn  adventure is its own payday — but it's gotta be, and it is  dangerous, risky  and has the mountain tops and the valleys--- all of them beyond control.  My Myth lets me  know where I am @.

I know both sides because I am both sides- First, there is: If it’s Tuesday, it must be Brussels  fast and furious march of stupidity called Tourism. Next, there is:  the excess and hedonism bucket-list - Read More @9 Cruises I had To Go On Before I Died

What better place to do it all then on a ship--The perfect combination---the silence of the cloister with - the license of the brothel: The live/examine days at sea and the live/relax moments in the ports of call.  

Being awake and mindful is a great attitude to inform my blog posts.  Mindfulness is sort of a continuous  attitude that makes this larger narrative process   and make it more productive.

I Have Had All The Disadvantages Required For Success
 on the Hero's Journey, no money, no time, no opportunity. 
ONLY Acting AS IF..

I Myth  You Joseph Campbell     

Telling your own story

Put the He/r in Hero. Don’t RENT your life, OWN it. Live Your Dream(s) Now, not your Back-Up Plan Later. Read More at Escape TO Reality Motion creates emotion and emotion is the key to living the hero's Journey NOW.

Time, Money, opportunities- It is not about finite resources but resourcefulness- Free isn’t  just an option when you go your own way and tell your own story, it’s the inevitable endpoint, a force of economic gravity  that is #winning at this radical  price @ $0/day. And yes there are the unknown unknowns and the Black Swan, rare but highly consequential events that will inhabit your journey and make you take a service job of last resort for a few weeks, days, hours ---Barista’s, Ditch Diggers, Grass Cutters ---Rock On! Guys with the logo baseball caps.

Capitalism is creative destruction and so is Deep Story. It’s  transformative.

Nirvana-Come As You Are

Money isn't the root of all evil, boredom is the root of all evil, a spiritual anorexia- the despairing refusal to be oneself. The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are, once you let go of the life you have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for you. Live your dream not your back up plan.

The Golden Rule- Infinite Smile

An authority is someone who authors our collective story, telling us what is “true.” We often tell ourselves these stories, take refuge in them and become intimately acquainted with these narratives, but when we tell our own story—and write our own autobiography, we truly begin to live more consciously and unfold our own myth.

On Board

What is my yoga- My yoga is being on cruise ships.

There are 3 types of PPL. Those who are alive, those who are dead,
and those who are at sea- Happy 10 Years Dr Pierre and 11 Sarah E Kennedy

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The Georgraphy of Bliss

When you revisit the past, make
sure you come back in time 

“You should  write a book”  I rather  shoot a movie, with Sequels.  A  Show rather than Tell-All.

How can I compose a story big enough, deep enough and broad enough to encompass the reality of my life? When I’m at sea, immersed in action, I am the protagonist,You can't create experiences like this, you undergo them.

The power of narrative comes forth  when I am engaged in the telling.(or selling) of these accounts.

Jumeriah Beach

Don't Stop Believin'

 There are 3 versions, First, the edited “inside version”,  Secondly, The story I tell the world, and Thirdly, my created self- or RL Real Life (story). Depending on my audience, my motive, or my mood at any given time. . . The countless possible versions of (my story) can vary widely.

Bucket Listed

“Whoever authors your story authorizes your actions.” 

Enter Sand Man (Dubai)

When we tell our own story—and write our own autobiography, we truly begin to live more consciously and unfold our own myth---with  us as producer and director, going out to sea , in an infinity of hope, it's life's coming attraction, where we have final cut. There is, indeed, the uniqueness of inhabiting our own life when we follow our bliss and tell our own story. I think that the majority of people never get inside their own lives.   Read More Here

That is the difference between living mythically (The American Dream)  and living autobiographically (The  YOUniverse) where your wishbone becomes your backbone. 

"That is what we are supposed to do when we are at our best – make it all up – but make it up so truly that later it will happen" Ernest Hemingway 

The Year Of
Magical Thinking

Read More Here

Write? Right!

A One-Man-National Geographic on that everywhere trip.

Yangoon-One Hand Clapping

The earth school kills all of its students. Life is like rowing out to sea in a boat that has a hole in the bottom. Have as much joy and fun and  fulfillment- because success without fulfillment is failure. This is known as Present-Moment Hedonism; conservative risk-averse types call it PoiZen. Traveling, is like shaving my head-if I'm not doing it everyday I start to feel like a bum.  I use traveling  as a medicine to feel differently. Traveling is a drug that gives me  a fix when I'm  down and  turns feeling normal into a buzz 

Unlike retail therapy that  ends up  being  buyer's remorse, the cure  IS the poison, and  the  fool, who persists in his folly, becomes wise. The  pressure of modern life  (or as it's also known, being lucky enough to be born in the USA) seems tiny compared to some of the beauty in the world. Seeing it all at the slower  speed  of nautical miles, magnifies it 10x, to the nth degree.

Action Plan

Doing  the right thing at the wrong time equals pain- Someday, the busiest day of the week, is the wrong time. It is never about the claim to finite resources..."not enough time, money, opportunity". It's about resourcefulness.

Long Term Travel

If travel is your dream, then live your dream now, not your back up plan. I would recommend that everyone who wanted to travel, do it immediately. Sooner  rather than later. Gather no moss. Time Marches  on. Start Now.The winds of grace always blow for us but we  have to raise our sails and just go. Read More Here

Consciousness Is Wireless

Proust decided he’d done enough living by age 30 and decided to spend the rest of his life processing the life he’d lived in a book called Remembrance Of Things Past.  I do not suffer from the "dis-ease" of more, but I still see myself traveling by cruise ship in the present perfect tense- as in: "I will have booked another world cruise by age 60."

Hooked-My Life
Based On A True Story

The  reason why I haven't written a book, is because I'm still processing it all! Looking forward to the day when  I have more PAST than FUTURE, and my experience catches up to my imagination, as the quotidian, intimate and overlooked aspects of ordinary day  become more extraordinary.

Narrow Road to The Interior

Everyone's life is either a warning or an example, but nothing is so irritating as a good example.  Go to heaven for the climate and hell for the people. Hell is other people and you usually meet them on a cruise ship---I write my own rules for nautical success: continued enthusiasm despite failure after failure.  

The Accidental Sailor

Despite the undoubted camaraderie, the laughs, the jollies and the sense of tribalism that attends any cruise contract or  project, the profession remains a notoriously lonely one. FriendSHIPS are intense but brief; when the gig ends or the curtain comes  down, you can soon find yourself back home staring at your cell phone and wondering if any of it really happened. Memories are short, time moves on, "fame" is transitory.Read More Here

Everyday Epiphanies

You Do What On A Cruise Ship?

Los Angeles-To London in 110 Days-

 Let The Orinoco Flow- One Year @Sea

Tranquility Base-The Ego Has Landed

Further Up and Further In

“I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now...Come further up, come further in!"    C.S. Lewis

 Around The World In 3 Ideas-I Myth You

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