Pain's blessing

Okay so I have not been updating much lately, not here or on the podcast. I can tell you all the pain, illness, changes, decisions, roadblocks, and set backs that separated me from this effort and audience but to what end? What would it change?

Pain is something that all of have learned to shrink from quickly, the stove is hot. It's in our DNA to have self preservation. This involuntary reaction is designed to protect us and sustain life. However, the running away, or shrinking away, is not productive. We often need to sit still in the place of pain to understand what purpose does it serve to feel this. Apply scientific method that will be your path to understanding it. What makes a person 'bad' or 'good', it's how they deal with their pain. Hurt people hurt people. The child that grew up poor economically, usually has one of two reactions to that in adulthood. One, they become greedy about acquiring stuff, they often overindulge themselves when spending, even if that action selfishly takes away from supplying the needs of their spouses and children. Or these people can learn that material things don't satisfy a gap in their emotional well being. They learn that it isn't stuff that makes someone feel a sense of lacking or not, it is in fact, the withholding of love and attention that creates this emotion.

My medical condition makes me feel physical pain often, well daily. Dealing with it, raising a family, teaching teenagers, being a spouse, a friend, a relative, and all other roles I am asked to be, have never been easy. I have a lot of physical pain but it doesn't even get in the ring with my emotional pain, it's in the wrong weight class to box with it. Being a chef, you must overcome much of your fear of physical pain. Cuts, burns, falls, having to lift heavy weight, work on your feet from 8, 12, 18, or 20 hours a day, with back to back days, a lack of good sleep, a constant level of noise, action, and planning, are all a part and parcel of our work. And all this before your customers interact with you making a complicated day into a possible nightmare.... But we wouldn't have it any other way. We chefs are action addicts in our own way, no different that a skydiver, totally hooked on the rush.

I still must strive and continue, both here and in real life. I will pull myself back to where I was breaking ground on some of my long list of productive action. It takes more than one monkey to stop this show.

Thanks. Stay tuned.