First Post!

There are a few people who have read the book "Into the Wild,” A story about a man who completely ditched society to live life wild and free across America and eventually in Alaska. At the end of that story I am sure plenty of people put down that book and dreamed about getting away from it all, living off of the land, ditching society and saying "screw you!" to “the man” and living out our own Christopher McCandless adventure.

Of course most of us wake up and think "wait a second, I like my house, I like my car, I am a slave to society, money and monetary objects, no way am I going to try anything crazy like that."

Then there are the people who read it, had the fantasy, and then went on their own adventure and are either doing well… or they have ended up like Christopher… alone and dead in a bus in the middle of nowhere.

Then there is that select group who had the fantasy and ever since, couldn’t quite shake the idea of it. Everyday going through life is a constant state of “what if”, “what if I did that, could I pull it off, am I nuts for even thinking this stuff?” Then after a few years, you start saying “I’m not getting any younger, I have paid off a good amount of my debt to society, why am I not happy?”, and you start to feel that change in your mind that the city will eventually kill you. A few more years pass, and all of the sudden, City life doesn’t seem all that bad…. “Its ok, I can deal with it”… This statement was like a "whoa "moment in my life. That moment, I had somewhere in the summer of 2011, not too long ago from when I originally started writing this blog

During that summer, I started to notice that I was getting complacent. Most people would say that is the normal thing to feel, I disagree. It freaks me out, I can not have a life long dream of living an easy country life, just shatter and wither away in what seemed like a few months. I feel that I have the foresight to see that this was just a coping mechanism to get over the fact that I had pretty much surrendered to the way of the world and society and I would be a slave to my career and never know what it was like to be close to nature ever again. And I felt fine with that.

Let me give you some insight to the world of "Big" Dave, Ill tell you more of my master plan in another post later. Currently as I write this paragraph I live in Virginia Beach in a neighborhood called Chics Beach, I literally live within walking distance of the bay and have had the perfect view of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel  with the sun setting in the west behind it every night for years. I have had awesome neighbors, some were so close that I gave them permission to just come into my house whenever they would like to hang out, without even ringing the doorbell. My first house in Chics was right next to the beach, I moved out due to the high cost of living there, but memories will always be in my head of that wonderful place. My second house I lived in Chics was in walking distance to my work. I worked in a Chiropractic office as a massage therapist and had my own company out of that office and was doing very well for a single man business. I was fortunate enough to be in walking distance to several other things like a Kroger, Wawa, Walgreens, and multiple restaurants like a Mexican joint, Chinese, a bbq place, Subway and Wendy's all within about a five minute walk from my house! My family lives just down the street about fifteen minutes away, perfect amount of distance to make sure the parents don’t drop by too often, but everyone is in an earshot away for a family get together and whatnot. Downtown Virginia Beach has pretty much everything you need, and I mean everything, every type of business is here and is alive and doing well. Our economy, in VB, currently I believe is one of the best in America (of course we can thank the five big military bases we have here for some of that economic stimulus.) I have surrounded myself with the nicest things, like multiple guitars, and a plethora of electronic gadgets that make my city life very technologically easy and nice, amongst other fun things like a canoe and a kayak and a gas guzzling SUV… Most people will look at my life and be like "what the hell are you complaining about?" And I can understand where you can take that view point. All of these things are truly wonderful (and ultimately useless) in my life. You can say I have spoiled myself, or the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence…. But I still feel this void of un-fulfillment.

This void is a feeling of longing to get back to nature, work the land, live off the grid as much as possible, go barefoot for as long as possible, and grow my beard out as crazy as possible! I have preached to my family, friend and clients many times (even during massages) about my dreams of living the simple life for years now, and yet, here I am, living where everything is handed to you  (if you have the money that is) living the crazy non married mans dream, but unfortunately, as luck would have it… I don’t think this is the dream for me.

I want to live the near penniless adventure, I want to live off the land, I want to work my pampered massage therapist hands till they bleed soil! In my head this chant keeps ringing and this is the story of how I took that message, thought about it long and hard…. waited for the right moment or opportunity to arise… and then strike at that opportunity. 

Come with me now, as I throw what I call my life away, as I leave my family, my friends, my neighbors, my career, my comfort zone, literally my life as Ive known it for years, put that all on hold for at least a full growing season from start to finish and see what it is like to actually man up and take the “simple” approach… which means in my case, traveling 17 hours away to the sleepy little county of Fulton (pop. 11,650) where you find the city of Mammoth Springs (pop. 977), Arkansas. Home to the worlds tenth largest natural spring that gushes out 9 million gallons of water an hour at a brisk and constant temperature of 58 degree's F. This is the quiet place where I will start a new chapter in my life, a new adventure to go out and explore what it means to be an American that is living off the land!