Fire By Sea

I have a theory that every 7 years, the life of an individual goes through profound, transformative changes that effect the course the next 7 years. These changes take about a year or so to happen, but they start on the 7 year.

I’m 35 now. I’m at the 5th cycle of 7 years. So let’s go back (pardon the extreme vagueness):

• Age 7: honestly don’t remember much here.
• Age 14: the worst year of my life. Horrible pain and suffering, but I got over it.
• Age 21: significant changes to my development as a man. Got hitched and became an instant father.
• Age 28: out of college and in the workforce, which I discover really sucks and is not for me. Moved to AK, etc.
• Age 35: independence from all of which I depend on.

(June 17)

I was just in China less than a month ago. Bad company aside, I really liked the place: unified people, completely modernized, clean and good food.

It was hard wrapping my mind around how a individual in a country so huge can rise to the top, and the feeling entire families must feel knowing they don’t even stand a chance (you either go to college and come back with a progressive future or you don’t a become like the bored locker room attendant who handed me my pool slippers in the morning).

Korea was a bit different: there seemed to be more chances to “make it” but the people on the whole seemed more frustrated with their national situation. (6/28)

Before we get in to rhetoric about the definition of success, I’ll just spit this out: I am nowhere near where I’d like to be in my career and my ability to care for my family.

I wonder if I’m actually on a trajectory towards something or just spinning my wheels. I think the problem comes down to money: I need immediate money (a lot of it, too) and have to compromise my activity to make it.

If I had my choice, I’d be living somewhere more cosmopolitan and progressive and being paid very well for work I love to do and people respect me for.

Until then I’m not successful no matter what people say (to make me feel better). 6/28

I’ve started this 100 word post thing and I like it. It’s a micro-vignette on a single idea expressed without much attention to perfection.

It’s really a good thing — I can write these things really fast and gives my writing practice at least a pulse.

Of course the strategy here is to parlay this kind of writing into a cornerstone craft — something I do everyday like coffee or running or push-ups or taking a shower.

So far I’m failing, though. I tend to write a bunch of make-up posts in one sitting and then don’t write for a few days until. That defeats the idea, and is the reason why you see several posts with dates at the end (indicating when the post was actually written and published). 6/28

The way I see it, I have exactly 2 years to truly get my shit together. I will have seen one child graduate from high school and need some professional/person milestone to show for it.

Here is what needs to be done by June 2012:

• Business needs to make enough money so I can be completely autonomous and able to pay for everything with my income.
• Need to be ready to move away for one year to expand whatever it is I’m working on.
• Need to make sure all children have a secure foundation for their upbringing and young adulthood. I refuse to let them fend totally for themselves like I had to.

6/28

I’ve spent the past two weeks around people who are new to me: people who are very affluent but respectable enough to hang around. Hmmm.

The takeaway is this: being around “rich” people (and I don’t necessarily mean the said people) is really not my cup of tea. Or at least I don’t care for static wealth — just having money as part of your identity but not really showing any kind of creative genius behind it.

If I would be “rich” and I were hanging around other “rich” people I’d certainly want them to also being doing something cool that predates and precedes their wealth.

They got that way because of what they created, AND managed to retain their humanity. 6/28

No write, no life. It’s so damn simple. Writing to me is like breathing or at least exercise. When I don’t do it, my health goes south, and that’s precisely what my health is doing right now.

When I write the vision is so clear, ideas populate and I simply get better at it. My wit comes out. My voice comes out. My inner wisdom steps out from the shadows.

When I don’t write it’s the opposite: depression, emptiness, hopelessness. No future, no present, no attention, no creation. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. May I rest in piece.

Write or die.

I’m not very close with this man.

He’s not the man I ever wanted to become. His consistent let downs make me feel for him but since he’s my dad I end up getting resentful because it feels like a direct insult on my ability as a father for life.

I know he knows what’s wrong but like peanut butter he just wants to spread across the surface and pretend everything is yummy. It’s never, ever yummy.

In fact it’s so hard not to get angry and verbally violent that I have to keep a near-severed attitude towards the whole thing. I leave a thread open not because I ever believe things will evolve but because if I didn’t, I’d be just as bad as him.

Better than my dad but not that great. She loves me, that I know.

I suppose if I ever had anything from her it would be that, so perhaps I should be shutting my mouth? Ha! I think not.

My mom has a mysterious tendency, for better or for worse (I can attest to at least the worse side on that one). She sneaks off to do something and doesn’t give a rat’s ass who’s left in her dust.

But on the other hand, she is a pure mother, much purer than my dad.

What is it with parents and the course we chart our lives? Their mental associative effect is draining.