Fire By Sea

Good writing demands honesty, and I crave that kind of purity. It puts me in a space where I can come to terms with ideas that would otherwise be unexpressed or passed up for something less worthy.

Writing is also discipline: a challenge of articulation to pare down all that is unnecessary so that we may reveal an essence to others. It’s hard to show up every day and entice the muse to come out when there may be no clear incentive to do so.

Writing is an act of creation. It’s like taking vitamins to even out the balance of consuming so much media every day. After I’ve written something, I feel like I’ve contributed one small iota of something to the world, which feels better than taking something away.

Writing is livelihood. Without it, I’d be dead by now. Yeah I’m definitely on life support right now, and so if I stop I’ll go down. But it’s barely keeping things alive, and I’m grateful it’s still part of my life.

Writing reveals secrets. Once you get going, I mean really let go and get into it, you make connections about things you wouldn’t normally make. I wouldn’t have been able to think all these thoughts about writing if I hadn’t started writing about them.

Writing gives you an upperhand. It shows you can express an idea without flinching or stumbling. It can even be used as a weapon against…well, whatever the hell you’re fighting against.

Writing creates more space than it fills. Try to visualize a small vessel in a large empty room. The vessel is the space you create when you write, and the rest of the room is the space you’ve created for other people to absorb your ideas.

Writing is a part of my life just like waking up and hearing the quick flitter of a bird’s wings outside my second story window.

It’ll be on its own for awhile, sprinkled like glitter around Hayes Valley, the Mission, SOMA, Cole Valley, Golden Gate Park, Ocean Beach [brrr], Potrero, Dogpatch, the top of Bernal Heights and yes—even in Bayview. Oh yeah—and in the BART and MUNI, circling around in those hollow, sullen cars.

Let’s hope that one day I’ll be able to come back and reclaim those pieces and the connect them to the whole of who I am. By then I will be there for a strong purpose, and the desperation of survival will be forever behind me. The city will already remember me (and my family, too) and treat us like a friend. We’ll fit right in as if we always had a place there.

Until then, I’ll often look back at those days not as happy memories, but of a foreign time, of unrealized growth and catching a glimpse of America…[sigh].

As for people, there are a few. Those few helped me while I was there, and were good to me. The others were not, and they ultimately had the last say because once again—they controlled the money. See where this is going? [AAAAGH]

But everything happens for a reason, and this time around—even as much as I rush to appropriate it—I really do believe I went there to learn how to assume the mood of an entrepreneur. Other than that and the dining, there’s not much else in San Francisco I can’t live without. So while my heart is still there, I’m glad my body isn’t.

My mind, on the other hand, needs to be everywhere I go, and it needs to be sharp and of full facility. Same goes for my heart, too. That way I can be present in what I’m doing like all those founders are.

So yeah, San Francisco, I miss ya…

Surfing—a seductive, emotional, dangerous affair.

I only say that because I’ve had a long, turbulent love story with the waves. Recently we were torn apart, and for a long time I was hurt and angry, but then that faded to mild bitterness.

But I’ve been home in Hawaii for almost 2 months now, and the waves are still out there, pushing people onto their boards and into barrels. I’ve been physically and emotionally resisting, because I know at some point I might have to leave again, this time for much longer than a year.

Yesterday I got out to the beach, and strapped a foam longboard to my ankle and caught some waves. The winds were onshore and the waves weren’t great, and I was reluctant enough to make it feel like I was just going through the motions. The problem is, you can’t go through the motions while your’e surfing. It’s something you have to feel from the inside so you can handle the challenge of what’s going outside.

After feeling the warm dull burn of paddling for about an hour, I got out of the water and played with my kids. That felt great. I pushed them through the small shorebreak waves…they squealed with delight—my baby girl watching with full body intent the pulsing sway of water…and dammit to hell if I didn’t start to feel that passion again.

Then to top it all off I went out with my son—who’s definitely bitten with the surfing bug—and caught wave after wave after wave. We had the whole section of the beach to ourselves. It was a peaking left that rolled in like a machine, one after the other.

It was time to go in. The water was very warm and I wasn’t ready to leave. A right came my way and I caught it, perfectly—grabbing rail.

Surfing does something to your soul. It purifies you. But I’m not quite ready to embrace that once again.

With such contrasting abundance and scarcity of money these days, it’s hard to tell what people’s legacy intentions are.

See how I started that—by talking about money. It can only mean that I feel legacy is tied at least in part to your net worth when you die. I hate to say it, but I’ve been under so much fiscal pressure for so long that I can no longer decouple money from legacy.

Anyway, the supremacy of legacy is based on 5 factors in this order (I’m totally making this up as I go):

1. Your children
2. The way people feel about you, including your family
3. The measured impact of your work
4. How many lives you’ve affected
5. Your net worth

Of course, if you can hit a home run in all five categories, then I say you’ve made it. But what if you’re lacking in some areas? Granted, not everyone is going to have children, but what I’m getting at is the kind of person you are; i.e. the way you view and treat people on any level, in any engagement.

I’ve known some extreme entrepreneurs who will most definitely blow the doors off of #3,4,5, but they might strike out on #1 and 2. Let’s say they even squeak out a kid in their 40’s—can they measure up to #2?

I also know some people who flourish in the opposite: lots of kids, nice people, but professional failures (personally, I’m on that side of the fence right now, but I’ll get over the damn hump). They’ll die leaving their kids nothing but memories—that’s fine I guess but it would be much better to leave something they can build on.

Then there’s the middle: the legacy of mediocrity. You kind pull it off in all categories, but not really. You follow the rules and formulas and make a decent life for the people around you.

For the sake of great legacy, it’s better to take some huge risks and and fail than not try at all, or just play it safe.

I know before I said that all you need to do is take action, but that’s only partially true. The other half comes from within—it’s an essence we all carry but few exercise: vision.

Vision removes the element of the mundane, the gray film which turns life into pure boredom and depression. Sometimes all you need is the slightest drop to make life come to life.

Vision is the alchemy of life. With it, you’re able to piece together disparate elements, ideas, ingredients—whatever, into something whole and new that no one else could originally replicate.

The highest form of vision is one where other benefit, embrace and support. It may be entrepreneurial, artistic, humanitarian, religious, etc. I’d like to think I’m artist-entrepreneur but that remains to be seen. I’m struggling right now.

Sometimes I wonder how long a human can carry on for when he’s completely shut out from the world and the concept of vision becomes nothing more than an abstract blog post treatise on the subject. What are they expected to do? How the hell did Emily Dickinson come to life, all locked up in that simple chamber?

I’m thankful for the Internet, but it takes more effort to get noticed these days, and the vision has got to be red hot for it to get noticed. It can’t be rehashed stuff, and it needs an overarching “why”, too—a real honest and compelling human narrative.

At the very least, I’m getting a bit more comfortable writing on a daily basis. It still might be too late to do anything, but at least I’m going through the actions.

What I’m trying to do is use the act of writing as bait to cajole the vision out of me. I want it so bad that I feel like I’m literally dying without it. Everyone around me is dying, too.

Is it normal to reject everything that should be normal? I’m talking about getting a job, working my way up, saving money, then scaling vertically along ladder of success.

Sounds like gag-me-with-cliche, but from my low point of perspective—it’s not. I’ve never felt so low, actually.

It’s gotta be part-age. I’m not young anymore. I ought to be “mid-career” but I’m just some unemployed guy. My wife is disgusted with me and my kids don’t take me seriously.

Yet, still I resist the part about being normal. Something within tells me there’s so much more to life than following the steps. I really fell like I’m not that guy, that I’m supposed to do something extreme and amazing. Then I think I can’t do that because I’m obligated to care for a family, but then I think, “why the hell should that matter…if I were truly awesome I’d do it with a family, too.”

So I’m apt to think there’s something amiss. And the most I can come up with is that it must be me. I can’t even call myself a wash-up because I never really made it out to sea.

Here’s the part I start blabbing so I can take up the next 108 words because I make it a daily goal to write at least 300 words and even though it’s becoming the habit I was hoping for I can’t say it’s doing much for inspiration nor aspiration, not even perspiration.

All I really get—and this is probably good—is the comfort of creating a daily brief of prose. There are no standards of quality to measure, nor audience to judge me—just a shallow wading pool of my words. And my pathetic, shitty self lamenting to myself about myself.

Still dragging out here, watching the word count gradually tick up to 300, much you’d do on a treadmill when you’re just trying to burn some calories.

…<sigh>…

Like, really, I’m sick of being here. There’s a bigger world out there, moving at breakneck speed, and I find myself stuck in my home Islands screaming to get out.

It’s not that Hawaii isn’t awesome. The world loves Hawaii. But at some point, if we are to truly define ourselves—who we are and where we come from—then it is imperative we leave our home.

I left, I did. I went to San Francisco and slept on a floor for ten months. I got a job and worked like a dog and saw the pace of innovation, and sadly did not keep up. Then I was turned away and now I’m back home.

So does that count as leaving? Were the wheels properly greased?

Wondering what the hell is going on with my life

I’m approaching bone-fide middle age and have no idea who I am, what I do and where I’m going. That frightening uncertainty is also seeping into the lives of my family, and I feel bad for that.

Somewhere, deep in there, is that certainty. That person is in there, and perhaps closer to the surface than I’m apt to believe. But the right sequence of switches need to be switched.

I’m sick of talking, and wish I was just thrust into a situation where all I could do is act. Pure tactical survival.

Piecing together a worthy life

It has something to do with writing, feeling, helping and changing the world. But I don’t even know where to begin. That is why I write—because it is the only act I have left, the one things that is independent of all other things.

Even though I’m sick of Hawaii, I’ll stay here so others may benefit. Just as long as I heed that call to greatness, and the moment of clairty arrives swiftly, and powerfully.

We’re totally over Hawaii. Funny, huh? I mean over it. The beach routine, the driving between mindless relaxing activities, the complicated culture of lucky you live Hawaii.

Right now I’m standing up outside on the hood of our truck, on the beach while my family gradually fades into slumber. The air is slightly too warm, and I can hear the static of the ocean blanketing the sporadic laughs from other campers on the beach.

You’d think the scene here is a dream, but alas—we are renegades. We seek adventure in foreign lands, mind-boggling challenges, hard-to-swallow slices of humanity. All with each other. It’s like we’re the S.S. Bohannan, adrift in the open sea, seeking new lands while keeping everyone safe and sound.

Do we go to the other island, Oahu, where it’s known, safe and semi-progressive? Or California, which is tough but ultra-progressive? How about mystifying Bali? San Diego?

Where we go, it’s not going to be on this Island. We’re done here. We’ve done it. The ceiling has been hi and it’s not going any higher.

It sounds strange, but I’d like to kindly ask this Island to let us go. Let us explore the world, take in our fellow humans and learn from them. Become better people. Then, help other people. Maybe even bring some of that malama and kokua back here.

We can’t stay. We’re renegades now. A family on a mission to be free of all that keep us captive, including ourselves.

Don’t really know where we’re going, but I do know that I have to get there really soon. We’re on a very tight timeline, way beyond a school schedule. This time together is the most valuable time we’ll have with our kids, before they start leaving, one by one…

37, married with four kids. Homeowner. Unemployed, almost broke, career fail, scared, frustrated, depressed, oppressed.

But, I’m free. We’re free.

It’s not going to be easy, but this feels like the start of creating our own destiny. The only thing we need is money, and I’ll be damned if I let something like that come in my way (I will do it).

And guess what else? I’m writing after not writing for over a decade. I don’t mean the earlier blog stuff, but actually writing these short essays where I articulate an idea with grace. It’s actually enjoyable, it feels good.

I’m getting sun. I’ve been in the warm blue Hawaiian ocean a few times. I’ll admit my health isn’t that great right now—I’m a fat balding bastard—but the kids say I’ve lost weight, and who knows maybe I’ll stop the hair from shedding like pine needles.

The best part by far is I’m regaining my footing as dad, husband and man of the house. I’m just now thinking about how I can make my kids happier, what kind of clever games I can play with them, and actually planting myself in their lives as a pillar of strength, love and compassion.

None of the things above existed the past year. The people I was around, the ones I worked with everyday, they didn’t get it. They live in a world of thoughts and ideas, concepts and products and the occasional snicker. There’s a part of me that likes that, too, but it’s not pono.

Now, onto the point of this post: freedom. We can create our own destiny. Just need to be smart and diligent and strong.

Here’s how it could shake down:

• This coming year: here, Oahu North Shore or the remote possibility of San Francisco.
• Next summer: Bali or move the where we’ll be settling for next 4 years.
• Next school year: so far we got Oahu town, San Francisco, Bali or San Diego.

I never, ever thought I’d have the freedom to entertain these options!