We can change the world.
Looking back to the camera, Montara, 2021
How do you take in the most important day of your life? Today I am figuring that out, as a start a new chapter with my partner.
I seem to always come back to tribe in my published writing. My tribe has made me who I am today, and any pride I have in my character can be directly attributed to them.
Today they witness my next step. What an amazing world we live in.
A different route at the end of the world, Ushuaia, March 2019
I don’t know what our purpose is in this universe. On this beautiful Earth, it seems we have ample opportunity to figure it out.
When you look out to the ocean, it offers the most tangible semblance of eternity. We can’t fathom everything of our existence, but we can find a deep sense of acceptance and peace.
Until tomorrow: forever we push onwards into the unknown. All we can do is contribute to evolution.
A clearing day at the Opera House sans smoke, Sydney, January 2020
I enjoy spending time with my grandparents, because besides their company, it’s a window into a world beyond. I hear their stories and feel their perspective, and it’s the closest connection I have to history.
It reinforces that every generation does the best it can, with the knowledge at hand. And it strikes me queerly how times change during a single lifetime.
Time is the one flowing element we cannot overcome, and grandparents provide a tiny insight into its effects and reckoning. It is one world, as it was for all our ancestors who ever were, and we must register such depth into our consideration moving forward.
The decadence of St. Isaac’s Cathedral is more vivid with loved ones
When life becomes stressful for a prolonged period, at some point, you realize you still have to enjoy it. There are simple things, beautiful little experiences, every single day, that we miss if we don’t pay attention.
Spending quality time with your tribe is an easy way to bring back that gratitude. We are the people we share our lives with, and when you appreciate that, you appreciate the opportunity to hold union.
We can all use to remember that every single one of us desires companionship and love. If we offer it more freely, not only will the world benefit, but we enjoy life more too.
Us all giving one percent means children’s classrooms don’t have to look like this, Arusha 2019
I normally blog about major holidays and zeitgeist happening in the world, things like Juneteenth and Father’s Day. It’s been difficult to expand beyond my sphere of control though recently, as my life has taken a busy turn.
It’s a part of our experience, and we have to accept that we all sometimes focus on our own circles more than the big picture. It’s impossible to consider all of humanity all of the time.
That’s why I advocate for the one percent solution: if each of us can contribute one percent of our energy and time to the greater world, we all reap the benefits. One percent of eight billion people can change the world.
A few penguins hanging out on the island of South Georgia, March 2019
I cannot hold the sense of detachment at bay when considering where we’re at. We enjoy progress built upon dozens of generations, and yet where are we?
There’s much to improve in this world, and we can only do it if we act through true benevolence, without concern of our own importance. If we all take a minute to consider how many other people there are, how many possibilities exist beyond the current circumstances… it becomes possible.
There is more, there is greater, than you, than me. It doesn’t require kumbaya, just an awareness that there is more, and that we can experience it together.
A typical Beijing scene, which once felt like home, but is now an estranged memory. September 2015
When does a house become a home? Little chaos and some organization certainly helps.
But proximity to your tribe might matter most. Comfortability and a sense of belonging come from the memories you share with loved ones in your most sedentary location.
I have traveled a good deal in my life so far and have previously pondered roaming the globe as a nomad. But there’s really no place, or people, like home.
A mountain goat eyeing traffic in Zion National Park, April 2021
In the process of moving and remodeling I’ve been living without a TV for the past week or so, and it’s been grand. I’ve spent time with both sides of the family, as respite to the carrying and building and driving, and it’s been real time with those in my tribe.
We normalize so quickly to new circumstances, and when life becomes chaotic, family time is immediately treasured. Screens are ubiquitous in everyday life, yet when meaningful business grips your time, they lose allure and meaning.
We are animals whose biology has flourished upon trust, collaboration, and social interaction. I guess it can sometimes take an upheaval to remove yourself from screen addiction and recognize our natural strength.
A young timid Patagonian fox in the Atacama Desert in Bolivia, April 2019
Negative set talk can expand a victim mindset and make it difficult to progress. I struggle with it often, and try to remember to not be so hard on myself.
Because from the widest angle, my deepest darkest fears and problems aren’t so bad. It takes a little courage at first to peek into the abyss and recognize that, but doing so changes your outlook.
In today’s world it’s a balance of being the best person one can be while also being aware and considerate of the larger ecosystem of which we are a part. We are who we want to be, and sometimes it starts with convincing ourselves.
No swimming in January at Palm Cove Beach in Cairns, Australia, 2020
Depending on the way you look at it, everything works out in the end. Not to examine the situation from a detached perspective, but when you step back far enough, there are a few key thing that matter.
I’ve pontificated about family and how integral our relationship with our tribe can be to our overall well being. Imaging the end of life can also place things in a more measured perspective.
We have an unknown amount of allotted time on this Earth. It’s our ultimate burden and freedom to determine how to allocate our energy, and to what end.
The edge of history and culture at Cinque Terre, August 2019
Perspective seems to change so quickly, I don’t know what to make of it. I guess that’s an indication of how dynamic life can be, that circumstances can appear so familiar or foreign within the same week?
It’s just an incredible world that we share. We may get caught up in day to day drama or in thinking that we know it all, but the truth remains that we live in an incredible time in which so much is possible.
It’s up to each one of us to choose our path. Do we embrace the incredulity of it all, or do we shy away?
Three brothers that rely on each other, Ngorongoro Crater, 2019
Just when you get discouraged, things start to come together. I try to remember it when feeling disheartened.
When you treat family like family, they come through for you. It’s a reciprocal relationship that builds over effort and time.
So when dark before time, lean into your tribe. In this thing called life, they make all the difference.
Icebergs in the Southern Ocean play tricks on the eyes, March 2019
Tiredness changes our brains and limits our functionality—that was on full display for me as I was moving this weekend. It makes me wonder how often most of us really are tired.
That might be a hallmark of our species’ progression, that we have created and maintained a world where many are less tired. We use our bodies less because we’ve developed solutions to make our lives easier.
Not to say this is good or bad, but is it true? Fighting through fatigue can be exhausting, and in today’s world, we do it much less often.
One of the world’s largest prayer wheels in Shangri-La, June 2013
Every single one of us can look back on our lives and be grateful. I understand I am privileged compared to many, but each of us could have suffered more; could have but haven’t.
Living with gratitude expands what is possible to experience. When we open up to the world, to this strange phenomenon called life, we can more wholly and thoroughly enjoy the time allotted to us.
Paradoxically it’s easy to become removed from gratitude, all too normalized to get away from it. But once you return to its vortex, it seems foolish to leave.
Towering trees and falls in Yosemite Valley back in May, 2021
Times with the tribe seem to be few and far between, yes especially with the pandemic, but also in general in modern life. Tonight I was able to enjoy precious time with my tribe, and it reinforced how much community impacts us.
We rarely are without our devices, almost always connected to the internet and the pulse of society. There are some advantages inherent in this, but it also makes it difficult to forge deep connections in the right here, right now.
Our community grounds us in our expectations and experience. How well we develop our tribe directly influences our ability to contribute to the universe.
What has shaped villages on the Amazon River the most?
I often wonder how we’ll look back on the pandemic in a decade. Our perspective has already morphed several times throughout these 18 months or so.
The only other event I can compare it to in my lifetime is 9/11. And that makes you consider the world we inhabit: that two such catastrophes are the mechanisms that have most shaped our world.
How can someone like you or me combat such fantastical circumstances? By practicing and promoting awareness, and focusing on contribution.
Smoke and smog in Sydney proper, January 2020
I’ve heard it said that America is like a teenager: still young and immature, but showing talent in some areas, still trying to figure things out. As a species we seem to be in the same general area with the Internet and global connectivity.
We kind of know that Facebook and Instagram and Twitter and YouTube are bad, that digital advertising is taking advantage of and altering our psychology. We understand that we’re addicted to our mobile devices and our children are negatively affected by their proliferation into everyday life.
Can we rise above this, can we recognize the strangeness of the current modern world, and can we do something about it? It’s up to us to decide, and it starts with our daily habits, our smallest choices, and our collective resolve.
Taking the subway in one of Moscow’s famous underground stations
There are times of going along with the flow, and there are momentous periods that disproportionally impact space and time. I feel like you only recognize the latter once you’re in it, when experiencing the transition.
If you asked me to look back on my life and pick out the most impactful moments, I might struggle to identify specific events. But you know when you’re in it; you can feel the transition shaping what’s to come.
I do believe success in many ways derives from persistence during the monotonous grind of good habits and choices over a long period of time, but life’s significance seems to originate from the other. Those transitionary times that stand apart, they define who we become and what mark we leave on the universe.
Momma and child moving across the Serengeti, October 2019
There seem to be connections everywhere. Call it psychology or a more thorough understanding of how our minds work, but there are links and attachments to everywhere and everything.
In a sense, we are vessels of all these relations, and it’s a privilege to experience them. On the other, we can look to great examples throughout our history, of those who capitalized and enabled something even greater through that connection.
It’s a whole wide universe, and we’re just living in it. The choice we have: to institute whatever small ripple we decide to make.
Passing by thousands of king penguins, South Georgia, March 2019
I feel it always comes back to who you’re with. At the end of it all, what do we reflect back on?
Meaning, for our species, comes from experience with others. No matter anything else, we value our time spent with others.
With that in mind, what kind of world are we building? If there’s a who for everyone, how do we maximize the experience for all?