As I mentioned in the post above, FH is rooted in story. The journey into modeling for 25 year old Chris Topel was an interesting one to me. The road traveled was long, bumpy and without the support of a map to provide direction. It began in July of 1988 in Kokomo Indiana. As an infant, Chris spent his first few years living with an aunt, his mother unable to care for him due to drug and personal issues. At the age of four, his father. who lived in Swanton, Ohio, regained custody of Chris over a long and drawn out legal battle. Chris continued to live in Swanton until he was 17 but would continue to visit his family in Kokomo during summers and most school holidays.
'From a very young age, I believed in the fantasies. No matter what they were and how they came across me I believed. Destiny, fate, signs from up above, things greater than myself. I was born with it engraved in my soul and it made me an extremely adventurous and wondering child and teenager. I remember playing the old super Nintendo game called The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. The moment I turned on the game I was mesmerized. I felt that the very character I was playing was just another interpretation of myself.'
Chris longed to live inside the game, to be a hero and persevere over evil and all the obstacles put in his way. A resiliency began with the attitude that no obstacles would get in his way of eventually becoming that hero he fantasied about, no matter what the cost. To achieve this goal Chris worked on both his physical and emotional strength. He ran, lifted weights and learned different languages. When watching movies, it was not to be entertained, but to find out about others, what they thought and what they felt. His goal, to become street smart and be able to read people and engineer himself to respond in a smooth and natural way.
'Mastering all that I could learn and finding out all that makes people tick, and I did. It didn't take long, just lost of practice and I truly began to understand the significance of being humble, confident, and the appropriate times to show charm. Choosing just the right facial expressions to make it seem genuine...and after a while, it became natural and instinctual, it became real.'
Like all the best laid plans however, Chris's journey came to a crashing halt with the death of his mother when he was just 16. Chris was left lost, blank. Chris found himself at a fork in the road of his life. As his childhood ended and he became a teen, he found himself playing the role of the bad boy, always going against the grind. After his mothers death, Chris had to decided whether to continue down that road, turn numb, and not deal with his hurt... or grab onto those early dreams and put his faith in God, fate and himself. To finally follow his destiny and become that hero he had always felt drawn to, no matter how unrealistic and impossible it may have seemed at the time.
After more than a few conversations with his father, they both both agreed that Chris should move back to his Aunts in Kokomo, at least until he could afford his own place to live in. Chris finished off his last year of High School with nearly straight A's in Kokomo then took a year off to focus on Survivalism, the art of living off the land.
'I told myself when others were going to give up, I would stand tall, when others couldn't find a way out of an obstacle I would be standing on top of it, and most importantly, when others would choose to stop, I would continue to walk on.'
And walk he did. Chris took the phrase literally and ended up walking the 50 miles to his aunts house. He went pretty much non stop but it still tok close to 27 hours. Although he has run full marathons, Chris says the walk was definitely much harder but also the most spiritual experience Chris had ever had. The Man Who Walked (TMWW) was born.
The ultimate goal, to eventually walk the entire world, helping others on his journey. Chris is aware many think he is crazy and even possibly disillusioned, but he doesn't care. By always walking, and never sitting somewhere he is not fully able to be himself, has done him well so far. It has already taken him places he never would have dreamed possible and knows that the journey is still only in the beginning stages. Walking means you're heading somewhere, and Chris is getting closer to becoming the man he always looked up to, that hero in those fantasy's that helped get him through the tough times when he was a kid.
2 comments:
Wow. He has such a nice body. I wonder what the work-out routine for a body like that must be? You might know more than I do about this but have you ever some across a workout regime to obtain a body like that?
tye I have worked with this model before, very talented.
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