Dan the man

Quit smoking, and it’s been thirty years since I had a cigarette or cigar. Oh, and drinking, although I didn’t have a drinking problem I knew it was bad for me and I did for most of my live take decent care of myself in regards to what I put in my body and such, but life is full of reasons to cheat, I like to eat as fresh as I can, but some days I just run out of time or get sidetracked and end up eating like a freaking moron. I tried different drugs thankfully nothing stuck, same with booze and smokes. I think my biggest and longest battle is with food, as I mentioned earlier I like to eat clean fresh fruits and vegetables no red meat chicken and fish and pork, but every so often I feel I need ice cream or cake or pie any and all dessert related foods. I have given them up, but they always seem to come back, like a bad penny or that family member who just couldn’t clean up their act and get their shit together. I believe we all have the strength to change our behaviors, our desires some stay gone forever some come back to scratch that itch.

I believe it’s a little bit of both. We come into the world pretty much an empty vessel I mean we have our parents DNA and genetics, but we’re still lacking a personality, morals and values the things that make us who we are and we get those things from our parents our family. Then as we grow and we interact with other people during those early teen years when our chemistry is really churning up we become ourselves more of an individual. Our interest are high as we find search for more of ourselves and we’re surrounded by hundreds of thousands of other people, some we are drawn to, you don’t know why but you’re need to be around them is unexplained that feeling you can never put into words and that doesn’t mean they’re are soul mate or future spouse, I believe it’s at a molecular level when we see those ones that we can’t get enough of. It may only be for a day week or month and then it’s over the feeling fades you’re done ready to move on to find another attraction. Experiences both good and bad shape us into the people we are at that moment, we have all the memories but we need not continue to live, ideally we continue to move forward it’s how we grow, how we learn of our inner strengths to become the person we want to be.

I wouldn’t necessarily say lifelong, there were periods in my life when I knew everything and nobody can tell me anything, yeah a textbook asshole. It took a couple of very low points and a few people who tough loved me to open my eyes as to how I was behaving, nothing like a few good ass whippings to give you insight and perspective and it doesn’t happen right away it takes a while about as long as it takes for the black eyes to fade away or your ego to heal. I am a high school dropout, but I did get my GED about six months after I left school, I didn’t want to go to college I felt I wasn’t smart enough the classroom bored me to death, but I loved to learn hands on. Long before YouTube and Google we had to get our hands on repair manuals for all the different vehicles on the road and we had to read nearly every word and refer to drawings or photos and make heads and tails of it all, there was a bit of trial and error and we had to find people with experience to answer questions we had. It did however without you even realizing it give you confidence, that feeling of accomplishment that fills you with pride in doing the job right and everything is working properly. My dad had a woodworking shop when I went to work for him it was a whole new industry from automotive but the hands on was still there so I spent the first couple of years learning how not to cut my fingers off and respect each and every tool you handle, just like mechanical work the risk of injury is high so you must pay attention. When I left CT. for Florida I didn’t want to do the work I had been doing most of my life, I wanted to reinvent myself and that meant learning a new profession or trade. It was difficult to find so my first job was a golf car mechanic and I found a part time job at night at a rehabilitation facility I was a rehab technician which sounds good but the pay was disappointing at best, but I needed the money and wanted the experience. So I spent the first two plus years in Florida working those two jobs, I did learn a lot more that I thought I would, the golf car gig was a lot of in field work so I got to learn the area around my new home and meet hundreds of people from all over the country, the rehab gig helped me grow personally by learning how to relate to people so you can offer them help of nearly any kind, sobriety, career, housing and relationships, but to further that career meant I had to go to college for four years and I was already working two jobs and could not afford to quit one so I did what I had to do to keep my home and the bills paid and that was a huge lesson in life, how to survive in it, how to compromise the one thing you would like to do with the things that you must do to live a quality life, a life you’re happy to live.

Not an easy question, there are so many beautiful places in the world I think it would be difficult to choose just one. In America alone it would be hard to find just one place to settle down. I was born in Connecticut and lived there for thirty eight years then it was off to Florida for another twenty seven years and now we’ve been in North Carolina for a year and a half. Every place has its beauty, Connecticut was the best place in the world for me when I was growing up, it was magical almost all year long Norman Rockwell magical. I thought I was going to live my whole life there, but shit happens and the life you knew was taken away. So Even though I had never been to Florida that’s where I ended up, sold the few belongings I had left after an ugly divorce and headed south. When I arrived in Sarasota I was swept away by the beauty of the tropical paradise, it was filled with beautiful people and had such a comfortable relaxed vibe to it I was in heaven. I found Venice Beach and rented a house just a few blocks away and every day was sunny, warm and everyone was smiling the beaches and the gulf were my playground and it would be many years before I missed a sunset. That’s where I met my wife (who is from Thailand) and we began this amazing relationship that I am honored to be in. She showed me life like I never knew we know live in North Carolina and have a beautiful house in Thailand, we have traveled throughout south East Asian and every place is as magical and beautiful as the next. Our plan is to live the summer and fall in North Carolina and Thailand for the rest of the year, for me it’s a perfect life.

A topic I’m all too familiar with. Throughout my life I’ve had more than my share of negative thoughts, when I was younger they had a very powerful influence over my decisions. Over the years I have learned to deal with negative thoughts feelings and emotions, not an easy tasks but I believe I have a pretty good grip on myself, no longer the chokehold I am accustomed to. Martial arts, Yoga, Meditation are just a few tools I use to find my happy place. The world like life is always a balance of good and bad yin and yang the key is to recognize and managing yourself because that’s all we as humans can do we can’t control what’s going on in the world all we can control is how we deal with it, as I’ve gotten older I find it best to just walk away.

I was raised in a French family as both my parents and their parents were French, unfortunately they spoke it only when they didn’t want us to know what they were talking about. It was a sad behavior because learning different languages is much easier when you’re young, in middle school they offered only Spanish so I just stuck with English. The irony there is my first wife was Argentine and spoke Spanish which would had come in handy when we visited her family, but hindsight is 20/20. These days since I met my wife over ten years ago I have been learning Thai… kinda. I find there is a certain beauty in different languages even the harsher ones like German, Arabic, those languages that sound angry almost all the time. So I have learned some Thai over the years but honestly for me ignorance is bliss.

Spend time with myself. Every morning I wake up around 4:00-4:30 am, just me and the quiet I splash cold water on my face to get the sleep out of my eyes, I do some stretching and sometimes I hang upside down on my inversion table, that really gets the blood flowing to the brain. Once I’m fully awake I start coffee and see what the weather is like if it’s nice enough I sit outside and have coffee, the sky is still black the only noise is the creek in the front of the house. I look around at nothing but trees and forest the closest neighbor has their outside lights on mine went off hours ago so it’s dark, very dark this is my time. No TV no internet no cellphone just me and the world around me. Daybreak is about 5:30 the sky begins to brighten nature begins to awaken. First the birds start singing their morning songs the morning breeze moves through the leaves of the trees the sky gets brighter. The first of the three people who go to work drive by 10:00 minutes later the second and 30 minutes after them the third. I don’t know them they live in the same neighborhood as us, but we’re in the mountains and close neighbors are far away and I believe we all live here for the same reason, to get away from people, from the grind from the world up here it just us and nature.

To pass time and to show friends and family what we’re doing. It’s kinda funny how that leaves a bad taste in my mouth like we’re bragging about our lives, l remember as a child we would go to visit friends as a family and the adults would set up chairs and there was a movie screen set up and a film projector or sometimes a slide projector and they would play a movie or show slides of their recent vacation and there was a lot of questions and answers and talk of dream vacations. My parents were very humble at least my dad was, but my mom was a little showy and if it got too much my dad had to talk with her about spending money and showing off. We were a generation of hand me downs and frugality mom was proud of her ability to manage the household expenses, having to feed and clothe four boys had to been hard, but she managed to save a little bit here and there and get herself a little something so she could still feel like a woman. It’s that kind of upbringing that keeps me and my brothers from not putting much on social media. Ours wives on the other hand seem completely comfortable to put more than we would and I like I’m sure my brothers have to have the talk with my wife about how much to share so she does a lot of private sharing. Her family and culture view it with pride my family and culture not so much, but I have over the years changed myself and see the success of others as their business not mine. So for me it’s finding the line in the sand which is why I have never found success on social media.