The Mob, the Marines, & the Path to Meditation - Mark

A teenager working as a bookmaker while loading books for the Teamsters, a young man sprinting into the Marines to outrun the mob, and a veteran who discovers that the loudest battles begin after you come home. Mark’s story pulls you from Philadelphia’s streets to the Gulf War, across a kibbutz in Israel, and into a quiet Florida room where thirty minutes of stillness begin to change everything. 

We explore the human cost of pressure and war, and the small, repetitive practices that rebuild a nervous system and a life. Mark opens the chapters with rarely told stories of surviving when friends don’t, of masking panic behind success, and of the first awkward steps toward help at a Veteran Center. 

Through Zen meditation, filmmaking, public service, and spiritual communities, he discovers how the body learns steadiness and how the mind is guided. 

If you’re navigating trauma, PTSD, addiction, or the quiet ache of being “high-functioning” yet unwell, this conversation offers grounded tools and proof that change is possible.

Connect with Mark:

Documentary on YouTube: Woke Up Alive (A Unique and Honest Spiritual Journey)

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Book: Why I Survived; Where Survival Becomes Strength

The background music is written, performed and produced exclusively by Melissa Turri.
https://melissaturrimusic.com/

Transcript

Meet Mark: From Bets To Marines

SPEAKER_03 0:13

Imagine this. When you speak the truth about your darkest chapters, your story becomes the light someone else has been praying for. I'm Jennifer Lee, founder of the Healing and Sharing, host of the I NeedBlue podcast, an author, and a survivor who turned pain into purpose. God called me to use my story and share my voice to create this special space just for you. To learn more, visit iNeetBlue.net. I must share a trigger warning. This podcast includes discussions of trauma, violence, and sensitive experiences meant to empower and support. Please prioritize your well-being. And remember there is strength in asking for help. A heartfelt thank you to my beautiful friend Melissa Turry for creating the opening melody. To learn more about her incredible journey, visit MelissaTurrymusic.com. Now let's begin today's story. My guest today, Mark, takes us back to the beginning, where he was barely out of high school living in Philadelphia and working as a bookmaker while loading books for the Teamsters. What started with small bets and routine labor pulled him into the mob's orbit, pushing him to make a life altering escape by joining the Marines. That chapter left him carrying PTSD and years of inner battle eventually leading him through higher education, a master's degree, and a deeper search for healing and peace. Life eventually led him to Israel studying meditation with doctor Yoshi Lesham. This became a turning point in his healing. Today in Vero Beach, Florida, Mark lives a life rooted in balance, service, and helping others find steadiness through meditation and presence. Mark, thank you for being my guest today, and welcome to the I Need Blue Podcast.

SPEAKER_02 2:50

Well, thank you. Wow, that was quite the introduction. I'm uh I'm amazed by my own situation.

SPEAKER_03 3:00

Well, I'm so glad that you're here today and to share the details and dig a little bit deeper into this whirlwind of a journey. I know for you it's not gonna end because every day is like a new beginning. And it's like, oh, what's gonna come today? And you look at that with enthusiasm and curiosity.

SPEAKER_02 3:21

That's I think that's the story of my life. You never know what's next. You should talk to my mother. She's the one that knows that best. I don't know what he's doing now.

SPEAKER_03 3:32

I think most of us with a curious mind probably have had other people question, like, yeah, what are they doing? Why are they making that decision? Why are they taking that risk? Right?

SPEAKER_01 3:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:44

Yeah, sometimes common sense isn't necessarily part of the whole curiosity journey. To us it is, but to those looking inside, they're like, wait, what?

SPEAKER_02 3:54

Yeah, I think when I was younger, I kind of found the balance of how to be an adventurer in a responsible manner. It took a long time to actually, and a lot of mistakes to understand that you know you can hurt people as well with these unconventional decisions. And we have to consider others, at least now I have to consider my children and my family and everyone involved before making any major decisions.

SPEAKER_03 4:27

Absolutely. That's part of the growth journey. But I think what's really important about that is also um the journey of having grace in forgiveness from others. As maybe you look back and you're like, ah, maybe I could have done that a little bit differently. Have you found that that was your situation?

SPEAKER_02 4:45

Absolutely. Um, I find that it's very easy to forgive others, but it's hardest to forgive myself. And most of what I do is, you know, to try to make amends as best I can. That's all we can do. We can't control if other people, you know, accept or forgive us, but we can forgive ourselves in time with a lot of work.

Pressure, Paranoia, And The Exit Plan

SPEAKER_03 5:11

I think we could probably talk on this topic for a long time because it's something that a lot of people uh deal with. Well, we're gonna dig into your story a little bit here. You end up surrounded by the mob.

SPEAKER_02 5:27

I was a bookmaker loading boxes. At the time, it started slowly with selling what they called back then football pools. They're like little slips of paper, and people bet and choose the teams they think are gonna win. Um, and then it led to actual bookmaking, which is taking bets, individual bets. You know, some of them were pretty big. And then I got associated with some guys, but I didn't really realize what it was at the time. You know, I didn't think I was in the mob. How old were you? Uh about I guess I started about 18. Okay. Maybe 17 and I graduated when I was 17, so it had to be, you know, 17 and a half to 18.

SPEAKER_01 6:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:17

And then I was in it for about a year and a half, and I I joined the Marines and ran away as quick as I could. You know, I had to get out of that stressful situation by joining the Marines. That's a that's a joke, you know.

SPEAKER_03 6:33

Yeah, you shared a little bit about the moments when you realized, uh-oh, I need a change, I need out of this uh career path that I'm currently in. Take us into that moment.

SPEAKER_02 6:47

Well, I was paranoid. I always thought the police were like outside of my house. You know, there'd be a van or a car there, and uh there'd be a guy in it. And I was like, wait a minute, are they here for me? But then I started betting myself, you know, and you got all this money involved, and you can't tell your boss that, you know, I can't pay you on when I think it was Wednesdays we settled up. You know, you can't tell them I don't have the money. That that doesn't work very well. And then you have guys that like bet with you and then they don't pay you. You know, and if it's a$50 bet, what do you do? You you don't want to go scare or hurt the guy for$50. You gotta let it go. So it was a lot to handle for a young man, but the bottom line is I couldn't take the pressure. It was just way too much pressure for me.

SPEAKER_03 7:47

Aren't most people in the mob like born into it or not?

SPEAKER_02 7:51

Well, yeah, I was introduced by little Sween. He was not little by any stretch of the imagination, whose father was Big Sween, and I think their last name was Sweeney. So yeah, he was introduced by his father. And I had a neighbor who was kind of my mentor, he was a great guy, but he was a bookmaker as well, and he kind of showed me the ropes, and plus my family was full of gamblers, yes. I was taught to to play poker and bet at a very young age. It was just part of my life, so I didn't think it was anything, you know, exotic or interesting. But all these years later, I look back and I'm like, wow, I had no clue what I was jumping into there.

SPEAKER_03 8:41

That's pretty much being 17, 18, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 8:45

Yeah. But you know, I see mob movies and stuff, and I I'm like, whoa, okay, yeah, I remember something similar to that. Not as extreme, of course, you know.

SPEAKER_03 8:56

Yeah. So you decide you're like, I I need to get out. You joined the Marines.

SPEAKER_02 9:03

Oh, yeah, that was an impulsive decision. I just, you know, after loading boxes, we we had to be in real early in the morning. It was like, I think we had to be there at three. And I had a friend at the time, he's passed away. He passed away from a heroin addiction. Him and I used to load the boxes, and then after work, we would smoke some marijuana. I'm not advocating that in any way. And then we would get in our car and go back to my place and lift weights, and then we would get lunch. That was like our daily routine. But one day we were driving home and I looked over and I saw these Marines in their uniforms at the flagpole. There were three of them, like they were doing some kind of ceremony at the flagpole just then. So I pulled into the parking lot, and it was the parking lot of the recruiting station. And my friend said, You know, what the heck are you doing? I said, I'm gonna join the Marines. And he said, Yeah, right, you're joining the Marines. So I waited for the Marines to get done. It was Staff Sergeant Malone. I walked up to him and said, I want to join the Marines. And they all started laughing and said, Yeah, right. But I joined the Marines that day.

SPEAKER_03 10:27

And they asked you a question about why you wanted to join the Marines.

Boot Camp To Gulf War Reality

SPEAKER_02 10:32

Because I said, I want to leave as soon as possible. And they asked me, Did you take the ASFAB test, like the armed forces test when you were in high school? And I said, Yeah. So Malone got on the phone and called like the MEPS. It's like the local uh regional military recruiting office and asked for my test scores. And when he got off the phone, he said, Man, your scores are good. You could do any job you want in the Marine Corps. And I said, Well, I want to get out of here as quick as humanly possible. And he said, The only thing I can give you then is the infantry, but you don't want to go in the infantry. I said, Whatever, I want out. And they asked, Are you in trouble with the law? And I said, Not yet. And that's why I want to get out. So he put me in like a special infantry. It was called security forces and fast teams. So it was kind of like uh a little bit different than the normal in infantry. So I I thank him for that because I ended up in the normal infantry. And man, it's tough. You're called a grunt. I went home and told my father. I told him I joined the military. I didn't have the heart to tell him I joined the Marines. So I just said I joined the military. And then he asked what branch. And he said, please tell me it's the Air Force or the Navy. And I said, No, it's the Marines. And then he he got mad and said, You tell your effing mother. Because my mother's a little bit of a nervous type. I don't think she was real happy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:17

Yeah. As a mom of two Marines, my first one shocked me when he called and he said, Well, I joined the Marines. And I was like, Wait, what? He wanted to go to college for like accounting and things like that. My youngest, not so much, because he had talked about that forever. Um, but I know what it's like to be the mom and have the like, oh, by the way, this is what I'm doing.

SPEAKER_02 12:40

Yeah, it was something.

SPEAKER_03 12:43

Yes. And for you, when you say it was something, this landed you into the first Gulf War.

SPEAKER_02 12:50

Well, what happened was it was very peaceful when I joined. You know, we were in uh, I think the School of Infantry at the time. Back then, TVs were on like this rolling cart, you know. I don't know if you remember those rolling carts, but they rolled it out to the squad bay, and they we all gathered around, and it was Dan Rather or someone, you know, talking about Saddam Hussein invading, and then George Bush talking about it will not stand this aggression. And we at that point it got real. I was like, oh man, you have got to be kidding me. Because I had no visions of uh being some kind of hero. I knew war was hell just from talking to Vietnam veterans. So I wasn't necessarily chomping at the bit like the rest of the guys.

SPEAKER_03 13:42

What was that like for you? What surprised you the most or that you weren't prepared for?

Aftermath: Guilt, Loss, And Survival

SPEAKER_02 13:50

Well, you know, when it gets real, it gets real. It's like a moment where you're like, holy crap, I didn't realize that I could actually, you know, go to war and that my life's gonna be on the line. I think it depends subjectively on the individual, too, you know. Some guys wanted to go to war. That was their whole purpose for joining. But for me, my purpose for joining was to just to get away from the mob. So the whole experience ended up being a lot more traumatic and stressful than what I left. And I'll never forget it. You know, after I joined that day where I impulsively joined, I had to go back in to sign some papers or something. And I was sitting outside waiting for Staff Sergeant Malone and this Navy recruiter. He was like, Why don't you come in? Did you sign yet? And I was like, Well, no, I'm here to sign today. He's like, Well, why don't you come on in and have some coffee with me? And I was like, No, no, no. He's like, What was your test scores? And I told him, he's like, please just come in and have coffee with me. So I said, Okay. He tried to talk me out of it. He said, you know, you don't know what you're getting into here, man. I could put you in for the SEALs, and if you pass the training, you know, you could be a SEAL. Whoever you are, if you're still alive and you hear this, thank you, because I should have listened to you. You don't hear Marines say that often because a lot of the guys, well, most of the guys I was in with are dead from either cancer, uh, a lot of colon cancer for some reason, alcoholism or drugs. So my best friends are dead, but I'm still here. A lot of Marines, they stay Marines, you know, that it's hard to explain. I took the good stuff from the Marines, like the discipline, the physical fitness, um, stuff like that, confidence, and left, let's just say, the more aggressive tendencies. You know, that's just a chapter. Whereas for a lot of guys, that was the highlight of their life. Luckily for me, had so many chapters, as you well know, that's just one of them. But that was the hardest one. You know, I still have dreams where I'm back in and I can't get out, and I'm, you know, in some kind of battle without my weapon. I can't find my weapon, stuff like that. It's always there. And I didn't see anything compared to the post-911 Marines. You know, I look back at my old units, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines after 911. Those guys in a four-year enlistment did two tours in Iraq and one tour in Afghanistan in four years. I couldn't even imagine coming back surviving that. But like you said, it's not about comparison. I've always felt guilty that, you know, I didn't see enough or do enough when I was in compared to a lot of guys in the same situation as me. But like you said, it's not really helpful to compare. You know, you go in and you're set where you're set. It's not really your choice. And you just take the cards you're drawn. But the post-911 guys, I really like helping them, you know, establish meditation practices because uh I I really don't know how I would have survived that afterwards, even if I survived it. It's just a terrible position to be put in as a young person, you know. That much trauma and that much violence in one tour. It's just not right. But I'm not here to criticize governments or anything like that. I don't get political, but it's not it's not it's not good to put another human being through that.

SPEAKER_03 18:08

Right. And civilians, we have no idea what that's like. Um I think it's fair to say the spouses and the children of the military probably have a better idea of those actually living with the soldier and having to witness um, like you said, the nightmares, the waking up. Sadly, the the alcoholism. I mean, we know suicide is rampant in our veterans and whatnot.

SPEAKER_02 18:35

Yeah, just going out in the public was tough for me at times. But those guys, I mean, their nervous systems are so hijacked and they're addicted to adrenaline. You got all the memories. I don't even like to surmise what they're going through, you know?

SPEAKER_03 18:54

Right.

College, Careers, And Cracks Beneath

SPEAKER_02 18:55

When I got out, I went straight back to college. I actually drove with one of my marine buddies who's now deceased, Craig. We drove cross-country with a trunk full of beer, driving at like a hundred miles an hour. I don't know how we made it alive and free. But he dropped me off at college, a sleepy town in Western Pennsylvania State College. And I was a mess, man. I was somehow I did great at school, though, because it was easy compared to the Marines. But I I was drinking too much, and I was just a mess. I mean, severe depression and severe anxiety. Um, and I carried that. Somehow I functioned, I did well at school, I got a master's degree, I got a good job, I did some great internships, but inside I felt like a mess. Out of the Marines, I wanted to be a lawyer and I wanted to be a politician. I used to dress up to go to my classes in college, and everybody thought I was a professor because I was a little bit older, and I dressed in like a sport coat, and somewhere along the line I read Dress for Success. I ended up, you know, becoming kind of like a hippie with long hair and a beard and living out in the woods, and that's really what changed everything. And then I, you know, was in the band, like I told you, and we had a music magazine in Philadelphia that we published, a free one, and we were booking shows, and it was really an incredible experience looking back. I didn't really appreciate it at the time. After I got my master's degree, uh Ed Rendell became the governor of Pennsylvania, and I ended up working for his administration in conservation. And then another extreme happened. I took off to Israel and made a movie and lived in a kibbutz. I think that was really the transition. It was before I got counseling and went on meds, but in Israel, um, you know, there were a lot of spiritual people one way or another. A lot of people over there, at least in the kibbutz in the area I lived in, they were very creative, artistic, peace-loving people who meditated. So that's really where I got introduced to meditation. It was in Israel. It was a different form of meditation. It was fupasana meditation, they call it. But that's really where I started eating healthier because the food over there is different, much healthier than American food. You know, I was exercising, I was meditating a little, I was, you know, on that path. And that's really where I got healthy.

SPEAKER_03 21:51

And what I uh appreciate about that uh part of your life too is the documentary, the children's nature. You were able to just showcase the the beauty behind the innocence and how nature also fulfills and brings people together. Wonderful.

SPEAKER_02 22:11

Well, I did my best. I went to uh the leading film schools in the country and just emailed the deans and said, Hey, I'm going to Israel. You got somebody who wants to go with me, I'll pay for their trip and their room and board. And so I ended up going with this kid from Boston University. And my idea was just film, follow the spontaneity of the universe with no uh script. But now I look back, you know, as a wiser, more balanced individual, I definitely would have done it different. But hey, who doesn't do that? You know?

SPEAKER_03 22:49

Yeah, absolutely. I look back, oh you you hear and you see the growth. And that's really important though, right? Because we all have to start somewhere.

SPEAKER_02 23:03

Yeah, and it's important, you know, not to let those self-critical voices come in and hold us back now.

SPEAKER_03 23:12

And you were when you finally came back from Israel, documentary is done. How old were you?

Israel, Film, And First Meditation

SPEAKER_02 23:19

Let's see. I moved to Maui in 2008, so I was 38.

SPEAKER_03 23:26

Okay. And Hawaii? Oh my goodness, what brought you to Hawaii? It's beautiful.

SPEAKER_02 23:32

I tried to work in Israel. I found various jobs, but they didn't pay, you know, what I needed to pay what I owed. So I had to find a job, and my ex-wife, she wasn't my wife at my at the time, but I asked her to come back to the States with me, and she said, no way. And I said, Well, what about Hawaii? And she said, Well, maybe. But see, I had like long hair and uh I looked crazy. She didn't really believe I could get a job, you know, especially not with the government. But I ended up getting a job with the National Park Service at Haleyakala in Maui. About 2009, I actually went for help. That was at least 15, 20 years after I got out. And the reason I went for help is because my ex-wife was pregnant with my daughter. And I thought to myself, man, I'm gonna be a father. I gotta do something about this. Like, you know, I can't even believe I've made it this far. I didn't think I would live past 30, you know. So I walked into a vet center, which is like an offshoot of the VA. There was this guy, Dr. Evans. I still remember him vividly. And I just walked in and he said, How can I help you? And I said, Something's not right. Something's not right with me. I got problems, you know, and that's how it all started. Just walking in there. And then over the years I got counseling and found the right meds, which took a while, you know, because when you first start taking meds for mental health, they're side effects. And if you don't get the right ones, you know, they don't work. So it was a process to figure out, along with the psychiatrist, um, what meds actually could help me. I started feeling better, and of course I thought to myself, man, I should have done this 20 years ago. You know, how did I live all that time like that? You know, in survival mode like that. And I went on to work for the VA in their you know, rural mental health program.

SPEAKER_03 25:52

Good for you, yeah, to listen to that voice. So many people don't listen to that voice in their head. So good for you to to allow yourself to hear it and then to follow through with action.

SPEAKER_02 26:03

Yeah, I was meditating and and studying with uh a Hasidic rabbi and also an orthodox rabbi, more modern orthodox rabbi. There's a form of Jewish meditation. A guy named Dove Pincer advocated, and I was doing that. I ended up getting kind of friendly with uh somebody who's pretty famous, let's just say. I was hanging out in certain crowds, and it was just an incredible experience. But when you start hanging out with the elite, at least I started to see things I didn't like. You know, a lot of spirituality talk not associated with action, type of deal, you know, very privileged people saying certain terms that everybody was saying at the time. It messed with my head and something inside just said, you gotta get away from here. Yeah, it was a tough decision to leave. And, you know, after I left, I kind of regretted some things for a while. But now everything's worked out perfect. So once you get to the point where everything makes sense, then there's no longer regrets and things, everything just makes sense. What happened?

SPEAKER_03 27:23

So tell me today what makes sense for Mark.

Hawaii, Counseling, And Medication

SPEAKER_02 27:27

Everything. The entire universe, the planet Earth, uh our historical time and place, my place in my community, inside of myself. It was in Florida where I started to do Zen meditation. I reached out to a pretty wise and established person who eventually, after me hounding him for years, he took me under his wing a little. And I just started meditating the way this guy named Suzuki Roshi said in his book, Zen Mind Beginner's Mind. And I just started doing it on my own. You know, at first I thought I was doing something wrong, and I just kept doing it and doing it and doing it and doing it every day for 30 minutes for about six months. And that's when everybody started noticing, whoa, something's different with Mark. Mark's not so crazy anymore. You know, forgive the term, but yeah, it was known as crazy Mark, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_03 28:32

Did you recognize the difference in yourself?

SPEAKER_02 28:35

Not at first. No. Other people noticed it before I did. But just when you get down in a balanced position every day, it's like a professional athlete who, when they were a kid, they played their sport. And, you know, when they were alone, they would kick the ball against the wall or they would shoot the basket at the basket by themselves just every day. So your body learns. So basically, all this is is just your body learning balance, balance of your body itself, balanced diet. It's the balance of your mind and your emotions, and it's nature's balance. So you're just personifying nature's balance, which everything comes from. Everything that exists requires a certain balance, you know? So it's just doing balance, not thinking about it or, you know, proselytizing it or theorizing it. It's just putting your body in a balanced position so that your body can rub off on your mind. It's very simple.

SPEAKER_03 29:45

Right. So take us into right now, you're you've moved to Vero Beach. You found this amazing meditation, balancing um journey, but you're also using that to help others.

SPEAKER_02 30:00

Um, it all happened rather organically. It was not like, you know, I set out to help others. I was pretty much content just staring at the wall, you know, and getting my own stuff together and making sure my family and my kids were taken care of. But one of the things I do now is I ended up corresponding with the inmate on death row, and we have worked together. He's been meditating for about three years now, and um, all this is unofficial, but um for instance before the holidays, I asked him if there's anybody he knew on death row who had no one and needed a Christmas present. So he he figured out a couple of guys on his wing that we could help. So we got them presents. So it's it's just that type of thing. Little thing here and there. It's not a big established program through the Department of Corrections, but I think they're cool with what we do because it makes their life easier.

SPEAKER_03 31:10

How did you realize that that was um a way you could help?

SPEAKER_02 31:15

I watched this Netflix documentary about guys in death row, and they interviewed this one guy, the guy I work with. He owned up to it, he admitted he did it, and he kept talking about reality and how he faces up to reality. And the district attorney and his attorney and the judge all said this guy's highly intelligent in his own way. So I just wrote a little snail mail, you know, on a piece of paper and said, you know, I watched this documentary, you keep talking about reality. Are you serious? That's all I said, something like that. And he wrote me back. And then my inclination was right, this guy has taken to meditation big time, and he's been doing it all these years and showing other guys in there how to do it. And we've been helping people. He's totally changed. I mean, it's it's not even the same person when I talk to him on the phone. When I first started talking to him, he like, oh, you were a marine, you know? And he was explaining and bragging about his murders, but now he would never do anything like that. He's sounds like a completely different human being.

SPEAKER_03 32:34

And how long have you been communicating with him then?

SPEAKER_02 32:38

About three years.

SPEAKER_03 32:39

Wow. Well, you instilled some hope.

Spiritual Circles And Disillusionment

SPEAKER_02 32:43

Yeah, I mean it just balanced him out and you know, took away his anger for the most part. He's much gentler, soft spoken, you know, funny guy. And all he really wants to do is apologize to his victims' families, but he can't because there's no restorative justice program in Florida. So he has no way he's gonna have to do it at the moment he gets to say something before he's put to death.

SPEAKER_03 33:12

Thank you for sharing that journey with us. And let's talk about where you are today and where you see yourself tomorrow.

SPEAKER_02 33:23

Well, today I'm off uh four days a week. I work with senior citizens in assisted living. I went there kind of to volunteer, and I ended up like finding a niche in life. So I teach meditation, I sing for them, I just walk around and act goofy all the time. I really don't know how I get away with it, to be honest. So I just I can be my natural self and I seem to have found a home. I even drive like this big bus. I take them to their appointments and stuff, but I love the seniors, and then I work with people one-on-one in the community, and I work with the death row guys, and I have a cadre of people who check in with me just to be their anchor. They're not necessarily serious students. I have a new guy I've been working with. He's the uh he works for this corporation called Life Fac. And apparently they're on Fox News all the time. And so they've been having me on their Life Facts show. Rick, I think he's the director of sales or something for the company, he's taken to it. So I've been working with him and they've been having me on air for updates and stuff. So, you know, lots of podcasts, lots of it's just an interesting, fulfilling life.

SPEAKER_03 34:52

What final message do you have for our audience today? What do you want them to take away from our our journey here?

SPEAKER_02 35:02

If you feel as though you have big problems or you're a mess, or you're a loser, or you're not where you want to be, the first thing I would recommend is just stop. I actually have a practice, you know, meditation is just stopping each day, just stopping everything and staring at a wall. But I'm not saying you have to do that, but whatever problem you think you have, maybe it's an addiction, maybe it's something you just don't feel good about, something you want to change, just stop and address it and look out into the community and see where you can get some help for it, whatever it may be. Like me, I had to stop and go in to the vet center and tell a psychiatrist I need help. And that's really why I'm here now. I don't even know if I would be alive, to be honest. Now, in today's world, you know, where it's spinning so quickly and everything's going so quickly, that seems almost counterintuitive, you know. Just stop what you're you know, just the one benefit of COVID was that everyone was forced to stop. I don't know if you remember back then, but there would be articles about how nature was taking back cities. You know, cities were getting greener and wildlife was coming back once everybody stopped.

SPEAKER_03 36:31

Yeah, it's important for people to know that they are not alone, right?

Zen Practice And Visible Change

SPEAKER_02 36:36

Yep. We're all a mess. I mean, everyone. I don't think I've ever met anybody who wasn't a little bit of a mess, you know.

SPEAKER_03 36:45

Mark, thank you for being my guest today on the I Need Blue podcast.

SPEAKER_02 36:49

Wow, it was great.

SPEAKER_00 37:02

Some days are better than others. Wake up and you put one foot in front of the other. Same team, same place, you just keep on I feel that was full, put never feel like it home, it all went away.