Fire By Sea

When all goes well—and it will—I should have a breakthrough near the end of this year. Here’s how it will go down:

• Now thru August: set a way to get the WordPress consultancy automated so all I have to work on is sales, content, marketing and product
• July thru December and beyond: freelance Internet marketing for a hot Hawaii startup. We’ll see about that
• September thru March: my surf site, which MUST be started by late summer/early fall in order for it to work.

This is an ambitious plan, but the idea is to leverage option one for self-made steady cash, plus to test the waters of actually selling something. The second part is also ambitious, because I fear it might suck me into a vortex. But if I can do something awesome, I’m all the better for it.

The third part is my passion—it’s entrepreneurial publishing with high brand profile, plus a chance to collaborate with many awesome and talented people with me the the producer and editor. If that can take off next year, then I’ll be very stoked.

All of this while striving to be an amazing dad, husband and citizen of the community.

Surfing comes last, and I’m okay with that. The past year did something to me where I don’t have that burning, insatiable desire to catch waves. Sure, it’s still a beautiful thrill, but I’m getting old. We’ll see.

I’m also hoping to open up some parts of my consciousness that have been closed for way too long. I’d best describe myself these days as over-cerebral, under creative, angry, unhealthy and blind. It’s not good, yet it’s almost necessary to pass through these lower realms in order to achieve any forms of higher vibration.

This winter is going to be extremely lively. I’m nervous, but can hardly wait.

I had a great business connection on Oahu. People seemed to be drawn to me because I know what I’m doing and most people here don’t. It makes the job of marketing a whole lot easier, and selling, too.

I’ve been a desperate employee for as long as I can remember. I never had enough to take care of the basics and the occasional un-basic, and that always caused a lot of pain for me and others over the years. I usually end up focusing on the money, which—like the immutable laws of physics—never bring real happiness.

It’s a better now—I’ve been offered full time work (at my discretion) and the freelance stuff seems to not be slowing down. People need what I do. So this means I have choices. More and better choices mean more freedom, which is the opposite experience of San Francisco.

When I have freedom, I can spend it working on things that have deep meaning to me. I don’t have to do things just for the money, especially creative or entrepreneurial hobbies. That has killed me for years.

I imagine the quality of work I’ll do will be better, too. With my clients, I genuinely want them to be happy and succeed. They deserve it and only helps me in the referral department.

The big question is what the future holds. Can I evolve fast enough? Will I survive? Will things work out the way I dreamed, not just planned?

For this to happen, I have to move on from this false sense of entitlement and focus on the next big thing: publishing. I know it can be done; it’s more of a lifestyle chance than anything. Just got to make sure that I can show the discipline, father, jobless, tis is what happens when you write when you’re morbidly tire.

There’s a lot to be done in a little amount of time, but we’re going whether we’re ready or not. It’s what we’ve been asking for, or at least bending our whim to match what we want.

The best part of the house is the location. It’s perched at the end of a small and quaint cul-de-sac right after turning the bend of Waimea Bay headed towards Sunset Beach. It feels like a good place to be, and nowadays I’m into doing what feels right rather than what logically adds up (jeez now San Francisco really feels far away!).

The other location perk is the school district: our son can go to a good school that’s literally across the street from Pipeline. During the year, we plan on biking with him to and from school to avoid the inevitable rush of (winter) traffic.

There is also Foodland within a few minutes walking distance, Starbuck (meh), the road to Pupukea (good running/hiking there), Ke Iki Beach (shorepound) and of course—Waimea Bay.

When it comes to surfing, I’m in a strange way not looking forward to it. It will be huge and dangerous and there will be the world’s very best on it. I can barely stand up on my 6’6″. I hope the best for my son, too.

I am also hoping there is a really community there for us to discover. Something my wife can find that givers her value, purpose and livelihood beyond the household. Same goes for my other non-surfing children.

We got pretty screwed with Waimea, so the question remains if we’ll call this place our home. It’s now impossible to tell. It depends on so many things going right: school, surfing, wife happy, other opportunities. Will we meet people? Will they like us? Will we fit in?

The North Shore is a very intense place.

In life, you gotta commit to doing things in order to get them done. Of course it’s good to plan, but the point of committed execution is almost always an instantaneous moment that you have to put your body into, not just your mind.

Surfing is a very strong metaphor for this. You can plan all you want—check the tides, check out the spot, read about it, talk to other people who have been there and even paddle out. But when that wave comes, you absolutely have to take it—there’s no other way you’ll get it. And you have to thrust your whole being into it.

The practice of commitment, like catching waves, is a deep strengthening experience. If one can harness the act of acting, there is no limit to what can be accomplished.

Hesitation is a different story. Hesitation may cost you one thing that may have led to other things. It more natural to hesitate until you’re trained to commit.

This all came down as we were signing a lease on our new house. We had to make a decision right then and there, and if we hesitated we would’ve lost out and no doubt regretted it.

In fact, this “ready-fire-aim” approach makes a lot of sense in retrospect but rarely in the present. I was given a chance to make a very important split-second decision based on what I felt was right but know was risky. I made the decision and happy I did—if hadn’t then life would be much, much different now.

The next time I’m surfing, I’m going to talk to myself about commitment….yeah f-ing right. I’m just going to do it.

Bottom line: better to stop thinking, planning, strategizing and just do it. I know I keep saying this but it’s because I’m out of words.

Today was a magical day. We left the Island and headed over on a mission to change our family’s life, and at about the halfway point we fully succeeded.

Things started out dubious when we pulled up to our host for the next two days, whom I met on Craigslist. It was supposed to be the house we were staying at for the next two nights. A very large, pale woman greeted us at the door and let us into a dimly-lit piece-of-shit house which was inhabited by we assume to be her grown-up son sitting on the couch on his laptop.

She led us to the back room, which was really the master room in the house. It was clean but so run down, depressing and downright creepy. After we walked out and talked for a few minutes, I went back to her door.

“Hi Alison. I’m sorry, but this isn’t what we had in mind.”

Yeah, I could tell by the looks on your faces when I showed you around,” she said, with a hint of edgy sneer in her voice. “What wrong with the place.”

I didn’t want to offend her so I paused, but then pressed on because I wanted to be upfront. “I’m sorry, it’s not what we had inmind.”

She got defensive again, and the son tried to calm her down, but I left.

After that we drove to Sunset Beach and pulled into my new client’s house. We met, he was cool and I not only got the job but I also got to stay in his back house rental for two night for free!

See how the Universe works?

But that’s not even the beginning of the story. We then went view a rental, and let’s say the timing of everything—all the stars aligning, etc.—all pointed to us signing a lease on a North Shore house for the next year…TBC

I’m going over to the main island to investigate the potential of moving back there after being away—most of the time in hell—for the better part of a decade.

So far I don’t feel a thing except that I’m supposed to be ready to present myself as a winner. That’ll be a stretch because I’m admittedly at the lowest part of my professional life, borrowing money from people I love just to survive.

Then there’s the town or country debate. Do we want to be out there on the beach or in town, close to the beach but not focused on it? Should we be prudent and do a house swap where the risk is lower? (My wife pointed out by the way that it’s actually just an $800 incremental cost to live on the other island).

We’ll also have alone time…whew. We calculated that we’ve only spent three weeks exclusively together since we been together, which is 15 years ago. So that will be a long-deserved respite.

My main concern on this trip is how people will view me. I was feeling good having been in the San Francisco but have seen been crippled by depression, which I never knew could be so powerful. It’s like putting out the lights, then being forced to stand naked in the biting cold, alone. Anyway, being depressed sucks.

I will also be meeting with a professional contact. I wonder how that will go. Same with the co-working spaces I’ll check out.

I don’t know…I’m kind of over these Islands. I’m really ready to move on. Yeah the water is warm but everything else is such a struggle. Everything.

All I know is that we have to get out of this town we’re in. This trip needs to almost be magical—something needs to pick us up and show us the way, so we can come back here and swoop up our kids. They need it more than us.

In the life of a risk taker, there’s usually a point in time when you question your next move: is it crazy or stupid? You think to yourself, “what I’m doing isn’t safe, and it’s certainly not what most people I know would do or advise upon. So why am I doing it?”

Of course the determinant in this riddle is fear. More fear makes it feel stupid, and less feels crazy. I’d say no fear makes it feel safe up to the point of pedestrian. But there’s also a danger of having such little risk that the alternative of not taking that chance is even more risky.

And of course, I’m right there, right now. Wondering if I should move to another place with no job and starting paying a high rent while I hope to god things work out.

It’s crazy because of the thrill of going somewhere much awesomer than here and getting inspired to make things happen—then doing it—and living happily ever after. It’s crazy because I’d have to convince a landlord to rent a house to an unemployed guy with a bunch of kids and bad credit, but knowing that I just might be able to pull it off.

It’s stupid because I don’t have a friggin job or even a way to make steady income. It’s stupid because I’m taking on massive payments that I can’t afford just to get to a place that “makes me feel better.” It’s stupid because I’m walking away from a house and lifestyle I fought 8 grueling years to obtain (although by now that lifestyle, that dream—null and void).

If you caught me a few years ago I’d feel excited about a chance like this to prove myself. But with age and failure being such a deadly cocktail, you can damn well bet I’ll err on the side of…

I’m madly in love with you, y’know. Always will be. Even after you grow up and blossom into a young woman, then someone’s lover and eventually a mother—I’ll feel the exact same way about you. Purely, madly in love.

And guess what? There’s absolutely no reason why I feel this way. I just do. I look at you, your sweet tiny innocent face, and I melt inside. Sometimes I’m in utter disbelief that I am the father of such a precious girl—a girl I once thought only to exist in my most sacred of dreams.

I will admit, though, you can be a little sassy (whiny, too, but that doesn’t count because you’re only four). Sassy is not a bad thing, but you’ve got to be tactful about it. Keep your wits about you, know who you are, then lay on the sass. Perhaps you can even transcend the sass into a much more formidable power like running a wildly profitable company or diplomatic negotiations (it’s up to you by the way, I’m just here to support).

So here’s final rundown on you: you’ve extracted only the very very best qualities from your mother and me and doubled them: stunning beauty, sharp intellect, a sparkle in your eye, a bold spirit, a sensual frame and most of all—a heart full of love. With these natural gifts I expect a lot from you, my little love. I expect you to carry on whatever greatness we bestow upon you, and build on it. Surround yourself with the right people and do things that will change the world for the better.

But no matter where you go, no matter who you’re with, I’ll be forever deeply, madly, hopelessly in love with you. You can count on me forever, my sweet little baby girl.

I slipped into fatherhood rather young at 22. She already had a child, who for the first 2 years called me by my first name. I liked having her (the child) around because she brought a certain beauty and purity to the budding (and intense) relationship I had with her mom.

We were very passionate, so pregnancy was only a matter of time. It arrived and I kind of freaked out. I was going to be a father! I knew life was going to change, and since I was already an acting father, I had an idea what it would be like. Our boy arrived on a sunny Sunday afternoon, and suddenly we were a 4-member family.

More kids arrived over the next nine years, and I love them to the fibers of my core. Making the jump from two to three was when an element of chaos entered our life. Going from three to four brought utter pandemonium, and it’s still that way even though we’ve adjusted to it.

Being a dad is a very deep challenge for me. I don’t have much to model after and I’m very idealistic, so I usually project myself as dad in the future, when my kids are grown up. I think about what they’ll think of me, then I model fatherhood after how I’d want them to feel. I guess that’s how I do it with my father nowadays—I feel a certain way and it’s hard to change (although in all fairness things are getting better).

I don’t really have memories of being a kid around his dad. The whole thing is kind of strange. I’d like to improve myself as a dad, really, because there’s so much more I should be doing, rather than thinking about being, or acting a certain way.