Dan the man

I never looked at it as “playtime” it’s just a part of my life. I do enjoy living my life and consider much of it “playtime”. After many years of constant conflicts with others and myself, years of self destruction, years of zero playtime I stepped back, stepped away from everything toxic and dangerous. I went on a very personal walk about searching for the person I used to be before the horrors of life found refuge in me. I was into fitness and tried to stay with it while battling the demons in me and after many years fitness became my playtime once again. These days I spend most of them playing, enjoying, always learning about myself and self awareness, the importance of love and laughter, the joy of the simplest of things. That my friend is the best playtime.

I used to believe I was, but who am I to judge. Silly I know but looking back throughout my life I was a judging POS, so at some point in my late adult life I made a conscious decision to stop judging people. Why do we even do it? Who the fuck are we to believe we’re better than anyone? Who are we above to look down on people that often times we don’t even know or never even met? The opinion of others is still very much more important than the opinion of ourselves and that’s where the change has to be made. I used to care how people perceived me, now, I care how I see me how I feel about myself, I used to judge myself way more than now. For me it’s all about the moment, my happiness in the moment and I will tell you that I get very happy replying to these questions because they really hit home for me and I can share my thoughts, feelings and experiences here on this platform jussi as all of you do for me and all the other people here. I read the stories here and the people that write them I do not judge, but I try and put myself in their shoes because I believe that’s where the imagination kicks in and starts to run wild.

Not even close. I would also say my life has been nothing that I planned or expected. As a child I did have aspirations, but “shit happens” and you have to learn to adapt, so any dreams I had were crushed by the reality of the real world. I will say my parents supported me and my brothers, but not in a good way. My dad worked all the time and provided and good home for us, mom was a stay at home mom and made sure we had everything we needed as far as food, shelter, clothes, friends, toys and a warm and healthy environment. What they didn’t provide as we got older was the support needed to pursue our dreams. When we turned sixteen they simply said go get a job, that was their only guidance into adulthood. And we did because we wanted a car which was freedom for us and oddly it was our independence, but we needed to earn money for the things we wanted. Our parents still provided a home food clean clothes all without charging us rent so it wasn’t completely bad. The problem was it made for a very small world to live in, and that was where the tragedy was. I wanted to join the military so I can find my way and hopefully see some other countries, well that was out of the question in my house. I would say most all of my adult decisions were made by me with my parents in mind, if I wanted to travel cross country how upset or angry would they be? More so my mother more than my father there we job opportunities that did pay well but there was travel involved and maybe some risk factors so my mother would say no and just become miserable so we had to take the lesser job to please her. Of the four boys my parents had I was the only one to move away… far away in order to do that I had to destroy the life I was living and hurt people I loved and risk incarceration. I left at thirty eight years old way too old to go after my childhood dreams so I had to go after the new ones the ones I could never to in the presence of my parents. Today at sixty five years old I am living a life I never in a million years thought I would. My parents are long gone so they will never see the happiness and contentment on their son’s face, they will never hear of the adventures of traveling that my wife and I do. My life is amazing and totally without a plan, there was a ton of fear and uncertainty, a lot of risk and prayers and if anyone asks me how I got here I quickly say the truth… I have no idea.

Now I do! I would say up until my forties I ignored my gut feeling and instincts, I called them spider senses because I actually felt the tingle of a warning sign or walking into a place and immediately felt you’re in the wrong place but stayed anyway only to get the shit kicked out of me or end up somewhere even worse. My biggest problem with all this was women, I would approach them and would see the red flags flying all around her and still buy her drinks and shots whatever she wanted I just had to have her. I would say I was probably a creep back then maybe even a sexual deviant although there were many times I could have taken advantage but did the right thing. Even doing the right thing got me arrested a few times, I always blamed myself it wasn’t the woman’s fault for being hot and sending all the signals that got us in bed, it was the eighties and nineties and socializing was totally different than today, but the instincts were the same I just needed find my way back to myself once I did life became much easier to live.

None, I would say I’m kind of a dinosaur when it comes to podcasts, but I like to listen to regular old radio. I have a couple of favorite channels that I listen to and it’s always while I’m driving in my car rarely at home do I listen to anything. I wake up early every morning like 4:00am early and there is already a song playing in my head and the music continues all day long each and every day for nearly my entire life. Thank GOD I grew up in the 70’s 80’s and 90’s because those were the best years for music so I can tolerate the music in my head because it’s never a bad song. I spent a lot of years questioning why and I did find some “tools “ to help me find answers, primarily meditation works the best because it gives me some control over the madness that going on inside my head.

Daily writing prompt

What was your favorite subject in school?

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I was a huge fan of English, my junior year of high school I had two English classes. To this day I cannot figure out why, it wasn’t like I was an aspiring writer or even wanted to have any career in writing like a lot of subjects I was curious, English, music and art were my big three although I would include math, but just a little I seemed to get lost in all the equations and fractions and such that I lost interest. Gym class was my nightmare and probably a nightmare for some of my classmates, but I never said anything to anyone I just showed up and did what was asked and left. I kept to myself, didn’t have friends so I found my happy place in books and that was why English was my favorite subject, even today I still go through a book a week.

This is a great subject for me, it’s a solid yin and yang, I have had many moments of pride, but they were short lived because of arrogance. I was never taught the difference between the two, it was just one of many character traits I had to figure out on my own. As a child there were few things I was proud of, because my dad worked so much during my childhood I had very few masculine ideals I was always with my mother and her sisters so most of my proud moments came from the kitchen or my grandmother teaching me to sew, knit and crochet. My aunts taught me to wash dry and press clothes. I would listen to them complain about their husbands, my father and uncles. I was taught to handle tools by the neighbor down the street that my dad would bring his lawn mower to be repaired, I would wrench my bicycle and mostly learned thru my mistakes. As I grew older and making my way through middle school I wasn’t very good at school, I hated being there and couldn’t wait to get out. I was picked on almost every day by the other kids for being fat and shy. I was completely disconnected from my classmates. It was so ironic that years later in my early twenties when I lost a ton of weight and was hitting the weights and the boxing gym that those classmates from school finally showed me a glimpse of respect, naturally I had to earn it by beating their asses, but respect is respect. I was proud of myself then, but also arrogant, I wouldn’t learn the difference until I began studying martial arts, karate, judo, taekwondo I studied hard and learned more from there than anywhere else. I didn’t turn my back on my catholic upbringing, but spent more of my time studying Buddhism that is one of the top three things I am proud of. Where we grew up in New England everyone was catholic there wasn’t a lot of options and most parents wouldn’t accept you if you didn’t go to church every Sunday. I was the only one of four sons my parents had that left to practice Buddhism, it was the best thing for me, but my family wasn’t very happy with me. But in the words of the great Bonjovi “it’s my life” and once I started living my life for me every moment is one I am proud of. I’ve done great things with my life, I dabbled in acting and stand up, I’ve quit jobs to go on road trips just so I can see the country, I also married outside our family culture which is a huge Nono. I had a wife and two sons and was proud of them, but my family had a way of destroying any pride you had with manipulation and bullshit. That behavior cost me my wife and sons, the divorce was one of the lowest points in my life and I regret it even today thirty years later. My life today is the life I wanted since my twenties, but here I am in my sixties living the life I dreamed of, my beautiful wife is from Thailand and we have a very nice home there, we travel back and forth every year. We’ve been to surrounding countries and even to Europe. Today my life is full, completely satisfying and that I am grateful and proud.

I was 38 years old and moving to Florida from Connecticut, that was as close as I ever got to feeling like an adult…27 years ago. I always lived within 8 miles of my parents house and even closer for work, which was a family business so I was always surrounded by family a family I felt I didn’t belong to. I wasn’t really close to my father he was busy working day and night to support his family, he was the most responsible person I ever knew and hardest working. Mom stayed home and raised four boys and did the best she could which wasn’t that bad none of us ended up in prison or a dope addict are an alcoholic, I think a couple of us dabbled in it, but for me I got tired of feeling shitty and useless. We all married good women and had solid families of our own, we each have children and now grandchildren that are good human beings so all and all my parents did well raising a family. My two older brothers also did good for themselves no breakups or divorces and my younger brother has been married for thirty five plus years. I on the other hand was married to my first wife for eleven years we had two children, boys, but our marriage was a train wreck after ten years and just got worse by the day. I was definitely not prepared for a divorce, but it was inevitable and she took everything from me and put the boys against me so now after thirty five years my oldest son talks to me maybe five times a year and my youngest son doesn’t talk to me at all. I never blamed them for hating me that all she ever spoke to them was how terrible I was. So after all that I left for Florida in the hopes of rebuilding myself as a person to find who and what I wanted to be not just my parents son who also works for them. Since leaving Connecticut I have had countless adventures that touched my soul and broke my heart, but learned to cope with them and all the other emotions that we humans have. Life is wonderful and tragic in my own personal experience is the more I laugh the lighter life gets. I married an amazing woman nearly ten years ago who shares a similar view of life, but even better than that she chose to spend her life with me… that alone inspired me to be a better person if not for me for her… Maybe that was the moment I became an adult.

Great question! I initially started to just get the thoughts out of my head, maybe share a little wisdom or experiences I’ve been through. Then, at some point I realized I was part of a community, I read the works of some gear writers in this community and I am truly humbled by their writing. It’s at that point that I question myself, my ability to write as well as my peers, then I realize writing (for me anyway) is a form of therapy that I never knew I needed until I started writing. And honestly I don’t keep at it as much as I should, but I’m still working sometimes full time sometimes part time. I’m just about a year and a half away from retirement and the theory is I will have more time to write, but if I’m being completely honest I have time every day I just busy myself with other things like working around the house or doing more for myself like spending more time in nature reconnecting with myself and nature, even as I am writing this I feel the pull of the outside world wanting me out there to bask in the sunshine will walking through a mountain trail surrounded by the lack of man and the noise we make, I get lost in the silence of nature and listen for the whispering wind to direct me.

During the week there was no TV until the evening after dinner and that was grown up programming like the news or maybe a game show. Come Saturday morning and all bets were off, cartoons ruled the morning with bugs bunny, Elmer Fudd all the looney toons, Sunday brought claymation with David and Goliath, Gumby and Pokey and the square heads, the late morning was Captain Kangaroo and mister Rodger’s neighborhood later on came Jonny Quest and He- man and so many more that I’ve since long forgotten.