An "about me" biosketch in 10 bullet points

•  I was born in the mid-1960s (early Gen-X) in the northeastern U.S.

The story goes that my birth was breech, and I came out blue from the umbilical cord being wrapped tightly around my neck.

My upbringing was mostly stable and even sheltered until age 11, when my parents separated and there began many years of being bounced between parents as they each moved periodically from city to city and state to state.  Exactly why they were each moving around so much is a whole other story (but no, I was not a military brat).

•  I attended 10 schools, performed poorly in most, and failed two grade levels

Like more than a few kids, I hated school.  With few exceptions my grades were poor, mainly because I struggled to focus on tasks, and disliked the reverse assembly line format of going to a succession of different (often large) classrooms, each with a different teacher and (mostly) different group of students.

But whereas many other school-hating kids at least derive some compensatory benefit from its socializing aspects (i.e., they have friends and/or acquaintances who make school bearable), I was usually such a loner and misfit that I hated that aspect as well.  Further, I didn't like sports, so even P.E./gym class was neither respite nor consolation.

This was only exacerbated by all the relocating and changes of custody that were occurring, since I was often starting over as the new kid in class, and not always at the beginning of a school year.

And so, after flunking both the 6th grade (which, mercifully, I didn't have to repeat) and the 8th grade (which, regrettably, I did have to repeat), I finally terminated my "academic sentence" by dropping out of high school early in my Junior year.

•  I've lived in 65 cities or towns across 11 American states

Among the near-dozen states I've lived in are New York, Florida, Texas, Hawaii, California, and Arizona.  At one time or another, I've resided in no fewer than half of all the states along the eastern seaboard of the United States.

Additionally, either vocationally or recreationally, I've visited or passed through every state in the U.S. except Alaska and North Dakota.

The many cities and towns I've called home, however briefly, range in size from enormous (Los Angeles, The Bay Area, Houston, Phoenix) to midsized (Wilmington N.C., Fredericksburg VA, Naugatuck CT) to tiny (Snellville GA, Sloatsburg NY, Chiloquin OR).

My only time leaving the U.S. was a brief "working vacation" in the Caymans in the early '90s.

•  I've had over 90 jobs

Continuing the trend of itineracy set in motion in childhood, I've always been a very restless seeker of a vocation or occupation that's energizing rather than draining; one that I'd look forward to doing every day, and that I'd actually want to do even if I weren't getting paid for it.  I'm still searching.

My many jobs include: bookstore manager, semi-truck driver (at various times hauling fuel, food, logs, coal, general freight, and mail), door-to-door canvasser, telemarketer, factory worker, metal stud framer, sheetrock hanger, office factotum and clerical guy Friday, proofreader, temp agency staffer, fence installer, furniture mover, art hanger, audio transcriptionist, roofer, hardwood floor installer, cabinet builder, convenience store clerk, dishwasher, school janitor, landscaper, etc., etc.

Even with all these jobs, there are a few super common service-sector ones that are conspicuously missing from my résumé, most notably: waiter, bartender, and cook.

Longest job: 6 years.  Shortest job: 6 hours.  Average job length:  4 months.

•  There's been a lot of death in my life

My grandparents were all dead by the end of the 1970s; my father died at 55 in 1984; my sister at 23 in 1992; my mother at 84 in 2014.  In addition, many extended family and unrelated acquaintances and coworkers have passed on.  The youngest was my 1 year old niece; the oldest was my 100 year old great aunt.  In all, I'm aware of 24 people from my life who have died, almost half of whom were family.

That said, there are probably a number of cousins, nieces, and nephews out there somewhere.  But it's been over 40 years since any of them were in contact (and even then, the contact was with my mother), so for all practical purposes I have no family.

•  I lived in a van for three years...

...although not continuously, but in aggregate, over the course of the first five years I owned it.  During that time I put nearly 100,000 miles on it, alternately circling and crisscrossing the country, stopping here and there to work to offset the drain on my savings (which, with neither inheritance nor trust fund, is comprised entirely of my own modest earnings).

•  I lifted weights seriously for years, gaining over 30 lbs. of muscle

I also have a personal training certification, although I've never actually worked professionally as a trainer (aside from informal work with friends and coworkers).

I stopped lifting over a decade ago, after a profound experience following a group retreat brought a shift in perception and orientation that resulted in a loss of interest in working out.

•  I once fasted on water alone for a whole month

This wasn't for weight loss or anything health-related (I've always been lean and healthy), but was a personal discipline I'd long felt called to complete for more psychospiritual reasons.  Over the years prior to this, I engaged in many shorter water-only fasts of anywhere from a day or two to 15 days in length.  In addition, in my mid-thirties I did a 47 day juice fast.

•  I was a spiritual seeker for almost 30 years

What I was seeking wasn't clear in the beginning (my early twenties), but was fueled by a combination of suffering and a thirst for deep insights about myself and the nature of reality. 

Clarity about what was driving my search came gradually with those ever more impactful insights over the years.  (See this piece for more on this.)  Note that this clarity often meant seeing painful truths about myself — for example, that at least some of my earlier seeking was an exercise in "spiritual bypassing" (which is using "spiritual" pursuits to mask failures and shortcomings in the ordinary life areas of relationships, career, or even basic ego development and self-esteem).

But the more pivotal insights didn't concern psychology or anything personal at all, but rather the aforementioned nature of reality itself; something which one recognizes is not other than the nature of one's own identityless identity.

So, while I haven't had what one acquaintance of mine has called a "grand mal awakening" — i.e. the transformation known as enlightenment or liberation — there has been a deep, abiding, and satisfying enough recognition of the nondual "true nature" of reality that, for the most part, at least, I no longer have that core restlessness or dissatisfaction that drove my seeking (ongoing vocational instability notwithstanding).

•  I was diagnosed with Autism at age 56

While this maybe shouldn't be a revelation coming from someone who tells their autobiography in bullet list format, for me this late diagnosis has been one of the most psychologically enlightening and freeing experiences of my life.  Autism explains so much of my life experience since early childhood, including both challenges and gifts, that it's amounted to a truly Copernican revolution in my understanding of myself as a character in this play called life.