The Other Side of Fifty
2022 – A Great Year – Just not for markets
Fifty was a better year than most. I lived Bald Jesusism for a year and ushered in the era of Baldism with the Council of Aiea. I traveled around the world and then some…Hawaii, Texas, California, Australia, Sri Lanka, Bali Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Dubai, Morocco, France, Iceland, New York, Japan – it was a hell of a travel year. I pivoted Vagobond to Vagobond Magazine and we published nine issues. Meanwhile my startup and my marriage both failed but without too much drama or trauma for anyone involved. I bought another old Vanagon and am quickly realizing I don’t want to have an old vanagon. I started running again and with some effort managed to get three miles under thirty minutes which is a far cry from where I started. I lost about twenty pounds but want to lose about twenty more. I decided that I don’t really want to be a surfer even though there is still a part of me that really does. I’m not a Disney person but I managed to visit five separate Disneylands this year and Knott’s Berry Farm as well – all in my effort to make sure my daughter has a better childhood than I did (Disney California, Paris Disneyland, Paris Disney Studio, Tokyo Disneyland, Tokyo Disney Sea). I wrote a couple of books I’m really happy with and revised a couple of others in ways that has made me happy. I launched three NFT projects and while none of them took off or made more than a few dollars, two of them sold out as free mints (and then failed) but that’s the process to learn by. I got rid of a bunch of stuff, managed to make another year without working for anyone else, and made a whole bunch of new friends. The rise and fall of crypto and NFTs meant that I made more money than I ever have and without realizing my gains, lost more money than I ever thought I could handle – with it all said and done – I’m slightly better than break even and happy about it. That’s better than most made out this year. Realizing that storytelling is what makes me happiest was a huge plus to this year. Certainly there were challenges – emotional, physical, mental, and spiritual – but I overcame them all – at the very least I survived them all. The fact that I celebrated this birthday dressed in a day-glow Adidas tracksuit that was issued to me for owning an NFT while exploring Disneyland Sea in Tokyo, Japan with my 11-year-old daughter speaks volumes to the kind of amazing year this was.
In my 51st year, I plan to dive deeper into meditation and fixing my body, mind, and spirit from the trauma of a half century +1 of this life. I plan to tell stories, keep writing, encourage other writers and storytellers and to bear down and learn some things about marketing and promotion. I’m doubling down on creativity and building community around it. I’m going long for collaborative storytelling and immersive world building.
Half a Century felt like a long time. My Birthday Blog Post
2021: Half a Century – That’s a good start
Birthday Eve here. 49 was a pretty good year. I launched a religion, didn’t work for anyone else, and accomplished enough of my goals that I feel pretty good. I created the Major Arcana of a tarot deck, wrote several books and learned how to work within an entirely new industry. We survived some awful trauma associated lockdowns and with what we thought was long term housing – but which wasn’t and I made art on a huge number of days, spent huge amounts of quality time with my wonderful kiddo, and felt like I succeeded beyond expectations at both dad’ing and adulting. I spent some time with old friends, made a whole bunch of new friends, and so much more.
I feel like this may have been the most productive and growth oriented year of my life. I called 2021, the year of transformation, emergence, and launch. Indeed it was and is for a few more days. I’m not sure what to call 2022, but I feel good going into it. I feel like in the last year of my 40s, I really and truly started to discover who I am and what I can do. I’m excited to start living this life – and can’t wait to see that it brings. Happy Birthday to me. If my estimation of living to 101 is right – this is almost the middle with the 2022 Summer Solstice marking the midpoint of my life. That’s pretty cool. I’m going to go with it. It’s a 5 5 5 year. (5+5) x 5 – this bodes well.
In my 50th year, my plan is to embrace and share Bald Jesusism, the religion I birthed in my 49th year. There’s a whole philosophy and happy life road map in it that I’m going to live and share. Everything from walking every day to helping others to creating to embracing the blockchain lifestyle. My life will be lived according to the tenets in the Holy Bjble (which you can read for free here or download and read for free here). Here it is – in a nutshell – my life plan for the next 51 years:
I’ll be doing commentaries on this through my podcast , my discord, and on twitter. I can tell you, I’m immensely grateful to be here today. I have so much to be grateful for. Thank you all for being part of my journey as I’ve gone around the sun one more time.
2020: 49 Years and 50 birthdays
I don’t have much to say here. 49 is a great number. Anything with a nine in it, I call good. I’m already looking forward to 50. I’d rather not look back at all, it turns out. Australia was wonderful. I feel blessedly lucky that we live in Hawaii. Having the opportunity to be a home school teacher and not send my 8-year-old into awful distance learning has been a complete joy. I wrote several new books this year and edited several others that had been waiting in the wings.
Turns out though that 48 was more about learning to exist in a cocoon than emerging from one. I didn’t buy a house or become an awesome ukulele player or a tai chi master in 2020, but did pretty amazingly on all the other goals I set for myself. I did some form of meditation and exercise on nearly half the days this year.
48 was just fine. I’m ready for 49, so hold the line.
2019: 48 years old
47 was a really rough year but like a caterpillar spinning a cocoon, avoiding getting eaten by birds, and all the other death traps. I made it into my cocoon. The chrysalis was formed. At 48, I’m emerging. On my 48th birthday, my mom and step-father called me – which was very thoughtful of them. My sister sent me a couple of nice gifts- which was also thoughtful. I had a couple of texts and a couple of social media Happy Birthdays. My wife brought me coffee and said Happy Birthday in the morning but the most important person – my 8 year old daughter made me a card and wrote a story with the characters we’ve created and then we spent the day together ( my wife was working). It was all that mattered. My daughter did adulting with me – we went to IHOP and neither of us finished our breakfast, we paid off a bank loan, we got used tires put on the front of my car, we went to the post office, and we had Japanese ramen for lunch where she said “Daddy, if I had money, I would pay for your lunch”. I melted. It was a great birthday and I think it’s going to be a great year. As for 2019 – I’m glad to see it going into the sunset. I learned a lot, I set the stage for a better life, and I wrote a new novel, started a couple of businesses, quit working for other people, and have taken control of my life in ways that I never have before.
I’ve done pretty good in life. India and South America remain as places I want to travel – but I managed to hit Japan, Egypt, and many more since my 40th. Australia coming up. I managed to move my family to the USA, get my wife citizenship, and even manage to keep us going in very expensive Hawaii. I’m a great dad and an innovative entrepreneur. My mission is “A healthy life of joyful liberty questing for wisdom, knowledge and positive relationships with self, others, planet, and being.”
Everything that came before was just preparation for what is coming. I’m excited about the future.
2011: 40 years old
Man oh man. Hard to believe that I’m hitting 40 today. To tell the truth though, it doesn’t seem to matter very much. Age is just a random way of keeping track of things.
So far, it’s been a pretty good run. While I didn’t quite hit the mark of 40 countries by my 40th – I did reach 37 of them! Not bad.I’ve got a loving wife and a beautiful daughter so by 40, I became a family man. I even managed to get my daughter US citizenship and a passport.
I’ve written and written and written – so far without much in the way of commercial success – but a writer is a writer because they write – it’s not really a choice. It’s what we do.
Back to my 40 years of reflection. I managed to graduate from the University of Hawaii while in my 30’s with an Honors degree and a laundry list of awards and titles – that was pretty cool. In my twenties I was a US Marine, Air Traffic Controller. Thank God that’s over. I’ve been a stock broker, a house painter, a DJ, a chauffeur, a bartender, a waiter, a hotel manager, a bellboy, and worked in film – hell, I’ve even seen my name roll on the credits of a few big Hollywood films.
Most recently, in this past year, I managed to support my family, pay for my daughters birth, take care of all of our needs (house, medical, dental, utilities etc) and do some pretty cool travel (Paris, Spain, Italy, sailing in Greece, South Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Switzerland, Turkey, Bulgaria, Serbia, Macedonia and here in Morocco) all with my own two fists. No boss, no job – just taking care of us with what I do. I’m proud as hell of that.
So, in a word – I feel pretty good about my accomplishments.
What do I want next? Well…let me think about it. Off the cuff –
– Get my wife a US Residency Visa
– Buy a house and property – somewhere
– Actually find some commercial success as a writer (see above to help with that :))
– I’d like to visit Egypt, Japan, India and the countries of South and Central America.
– and be able to get a really nice car before my midlife crisis hits…
Thanks for all your birthday wishes! Lordy Lordy, I’m 40.