Life is about Being and Learning

Many people think life is about the struggle to obtain things. However, things are not really going to make you happy but your relationships with places and people might. But, things are very temporal in nature. So, often I will meet people whose struggle for fortune and money overwhelms them and I can see them being very unhappy and even moving towards self destruction.

What makes people the way they are?

The way I see it it mostly comes from what you are exposed to growing up. Children from the womb on are influenced by what they see people doing around them. Parents often say, "Hey kids. Do what I say not what I do." But that doesn't work. Kids are going to follow your example, not necessarily what you say. Oh, they might learn from your mistakes or not. But, in the end mostly they learn from what they see you and others do not what you tell them to do.

So, if you want to influence people act according to what you think is important to be as a human being. My parents were very good people I realize now. Often sometimes, in comparison to today I might think them a little naive. But that is the way people often were who were raised during the 1920s and were teenagers and adults during the 1930s. Neither of my parents attended college even though my father was valedictorian of his high school. This likely would be unthinkable now in the U.S. But, my father graduated in 1934 as valedictorian of his high school so going to college wasn't going to be allowed by his Electrical Contractor father. instead he made all three of his boys electricians in his business. So, they all had a trade, each had a car or more, each had girlfriends and the two that survived World War II had wives and children as well.

But, back to life is about Being and learning. I noticed that people who struggled for things often were very sad people because they couldn't get what they really wanted. So, after struggling with whooping cough at 2 and then blunt trauma childhood epilepsy I found myself desiring something else. I wanted to hike in the mountains in the wilds, I wanted to SCUBA DIVE and fly planes and gliders and ride motorcycles and travel around the world. And so I did all these things. But, most of all it was my times in the wilderness that satisfied me the most. Whenever I was away from the craziness of Los Angeles where I grew up mostly from age 8 to 21 I was the happiest. So, when I was surfing a wave on a surfboard or surf mat or boogie board or body surfing or when I was riding a motorcycle across a vacant desert landscape at sunset through the sand, or when I was flying a glider or a plane I was in heaven. But, like I said being in the wilderness with all the wildness and wild animals in the forests and mountains and deserts and oceans throughout California, and all the western States I liked the best. Then in 1974 I moved to Hawaii with my new wife and baby and that was amazing too.

So, life for me is about Being in the wilds and learning about life and hanging out with friends in beautiful places and having adventures. It has never really been about owning things. Even now that I'm well off I wasn't really prepared for it until I was in my 40s. I was too busy traveling to beautiful places with my family whenever I could and meeting God everywhere I was and being very happy to know God in the Wilderness everywhere on earth.