About Vern …

Vern grew up in a one-parent household in a small western Pennsylvania town. He played soccer for school and club teams for twelve years culminating in winning the 1984 State Soccer Championship – at least that’s how it was explained to me at the end of the season. Lol.

Short vacations to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and Ocean City, Maryland when he was 16 yrs old impressed upon him the need to get away from Western PA. and see the rest of the USA.  A prime consideration was being close to the ocean for the rest of his life.

Feeling an intense desire to get out on his own and begin life in his own way he ignored a scholarship from a small soccer school and acceptance to Penn State’s Engineering Program to join the Air Force after graduating high school. Vern never studied in high school and couldn’t imagine wasting four years of his parents money and loans to get a degree in something like engineering.

The Air Force told him he could choose any job he liked. He chose an administrative position working with computer terminals because he thought computers were the next big thing. After technical school he was stationed at perhaps the best military base on the entire planet, Hickam Air Force Base in Honolulu on the island of Oahu, Hawaii. Vern went from an avid television sports spectator to someone that couldn’t stand to be indoors. The jaw-dropping beauty of Hawaii called him out daily to play.

Vern moved to New York City after meeting a born again Christian Canadian super-model and marrying on Oahu. Zoli modeling agency provided a place to live in Manhattan’s upper West side and Vern began a passionate interest in photography. While Vern’s wife frolicked all over the planet shooting magazine covers and being romanced by photographers, art directors and other models Vern befriended Ted Leyson, famous NYC paparazzi photographer and they spent thousands of hours walking around the city taking photos of celebrities, documenting the homeless and experiencing life.

New York taught Vern a lot. He worked with photographers and art directors with cocaine addiction… took nude photos of some of the most beautiful girls on the planet… Talked to Woody Allen, John F. Kennedy, Jr (John-John), Kyra Sedgewick, Mayor Koch and many other people known worldwide. There were incredible times and horrible times. After 3 years the ‘marriage that never really was’ ended for reasons largely unknown to Vern. Vern knew he needed to find the beach again.

A three month trip to Miami, Florida showed him that he could live there for a while and attend college. Initially he was aiming for Physical Therapy but then decided he wasn’t ready to study yet and he settled for a bachelors in Psychology instead. Then a masters in a counseling psychology program.  During his school years Vern worked as a counselor for many people with severe to marked mental disabilities. His favorite ‘job’ was as a respite worker with two boys that had been physically and sexually abused by their step fathers. Vern spent over two years acting as a role model for the boys and trying to show them that decent men exist in the world. This experiences were the most personally rewarding he’s ever had. He was accepted to FIT’s Psychology Doctorate program but decided against it. The cost was $25K per year and it would be mostly loans. He already had a bookload of loans. Instead he jumped into the IT field full-time in 1996.

Vern grew up in a Catholic household that turned into a “born again Christian” household by the time he was in his teens. Vern questioned many things about the churches that didn’t make logical sense to him and at 17 years he cut ties with the church. But, after meeting his born again wife he started reading the bible and praying daily. His wife spoke in tongues at one point – throwing Vern for a loop. Vern read the bible through a couple times in it’s entirety and enjoyed it, but it didn’t seem to make any logical sense at all. When the marriage failed so did Vern’s Bible study and nightly prayers.

Vern’s real pursuit of personal growth and development began in 1991 with a university class called, “World Religion 101″. He began a search for truth about life and began reading and listening to everything he could get his hands on by Alan Watts and Joseph Campbell. He attended Buddhist, Sufi, and Hare Krishna group meetings for the experience and found them none-too exciting. The real fun was in questioning all that was going on  – not subscribing to a religion that gives you incomplete answers.

In 1997 Vern began meditating in Vipassana style, flying blind without a teacher or friends that meditated. His experiences during this time were other worldly and awesome to the most unimaginable degree. He stopped cold after not being able to find ANYONE that could help him understand what the experiences were. Having a master’s in psych made him question whether he was sane – were the experiences normal? Nobody among his friends or teachers understood them.

A call to an American monk who lived at a temple for 19 years in Thailand told him in 2004 that the experiences were advanced meditative states called “Jhanas”. Apparently Vern had gone through the material and immaterial Jhanas.

Vern moved to Thailand to escape the pressure cooker of the USA and found a home in the northeast, Isaan region where he met a wonderful girl. They live a simple life in Thailand, existing on very little and being immensely happy as a result. Recently he began meditating again, detailing some of the experiences at seemlessness, a meditation journal and as well as “Jhana8.com” with mp3’s and videos of his personal experience.

In Thailand Vern taught English for a couple years to Thai children and then in a bold move decided to make blogging his only ‘job’. He maintains a number of web sites and blogs as well as online projects of many different topics.

Vern is passionate about sharing his life experience with anyone that chooses to improve themselves.

Main topics of this blog are:

• Life philosophy
• Reality based living
• Raising consciousness
• Psychology
• Meditation
• Life tips & Skills
• Challenging unquestioned beliefs
• Exercise & Flow
• Mind: mental mastery, thoughts, motivation, processes
• Happiness
• Helping others
• Living with less
• Big picture view
• Increasing “Worldview”
• What is the point of life?
• Relationships
• Private logic

This site has won small blogging awards and had blog posts reprinted on many other blogs. Vern has written over 270 articles at AFA, many of them personal development articles. He created e-books about meditation and other topics. Plans are to keep churning out the content as he has a lot to say. This site and downloads will always remain free for readers.

If you enjoy reading the articles why not grab the RSS feed (what is RSS feed?) so you don’t miss the latest articles and e-books.

Vern strives:

• to live life at the highest level of consciousness;
• to be aware of and enjoy living in the present moment as much as possible;
• to live consciously, lucidly, always aware of the big picture;
• to be aware of the needs of others that don’t voice them;
• to share life’s lessons generously;
• for harmony between himself and friends, family & strangers.

Vern’s contact information can be found here.  Site disclaimer.

I hope you enjoy “Aim for Awesome!”

Best of Life!

More Bio at Page 2 >

Twitter: AimforAwesome

Vern does: Web Development & Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Meditation without religion at Guru Gone

Flickr photos of Hawaii and Thailand

Vern writes fiction as:  Mike Fook

Videos of Vern in Thailand