Hawaii Years · Maui · Oahu · Kauai · The Open Pacific

Hero’s Journey · The ElixirGo East, Young Man

One Taste: the story of leaving clock time, answering the islands, following bliss, living out of a $100 SAAB, teaching, stepping onto the set of LOST, and discovering that the present moment was not a pause in life. It was the point.

Aloha Time Huna Hidden Hands LOST One Taste

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Prologue · Mid-November 2011

By mid-November, I was in Maui.

I am not smart enough to be wrong all the time. Whether I geographically moved to Hawaii or psychologically remembered what I could feel when I was there, I kept breathing and kept winning over death—not by living forever, but by living timelessly, right here, right now.

To live in this vastness is to bathe in the ocean that mystics call One Taste.

Ordinary World

Clock time, caffeine, malls, and default settings.

The mainland measured life. Hawaii made the measurement disappear.

Hawaii was the experience that answered all my questions about time: it did not exist. Everything is NOW on a ship, and the only easy day is YESterday. On the Pacific Ocean, I may not have been Mr. Right, but I felt okay being Mr. Right Now.

When we docked off Kona or in Kauai, I was in the moment. It was only on the mainland—where my Aloha vibe got distracted by caffeine and malls—that I went back on default.

The monotony of the mainland collapsed time. The novelty of Kauai unfolded it. Just saying the word “Hawaii” is like talking about my youth, a place of firsts where memory becomes vivid because novelty keeps writing new pages into the life story.

Field Note 01

The two selves

There is always mental time travel: the clash between the experiencing self and the remembering self. Identity is the internalized life story we keep telling ourselves.

Autobiographical Philosophy

“Aloha Time lets things happen when they are ready to happen—and I was ready to happen.” Moonwalking with the Kahunas

Na Pali

Novelty unfolds time.

Four Hawaiian words

Aloha. Mahalo. E komo mai. Ono.

Joy is the voice of love

Sing your own song.

The Call

Jump ship and say Aloha.

The call did not arrive as certainty. It arrived as movement.

On board the SS Constitution

A deckhand stepping beyond the ordinary.

Long before cruising the open seas, I jumped ship—literally. A Merchant Marine turned adventurer, I traded a structured life at sea for the spiritual call of the Hawaiian Islands. Armed with a duffel bag and a sense of destiny, I landed on Maui.

The Aloha vibe hit like a warm wave: slow, sacred, and full of synchronicity. I called it Aloha Time, where life did not rush but unfolded.

Standing under a sprawling banyan tree in Waikiki, I wrapped my arms around the trunk and made a promise: Go for it—even if you fail. The banyan became a guidepost: strength, roots, resilience, and new beginnings growing from the old ones.

“It starts with sacrifice. From sacrifice comes bliss. Follow your bliss. Find where it is, and do not be afraid to follow it.” Joseph Campbell

Waikiki Banyan Tree Hugger

Promises made beneath new roots.

Kaaawa

The reverse commute became a new direction.

Be(ing) There

Aloha is not a greeting. It is a practice of presence.

Answer the Call

From car seat to call sheet.

No agent. No certainty. A $100 SAAB, teaching contracts, and hidden doors opening anyway.

After moving from Maui to Oahu, I bought a car and turned it into a makeshift home. A Marine was deploying to Iraq. He said, “Give me $100.” I did. The SAAB carried me to Kaaawa and a reverse commute over the Likelike Highway.

The first thing I did was start teaching. Then I sent a headshot to Hawaii Film Studios—no agent and no expectations. They could not give me the acting role because I looked too much like the lead actor. The universe offered another route: stunt double, background work, film sets, and eventually a gig on LOST.

Teaching contracts rolled in. One gig led to another. Hawaii was giving back. What looked improvised from the outside felt strangely aligned from within.

The Hidden-Hands Equation Follow bliss → enter the track → meet the people → doors appear. Not certainty before action. Direction revealed through action.

The $100 SAAB

Great car. Cheap shelter. Expensive freedom.

First, teaching

Capability before credentials. Show up and do the work.

LOST

A journey begins where the trail disappears.

With Terry O’Quinn

Next, the set became part of the journey.

With Josh Holloway

Learning by doing, the island way.

Vincent the Dog

Guardian of the beach. On the set.

Foreign Land

Aloha Time and the open ocean.

The islands were not a background. They changed the operating system.

Living in Hawaii created a space for personal exploration, oneness, and the mystical practice of Huna: the sacred knowledge of mana, Chi, and the life force. It was less about escaping reality than changing the attention through which reality was experienced.

In Hawaii, adults wore shorts and flip-flops and did not apologize for it. Aloha Friday. Naked Tuesdays. The island was not interested in how things were done “up North.” That indifference created room to become less performed and more present.

Aloha Time is Divine Time. You get paid for who you are on the Divine Payroll: an energetic force that has your best interest at heart and can be tapped whenever attention, action, and openness line up. It is more than liquid. It is a fluid life.

Audio Field Note

Huna, Hollywood, and the Open Ocean

The Ed Reif story: Hawaiian adventure, hidden hands, and following bliss.

Full Frontal Luau

The Garden Island before all the doors opened.

Nawiliwili, Kauai

Attention follows energy. Everything is energy.

The Garden Island

Peace, Loveism, and a new reality under construction.

Watch the hands

They tell a story. “They have hands?”

Aloha Field Note

The islands teach through atmosphere as much as explanation.

Life of Pie

Infinite possibilities and conscious experience.

Trials

Forget clock time. Rewire the story.

The trial was not surviving the island. It was keeping the island alive after leaving it.

Analysis is paralysis. What you focus on gets bigger. The more I repeated a way of living, the more likely I was to live that way again. Neurons that fire together wire together. Neurons that fire apart wire apart.

Every day in Hawaii was a day away from old addictions and a reorganization of the brain: a re-creation and reshaping of reality. “Do not just stand there—do nothing.” Procrastinate now. Seven days can make one weak, but someday is the busiest day of the week in Kauai.

I once called the pull of Hawaii nostalgia—the suffering caused by an unappeased yearning to return. Later, it felt more like the reminiscence bump: the vivid memory created by novelty, firsts, and the continuing construction of identity. I was still becoming the person I was going to be.

Trial 01

Improvisation

Living in the car, teaching, auditioning, and moving without guarantees.

Trial 02

Identity

Learning to be more than the mainland’s default story or the island’s “other.”

Trial 03

Return

Bringing Aloha Time home without turning it into a souvenir.

Then I bought this SAAB

A trial can look like a vehicle with no fixed address.

The set of LOST

The trail disappeared. The next role appeared.

Beautiful Hawaiian Film Studios

Learning the art by doing the work.

The Elixir · Active Stage

One Taste.

Not a destination. A way of seeing, focusing, loving, and returning to now.

The Elixir

One Taste

Living timelessly, right here, right now.

Hawaii did not answer every question by providing an explanation. It answered them by changing the experience of time. The present moment became the place where power, attention, love, and action met.

The Aloha Equation Attention → energy → experience → identity. What you focus on gets bigger. What you practice becomes the story you can live.

IKE

The world is what you think it is.

Be aware. Perception shapes the reality available to you.

KALA

Everything is possible.

Be limitless. Boundaries are often agreements before they are facts.

MAKIA

Energy flows where attention goes.

Be focused. Attention is the steering mechanism.

MANAWA

Now is the moment of power.

Be here. The only usable time is the present one.

ALOHA

To love is to be happy with.

Be happy. Harmony begins with how the moment is received.

MANA

All power comes from within.

Be confident. Agency is the beginning of transformation.

PONO

Effectiveness is the measure of truth.

Be in tune. What works in life is tested in life.

“Follow your bliss and do not be afraid. Doors will open where you did not know they were going to be.” Joseph Campbell · Hidden Hands

Hawaii was not a detour. It was a recalibration: live slower, breathe deeper, stay abundant with less, and trust that presence can be practical. The lesson was not to chase roles but to follow roots—like the banyan.

I did not find fame. I found presence. When people asked what Hawaii taught me, the answer became simple: Show up. Hug the tree. The rest will unfold.

The Huna and the Spirit of Aloha

Hospitality informed by presence, harmony, and attention.

The next horizon

Fiji would soon be next. The elixir travels.

2011 Hawaii South Pacific Trip Reports

2007 Hawaii Field Notes

Time Millionaire Go East, Young Man

Final Reflection

The place changed. Then the place changed me.

Hawaii became the experience against which clock time, work, attention, identity, hospitality, and the future were measured. One Taste was the elixir: not living forever, but living timelessly—and carrying that quality of presence into whatever horizon came next.

Go East Young Man