http://osakabentures.com/2011/08/10-things-you-didnt-know-about-me/
5 Things You Didn’t Know About Me
Posted by OsakaSaul on August 26, 2011 in English | 5 Comments
Giving my blog an annual break from seriousness: what led to this?
While laid up in hospital last week, recovering from a hernia operation, I had five days without the many people I network with, discover, learn, and share social media and entrepreneurial ideas with, and it occurred to me that I might not be viciously attacked for just this once sharing more of myself.
Call it social media transparency, if you will.
I’d like you to know a much about me as you care to. (And then let’s talk business.)
1. Without surgery, pills, or any help, I lost 55% of my body weight, going from 165.5 to 73.9 Kg in 3 1/2 years. I have kept most of it off, three years since. I continue with my very own program, much of which entails taking a long, brisk walk every morning, regardless of the weather, on an empty stomach. I probably skip that 2-3 hour walk less than 20 mornings per year. The photo below shows me at about 130 Kg; I suppose I wasn’t photogenic enough at 165.5 Kg to get photographed much.
2. My parents were artists, I studied film-making, and nothing was more important to my parents than creativity – except that we question everything. For creativity, my father insisted we not have a TV in our home. From questioning, its no wonder that I am the most devout atheist you might ever know.
And yet, I love believers. I love that you have faith. It serves you well, gives you a peace of mind that isn’t available to me. Don’t ever change. After all, when I croak, I’ll be all dressed up, boxed, baked – and then, nowhere to go!
3. Though I’ve traveled around the world by ship (not the yacht in the photo to the left), been to 18 countries, and speak Japanese, I was the first of my family to drive (age 19) or board an airplane (age 21). I always was curious about foreign lands and peoples, and have been befriending those from places most different than my place of birth from age six – until even now.
What comes of such cultural curiosity?
I have lived close to half my life in Japan and have no yearning to return to Philadelphia. I am often asked if I will ever return to the U.S. Yes, and it may even soon be time for that kind of change for my wife and I. As for where, a place with good living would be nice. I meet great people wherever I go, so that wouldn’t be a problem. I have nothing drawing to one locale or another, though; I have no sense of “home.”
4. I am from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but Philly is a big city, and one of many very different neighborhoods. Mine was hardly the metropolitan, crime-ridden, drug-infested “inner-city” neighborhood that nearly everyone assumes it to have been; we lived a walk away from fields, streams, hills to sled down in the winter, and our backyard was large enough that a game of soccer rarely interfered with my mother’s vegetable garden. My father’s art studio used to be a stable for horses and there were many other houses in our neighborhood that were well over one hundred years old.
5. Thanks to social media, I have met several great new friends, just over the last two years. This is handy since, truth be told, I have had the misfortune of losing many friends due to people (or me) moving far away, an occasional major falling-out, and even early deaths. I make every effort to strengthen relationships, meeting in person with those with whom this is possible, and via SKYPE when it is not. People are very important to me. I try to keep my people close to me, meeting or at least speaking by voice – rather than just tweeting, google+ posting, G+ commenting/hanging out or Facebook-updating with them.
I have gone rogue and off-brand. (It wont happen often. But do let me know if a post like this really irks you.) Tomorrow I m back in the thick of social media, opinionated as usual, with Another Ten Reasons You Get Unfollowed in Twitter.
