A Childhood Memory and Reflections on Life

I had an interesting memory yesterday that I'd completely forgotten about. I was flying into Lima, Peru yesterday evening and as were descending my ears started to hurt from the change in air pressure, because I was using my computer and had earphones in. So I took them out to let my ears adjust. And that momentary pain of pressure in the head (which wasn't that bad) reminded me of when I was 13 or 14 years old, and my Dad flew my Mom, my brother and I over the Sierra Nevada mountains of California in a tiny 4-seater plane. I remember my brother and I freaking out from the pain then because, of course, there was no adjusted cabin pressure in a tiny plane like that, and we were way above the Sierras.

But here's the part that really trips me out: at the time, my Dad was exactly the same age as I am now, 43. Not only was he married, with two teenage kids, and he'd already finished building our big house in the woods....but he flew his family over the freaking Sierra Nevadas. Definitely puts things in perspective. Especially when you're 43 years old, still single and a traveling backpacker. I definitely chose a different course in life.

Sometimes I certainly wonder what the heck I'm doing and where I'm going. But then at the same time, I feel like it's all just right. I chose a rather roundabout path (to say the least) to get to where I am now. But on some level, it seems like things are working out as planned. I bumbled around a lot, no doubt about that. But all those unique experiences are now providing tremendous creative potential for success doing exactly what I want to be doing. For example, I just passed 30,000 subscribers between my two Youtube channels and am now making enough money from Youtube alone to travel on (if I do it cheap). If you search on Youtube for almost every place that I've been in the past year, you'll find one of my videos on the first page for that search term, which means my travel channel is getting recognized by Youtube as a top travel channel. That is a seriously amazing thing. Potentially no more working the night shift or doing random handyman jobs to make money. Just traveling the world making videos, and it pays for itself. And it can really only go upwards from here.

I wrote my Dad and told him about the memory, and he said he'd forgotten about it too and was glad to be reminded of it. He did some pretty awesome, outside-the-box things with his life as well. Just different things, in a totally different way.

Here's a photo of myself (on the left), my brother Christo, mom Vicki and dad Jim, in front of our house in the woods outside of Willits, California. Looks like I'm around 6 or so, so this would have been late '70s.