I live and share Flowism in the most human way possible to benefit as many humans as possible.

This is my Story, my why. This might be the best place to start. It fuels my Dream (what) which designs my Flow (how). My 108s are the history of how well I’ve been Flowing.

If there is any part of this story that you’d like more details about, please comment below. I’ll write a blog post about it.

Act I: Becoming Miyagi (1985 – 1999)

My quest began at age six with The Karate Kid. For reasons I couldn’t explain then, I was immediately drawn to the quiet wisdom and hidden power of the master, Mr. Miyagi. From that day on, my single goal was to become him. Since there was no clear career path for “becoming Miyagi,” from a young age, I was forced to find my own way. I started this path in the most direct way my young mind could devise. I asked my mother to sign me up for karate classes. As I matured, so too did my interests. Karate evolved into kung fu, and then kung fu further evolved into tai chi. A part of this evolution was my aunt buying our family a computer in 1989, which I immediately attached myself to like a barnacle on a ship. The “internet” (it was BBSes at that time), my library card, and stories from friends helped fuel that evolution.

This quest to become Miyagi wasn’t just a physical pursuit through karate, kung fu, and tai chi; it was a mental one. Two books became highly influential: Siddhartha, a story about the Buddha’s path to enlightenment, and the Tao Te Ching, the foundational text of Taoism. These planted ideas about becoming enlightened, finding my true nature, and living a life of balance. When I discovered the intimate connection between Taoism and the martial art of tai chi, my path was set: I would become a Taoist Miyagi. I wasn’t just interested in Eastern philosophy; I was also drawn to the Western personal development and self-help philosophies originally popularized through books like Think and Grow Rich and How to Win Friends and Influence People. My first step on that path came through a copy of Tony Robbins’ book Awaken the Giant Within that a friend loaned to me in high school.

My quest for knowledge eventually led me down a more dangerous path. I stumbled upon a book that I could purchase online, which came in a 3-ring binder, promising to unlock 100% of my brain’s power. It detailed fantastic feats, such as levitation and moving boulders with the mind. Believing this to be a part of the knowledge I was looking to attain, I decided to experiment with the powers of my own mind and body by abstaining from food, sleep, and water. This induced a series of drug-free psychedelic experiences that culminated in an encounter with police, a trip to the mental hospital, and ultimately, a diagnosis of bipolar 1. My quest to gain the wisdom and insight necessary to become Taoist Miyagi collided with the harsh reality of a mental disability that was waiting to be unlocked..

Act II: The Birth of miltownkid (1999 – 2007)

After my diagnosis in 1999, I settled into a dull, medicated life. Eventually, I slowly reconnected with my tai chi friends and began practicing again, which led me to meet my tai chi and Taoism teacher, Master Henry Wang, on Vancouver Island, Canada, in 2002. More than his tai chi skills, I was impressed by his way of living. He lived a natural and carefree life that was also purposeful, disciplined, and focused. I found Taoist Miyagi and dedicated myself to learning his art. The most profound thing I learned from him was also the simplest. When asked what the secret to his abilities was, he simply said, “The secret is practice.” When paired with something an old soccer coach said, “Practice doesn’t make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect,” I essentially had the “secret” for doing anything.

I moved to Taiwan that same year, following a girlfriend who was moving back and in pursuit of cultural and linguistic fluency in Chinese. Two months later, I was married. The following year, I had my first manic episode in Taiwan. My wife didn’t want me to work while I was recovering, so I had a year of free time all to myself. I poured all of my energy into studying Chinese. A minimum of four hours of study every day became my standard. I eventually returned to work as an English teacher and created a nice routine for my life. I studied BJJ, played board games on weekends with a club I founded, and spent time playing video games, as well as tinkering with computers and technology.

During that time, being young and life being complicated, I met the person who would become the love of my life. This complex arrangement ultimately led to my leaving Taiwan in 2007. Before I left, the combination of BJJ and my love of technology came together to put me on YouTube. A friend, who recorded as many matches as he could at every tournament he attended, sent a funny clip of me getting suplexed because it was my first tournament, and I didn’t know how to sprawl yet. I wanted to share this video with others, so I searched for a suitable platform to host it. I uploaded that video in early 2006. I had already been blogging since 2003 and had been shooting digital video for a while, so YouTube was a perfect match. I signed up using the name I had already been using online since 1999, miltownkid.

About six months before I moved back to the US, I created a viral video that helped build an audience, and miltownkid, who had originally just been “me” online, began his journey of hijacking “me”. A kind of Frankenstein project where I thought I was creating my “true nature,” but ultimately created a freak of nature.

Act III: A New Me, A New Dream (2007 to 2017)

I ended up losing myself in this online character, but before I did, I had a really good time. From 2007 to 2009, I had a very active YouTube community, I was having a blast making content, I started teaching tai chi, I won a laptop from Tim Ferriss and a Ford Fiesta with free gas for 6 months, and my student and I drove that car with free gas across the country to see Master Wang. This is also when my East meets West philosophy, which I had been refining, blossomed into its first form. Pwning Life. It was never codified or systematized in any way, but I did develop one core idea. A simple two-step process that was my first simple, but profound, truth: 1. Figure out what you want, and 2. Go get it, recognizing that step one is the harder part.

2009 ended in a spectacular manic crash that sent me to rural Iowa to live with my mom and grandmom. During those YouTube highs, I was already conflicted. YouTube, and miltownkid, could potentially be a vehicle to share profound wisdom, but… I didn’t have this wisdom yet, and, in the meantime, YouTube was a distraction. The kid trying to be a Taoist Miyagi could see that miltownkid wasn’t practicing perfectly to get there; he wasn’t even practicing. This internal split led to a psychological war and a series of manic episodes where miltownkid gained more and more power, culminating to a point where I almost legally changed my name to miltownkid (ZEE). A manic episode in 2013 led to a very deep and long-lasting depression. This totally loosened miltownkid’s grip on my psyche. He thrived in high energy and big dreams. He was nowhere to be seen in emotional gutters. That said, when I was depressed, I looked forward to getting that energy back, and it always found a way to come back on its own. It’d take four to six months, but it’d come back. I’d feel good again, and miltownkid would be ready to ride. Not this time. Six months went by, then eight, and then a year. I had to figure out how to snap myself out of it, but nothing I tried worked. Having simple goals like “make the bed”, “brush your teeth”, and “shower”, and doing none of them was demoralizing. Eventually, I had a breakthrough. The breakthrough came from an unlikely source: accountability.

I started checking in with my brother about making my bed, the one thing I could handle. This tiny habit rippled out and transformed my life. I became strong enough to give the original Milwaukee Kid, the one on that original Miyagi mission, a voice. At some point during the fog of 2013, I upgraded Pwning Life to Flow to Your Dream based on that two-step insight. The Dream was what you wanted, and the Flow was how to go get it. A key piece of the Flow to Your Dream system is a “Dream document.” Something to revisit again and again to do the hard work of figuring out the “what”. I created separate “Dream” documents for both personas in 2015. Casey’s Dream gave me what I needed to reconnect with the love of my life and move back to Taiwan.

When I found out accountability was not only a cure for depression but perhaps the most powerful tool for habit formation, I started sharing it with everyone. The primary vehicle for this initially was meditation groups, where we would check in together online. An early experiment in solo accountability took the form of writing and drawing every day for 100 consecutive days. When I reached day 100, I realized I could add a few more days and arrive at my favorite number, 108. It was good fortune that I decided to start that process at the end of August. When the 108 days finished in mid-December, I realized that it was the perfect amount of time to do a “life cycle”. Earlier that year, I had tried splitting the year into quarters, like businesses do, because yearly reflections weren’t working for me. A year was too long and 90 days was too short. I stumbled on just right. This is how I shifted to refining myself in 108-day cycles. I eventually called it Way of the 108.

Act IV: The First Domino (2017 – Present)

After doing my 108-day cycles for two years, I noticed that 2019 was going to be the year 108 in Taiwan. I thought that was the perfect moment to start numbering my cycles. After that, I decided to make this a 108-cycle (36-year) project. Shifting from a 1-year reflection and planning loop to a 108-day loop was game-changing for me. It allowed me to experiment, fail, and learn faster; it also allowed me to recover from manic episodes more quickly. Perhaps most importantly, it enabled me to iterate on who I was more quickly, as the internal battle between miltownkid and Casey was still far from being over.

Gathering and reviewing data from various sources, including journals, blog posts, YouTube videos, and apps, taught me a great deal. It’s easy for me to read about how habits work; mastering the art of habit creation and maintenance is a completely different beast. It’s easy for me to read about why journaling is important, but it’s challenging to develop a journaling method that is both consistent and effective. It’s easy for me to understand the power of language. I’ve thought about this at great length for decades! It’s much harder to figure out how small changes in syntax and internal dialog can create huge gains or huge problems. It’s easy for me to feel great about life when I’m running through the mountains of Taiwan every day, but it’s hard to generate that same level of enthusiasm about life when you’re critically injured and no longer able to run. Understanding that I have complex trauma is very different from viscerally experiencing it, documenting it, and having that data available to process… one day, I’m still not ready to revisit the state murder of George Floyd alongside the death of a friend who was failed by society, both in the same year.

2017 to 2022 was a roller coaster of internal battles between miltownkid and Casey, manic episodes that put me in hospitals, fractured relationships, and, in the end, left me deeply depressed. The two manic episodes in 2022 were so extreme and put so much pressure on my relationships that I decided to just keep myself depressed, or I should say the low side of normal, after that. I stayed low until the end of 2023, when I decided “depressed” couldn’t be the goal anymore. It was time to evolve.

I’m building this philosophy and system for everyone, but I’m the first follower and practitioner. This was always supposed to be a system that would eventually stop manic episodes from happening and, further still, end the need for me to use drugs to manage my mental health. In 2024, I got focused. I revisited a thought I had from 2018. What if I just focused on the process, the Flow? I loved talking about how the process was more important than anything else, but I wasn’t living that way. At the start of 2024, I decided to “Just Flow”. Just work on my personal systems. Refine my habits, refine my thoughts. I didn’t magically lock in that cycle. I had a good start but fell off. After taking a break to travel, I tried again. Things started and stayed strong, but fell off right at the very end. I took another cycle off because my head wasn’t in the game due to personal issues. The following cycle is right now. I’m right at the end, day 108. This has been, by far, the best cycle I’ve had. I’m at a hotel in the hot spring district of Taipei. I can hear the bath filling up with hot spring water in the background. I’m in the middle of three days I’ve set aside to be alone with myself to do deep reflection and planning. This “reflection retreat” is something I’ve wanted to make a ritual at the end of 108s for a long time. I’m adding booking a hotel for the end of the next cycle to this ritual, so I never miss it. I’m also 42 hours into a 72-hour fast. My first one. Something else that I wanted to add to this reset ritual.

This is the 108 I’ve been waiting, no, training for! I’ve long thought about the “perfect” 108 that would be the first domino in a long series of 108s that would flow me to my Dream. I revisited that thought this morning and had another thought. “Haven’t dominoes been falling this whole time, leading me to right now?” No, it’s been a Rube Goldberg machine up until now! Things have been twisty and turny, bumpy, and janky, like a Rube Goldberg machine; but that janky machine got the job done. The job was building this first domino, and now it’s falling…

Cycles 16 to 20 (January 2024 to August 2025) were “Just Flow”, cycles 21 to 108 (September 2025 to December 2054… 2*54 = 108… coincidence?! 😂) are going to be “Just Flowism”.

If you made it this far and have questions about anything I invite you to leave a comment.

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Created Cycle 20, Day 108 | August 25th, 2025