Doing Nothing

Forget Kant, Mill, and Aristotle. Calvin (the mischievous boy, not John) and Hobbes (the tiger, not Thomas) are the modern era’s philosophers. I devoured C&H as a kid and have found that far from becoming less relevant, the comic strip had become more so.

To illustrate why, let’s look at one of my all-time favorites:

Replace “summer” with “three month trip through South America”. Well, I suppose summer is almost over — let’s keep it as is.

I got to the sleepy town of Salento after trekking through the jungle in northern Colombia for five hot, sticky, tough, but rewarding days. I quickly decided that I was ready for a change of pace.

There’s a tendency when traveling to want to chase after the next adventure. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, but I have a hunch that Calvin is on to something. Sometimes we need a whole lot of nothing and there never feels like enough time for it. In Salento, I was going to make time for it.

It’s easy to forget that when the world is racing so fast that there’s a quiet story unfolding patiently in the background. I decided that I was going to stay still and try to watch it. So, after I did a much anticipated tour of a coffee finca and a beautiful hike in the Valle de Cocora, I settled into the nothing.

Boy, did it feel good. I would wake pretty early and grab a mug of fresh coffee from the nearby finca. Sometimes I would just sit with the cup and sip contently. Often I would read, and, if the mood struck me, write.

After a long stretch of missing my daily meditation practice and trying to find mindfulness in other ways, I found the space to begin again amidst the nothing. I moved a chair to a nice spot with a view of the valley and sat there often, rhythmically breathing in and out in a powerful yet simple ritual.

At some point in the morning, I would migrate to the hammock and carry on as before: coffee, reading, writing. Every once and a while, I would just lay back. Do nothing.

Later, I would get lunch. As the coffee was the only thing to sustain me in the morning, I was normally pretty hungry. I found a regular spot that would only have two sets of three options:

trucha / pollo / chorizo

verduras / frijoles / espagetti

It came with soup, a small banana, fresh juice, rice, salad, two different type of fried corn, and plantains. It was a no-frills spot and always delicious, and quickly my favorite became favorite trucha and frijoles. I tried to eat slow and enjoy all the flavors.

After lunch I would often walk up the hill and flights of stares to the Mirador - the lookout point. You could sit under the shade of a tree and look over the town in one direction and into the valley the next. It was a great place to do nothing.

Back at the hostel, I would grab another cup of coffee and settle in again. The afternoons were my favorite for thinking, and I spent a lot of time working through the next few chapters of my life (they’re currently only drafts). Soon enough, the light would be race to the horizon with the sunset and I would walk down the road to a raised hill and soak it in.

The evening would unwind quietly. I would go out for a small dinner - I was normally pretty full from lunch - and make awesome decisions like having a ice cream sundae brownie with peanut butter. Before I knew it, I would be ready to sleep. What beautiful days of nothing!

Some might view all this nothing as a waste, but I would beg to differ. I wrote that I wanted to travel to grow my soul, and I’m convinced that my soul grew in the quiet nothing those days in Salento. It’s almost like I had been filling it with so much experience these past months that it needed a moment to take it all in. When I get home, I have to remember that feeling of growth that pause gives. I have to make the space for nothing.

The Mindfulness Exchange

Exploring the practice of meditation has been one of the best things I’ve ever done for myself. I think it’s crazy that we pay so much attention to the physical component of health while the mental side of it is so neglected. I initially looked into meditation as something to simply hone my focus, but I quickly found its potential as a foundational habit. I stuck to it for about a year.

However, I’ve found it incredibly difficult to meditate regularly while traveling. I’m still a beginner and I’ve found that committing to the practice is easiest when I’m in a stable and predictable environment that offers a degree of privacy. My experiences traveling so far have been the exact opposite, filled with navigating a changing and unpredictable landscape and a noticeable lack of privacy.

As a result, I’ve thought a lot about how to reclaim some mindfulness in my day to day life. Occasionally, I find a quiet park, inviting cathedral, or secluded spot to sit and mediate. For the most part, though, I’ve been on the move, surrounded by people and a flurry of activity. My solution to this challenge has been to think about the idea of a mindfulness exchange.

The way I see it, every moment offers a chance to be mindful. Eating a meal, drinking a cup of coffee, walking, bearing witness to breathtaking vistas, conversation: they all are chances be in present with the moment. If you just try to focus on just that moment, a whole spectrum of experience is unlocked. I have been trying to take advantage of these opportunities throughout each day. Every time I do, I’m exchanging a moment of hurry and distraction for one of mindfulness.

On good days, I’ve made this exchange countless times and I feel light and engaged with the world around me. It carves out a really special mental space for introspection, a priceless thing to have amidst travel. On bad days, I rush through experiences with abandon and miss the chance to absorb what’s around me. The best thing I can do on those bad days is to begin the next day with a blank slate. There is always tomorrow.

Eventually, I got to a place - Salento, Colombia - where I was able to find the space to begin my meditation practice again. But even if I fall off the wagon again, I will have this idea of the mindfulness exchange. Actually, if I stay on the wagon I will keep it in mind as well. Even in a time of immense excitement, one can find a little bit of calm with the mindfulness exchange. Take a moment. Take a breath. I promise it’s worth it.

Steak

Dear (seemingly entire) Argentinian cow I just ate,

I had heard so much about you before we met. Friends had told me you were delicious, unwieldily, unworldly. I thought their claims were overblown. I was wrong.

You were truly wonderful. From the first bite to the last you assaulted my taste buds with unrelenting vigor. I must admit: I was intimated by your size. But, committing to the challenge and spectacle, I found it agreeable.

I feel as if your immensity is what drives most conversation about you. This is an incredible disservice to everything you have to offer. Your crisp outer shell laced with salt gives way to delectable soft insides. You wear the meaty pinks well, with pride. The ridges of thick fat paint the rest of your mass with irresistible juice.

It is sad to think that you and a vegetarian may never meet. I greatly respect their stalwart protest against what is likely a grave offense in this world. Still, I wish for another world where the two of you might be acquaintances.

Your friends, the rich wine and bright salad, were great company as well. You three make quite a party and I completely understand the affection you have for one another.

I won’t forget this first night we met, among the shiny silverware in a restaurant in Mendoza. As I walk through the quiet streets in a deepening evening, I will digest this evening’s activities with great fondness.

I hope we visit one another soon.

Regards, Daniel

(I wrote this on June 24 in my journal.)

The Hustle

About a year ago, I started to think seriously about law school. After long conversations with mentors and family, I decided that it was the right path for me: an education in law would give me a toolset that would allow me to actively be part of building a better world. Naturally, I began to think how exactly this path would express itself and realized that I had a opportunity to go to a top law school. During undergrad, I took my studies seriously and had a competitive GPA to prove it. (The fact that I generally enjoyed studying international relations was also a huge boon.) In the world of law school admissions, GPA and LSAT reign supreme. There is certainly some nuance to this statement, but, for the sake of understanding, it’s useful to buy into the model. As a result, if I were to net a competitive LSAT score, then I could find myself at one of the elite law schools in the country and with an excellent springboard for finding meaningful work. That is, after all, why I was going.

I didn’t really take the SAT seriously when I was a junior in high school. If I remember correctly, on the day of the test I arrived at the center an hour early and looked through the math section of one of the many prep books jammed in the trunk of my car under a heap of soccer bags. I (remarkably) ended up getting a decent score and was admitted to Carnegie Mellon as a result. Despite attending a university of privilege, occasionally “what if” scenarios played in the back of my mind. What if I had done really well on the SAT? How might things be different? I always brushed away these scenarios. Regret truly is a useless emotion.

When I began to study for the LSAT, though, I was committed: the occasional regret of the past was channeled into the possibility of the future. I did everything I could to give myself the best shot at a good score. I completed an online course. I paid attention to sleep, exercise, and diet. I took practice tests in the center where the real one would be administered. I consistently meditated to hone my capacity to focus. Anything to pick up a point or two was fair game because when the dividing line between an LSAT score that opens doors and leaves you in the cold is razor-thin, every one counts.

After a nervous first take, I knew I could do better and geared up for a retake. More practice tests. More hair-splitting over what makes one answer right and one wrong. More simulated test environments. On the retake, the nerves were crowded out by sheer determination and I netted a very competitive score to match my GPA. Needless to say, I was really excited at my prospects at getting into the likes of Yale, Harvard, and Stanford. These three law schools are somewhat fabled to be in a league of their own and I thought I might just find myself at one of them.

It was in this moment that the primary motivation for applying to law school - finding a way to meaningfully engage with the world - found a creeping competitor in the background: the prospect of prestige. Carnegie Mellon is a fantastic school and I am incredibly grateful that I had a chance to grow with my peers at such a dynamic place. Still, the idea of going to law school at “prestigious” institutions like Yale, Harvard, or Stanford - now a distinct possibility - became incredibly alluring. I sent in my applications, confident that I was going to be accepted to at least one of the three top schools.

Good news rolled in pretty quickly. I was accepted at NYU, Berkeley, Penn, Columbia and finally Chicago: all incredible institutions that would offer me a world-class legal education. Despite all of this good news, I was still waiting to hear back from the top three. Then, in quick succession, I was rejected by Yale and waitlisted at Harvard and Stanford. Admittedly, I was a little surprised. Yes, these are the best law schools in the country; of course cracking their admissions would be a challenging venture. Despite this acknowledgment, the string of non-acceptances stung. The allure of the prestige had creeped beyond the secondary, not quite to the primary, but enough to injure my pride.

It was in this headspace where I stumbled upon a time-worn truth: the world requires us to hustle indefatigably. I had learned this lesson well growing up on the soccer field. Talk is cheap; hustle is paramount. Your opponents might be on a better team, wear the best boots, or have complicated plays up their sleeves, but if they don’t hustle, it’s all for nothing. When an underdog team hustles, an upset can take both teams by surprise. There’s a reason why sports metaphors are so powerful: they’re almost always true. The hustle creates results that matter. Nothing else. Not prestige, not money, not fame, the traps that we fall for along the way, attracted by the false promise they each offer. When the rubber meets the road, it’s just the hustle that counts. The hustle for a healthy family and for a community in a time of confusing connection and disconnection. The hustle for meaningful work. The hustle for a more just world, for tomorrow.

Note: this next paragraph was written a few weeks ago but I wanted to include it as a promise to myself:

I had forgotten that the hustle was what it was all about. That’s why I was going to law school. I had been blinded by the temporary brightness of prestige, a projection of meaningless status. With my senses firmly regained, I began to think through what the future might have in store. Of my available options, NYU is best suited for the hustle. I have no passion for any iteration of corporate law and NYU has arguably some of the best institutional support for its public interest students in the country. So, I turned down better “ranked” schools (Chicago and Columbia) for the real chance to hustle at NYU. There is still a non-zero chance that I end up at Harvard or Stanford, accepted off a waitlist, but I won’t lose what I have gained in the process. I would do myself a favor if I only learn this lesson once.

That non-zero chance was realized: I was accepted off Stanford’s waitlist. With the mentality gained through the process, I was able to weigh my two options objectively. Stanford will, without a doubt, advance all of the goals that I care about and I am positive that I am starting law school with clear eyes and a full heart.

Welcome to the hustle, Daniel. Don’t forget it.

The Bend

This past week, I visited the Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos (Museum of Memory and Human Rights) in Santiago. The museum is a way for Chile to remember the atrocities of the Pinochet era and the story of how the country fought back. I spent hours meandering through the space learning about Chile’s recent past.

I went with a recently-made friend from Chile. Afterwards, she asked me what I thought having visited the museum. I think that when confronted with great tragedy, there is the chance that our reaction to its evil and pain leaves us with a dark opinion of humanity. This pessimistic view is understandable as it is tough for optimism to endure when you encounter stories of murder, torture, rape, censorship, terror, and despair.

Given that, something about this picture is incomplete. It’s lacking our response to tragedy. One floor of the museum contained sobering stories of torture and oppression, but the next floor told the story of the awakening of Chilean resistance and the campaign to remove Pinochet.

The floor detailing the response to the horror of Pinochet was what I kept coming back to after the visit. At the beginning of the museum, there was footage of La Moneda (the presidential palace) under siege at the start of the coup, at once both a literal and symbolic destruction of the rule of law. I listened to President Allende’s final speech to the Chilean people; you could hear the world crumbling outside. His resolute protest was eerily profound and prophetic. When I made it to the floor about the revolution, it felt like Allende’s words had been laying dormant for all those years, waiting to capture the hearts and minds of an oppressed people. It was so powerful.

Our response to tragedy is what defines us. It is not the dictators and their institutions of fear. It is not the genocides and their senseless violence. It is not the terror of an unsafe world. It is our decision to speak truth to power, to engage in the brutal struggle for a better world. That’s what I came out with after walking through the museum. As Martin Luther King Jr. noted, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” I love that idea. Yes, we stumble, heavy and often. One doesn’t have to look far to see how much more we have to go. But, we will, slowly but surely, play a part in that great bending. If there’s anything I know, it’s that. If there’s anything we must believe in, it’s that: the dogged, relentless response of the human spirit.

Cafés y Parques

Cafés and parks. That’s all you need to make me love a city. In my humble opinion, these two types of locale represent almost unlimited human potential. Let me explain.

Cafés are meeting places. They are temporary (sometimes, permanent) workspaces. In a café, a couple could be sharing their first moment or their hundredth. A group could be plotting the next bold move in their brand-new joint venture. A lone thinker could be crafting the next chapter of the next great novel. Every café in every moment is a unique expression of its passengers; every ride is different. Beyond their bubbling movement, cafés can be a place of pause and escape. A pause on the increasingly accelerating pace of life. An escape from the cold or a bad day. Cafés can be holes in the wall or grand spaces. They can be bustling or quiet. The whole range of human experience and emotion can take place in one café. And I haven’t even mentioned the best part: this dynamic place has coffee. Coffee, the midnight oil’s partner in crime; the early bird’s jet pack. (Sorry, tea lovers: I’m a fan as well but coffee is in its own league. Coffee has over 1,500 aromatic and flavor compounds, making it an incredibly complex and rich beverage.)

Parks, too, have this interesting duality of action and pause. They are places where you can run, stroll, sit, and nap. One person trains for a marathon; the other sits down for meditation. A group of college kids sprawl lazily on the warm grass and under the giving shade of trees while a man in a crisis works through his problems (Solvitur ambulando: it is solved by walking). A couple with years of experience smile generously and quietly on a bench as a curious toddler plows through a new landscape. They are all here, contributing to this changing, pulsating energy of life. They are here, thinking, laughing, learning, and loving.

Between a park and a café, I can spend hours, days. I can write, share conversations, walk and think, people watch, people listen, and breathe fresh air. Parks and cafés are like showers for my soul: I exit their embraces feeling rejuvenated and ready for what’s next.

It’s no surprise, then, that cities that have a distinct culture and emphasis on cafés and parks feel like home to me. It’s almost as if it’s an expression of a culture that says, “Hey! The things that happen in these places are important!”. San Francisco and New York City in the US come to mind. In Santiago, I felt that culture, too. This isn’t to say that the things that happen in cafés and parks can’t happen in restaurants, or bars, or in community centers. They certainly can! It’s just I think cafés and parks are unique places of energy and people.

Not surprisingly, I composed this love letter in a café and on a park bench. On that note, I have a very important cup of coffee and stroll to attend to.

Tabula Rasa

I’ve been thinking way too much about the nature of our interaction with technology and the Internet for the past year or so. (Writers like Patrick Rhone, James Shelley, Leo Babauta, Shawn Blanc and Nick Wynja have long been populating my reading queue and contributed to this ongoing introspection.) While this is undoubtably a feat of navel-grazing and nothing groundbreaking can come from it, I thought I would share where I came out of all the thinking.

I’ve become increasingly uncomfortable with the way that I’ve been engaging with the online world and my relationship with it. It’s one fraught with addiction, best exemplified by the reflexive keystrokes and thumb movements to reach social media and email. Often, but not always, it’s a relationship devoid of value. The latest viral video or pictures of my friends’ meals aren’t moving me towards anything meaningful. I can’t have those minutes back. Worse, these minutes are entrenching the addiction. Dopamine is a powerful drug.

Beyond the addiction, there is the feeling of permanent vulrenability. When something is put up on the Internet, it’s there forever. Our digital selves have a life of their own. You can try to delete, to erase, but that’s like trying to pull light back out of a black hole. I still have vague aspirations for a life that might put me in the public eye and the permanence of the Internet is a bit paralyzing. Even without those aspirations, the deterrence is real. Maybe don’t post that picture, that link, that status, that blog post, lest you be judged for eternity. Maybe it’s best you stay silent.

Then, there are these mounting concerns regarding privacy. If you’re not paying for something, you are the product, so the story goes. Do I really want to be part of a massive data mining operation that is geared towards feeding the future of advertising? How does an industry focused on creating space for revenue impact the end user experience? Do I trust these companies with all this information about me? These questions only scratch the surface of the plethora of concerns surrounding emergent tech.

My initial reaction to my relationship with the online world was to break it off. I embraced the philosophy of disconnection and deactivation. I wanted to become sober, to beat the addiction. I wanted to keep my identity constructed by interactions I understood: my actions and words. I was looking for a modern day Walden. Facebook was deactivated; email was delegated to strict timetables; other social media was curtailed. I was approaching zen, I thought. Look at these pitiful addicts, trapped on their hamster wheels of cheap thrills, pawns in a large corporate game, I mused haughtily.

While I am certain there is value in all this disconnection, there is only so much time I can spend in the woods. Thoreau did, after all, return from his faux-isolation at Walden Pond. I, too, returned from the woods, but, unlike Thoreau, I didn’t come back with any new ideas. I had no guide with which to navigate society. Old habits and fears came flooding back in again.

Then, like a gift, I began to travel. It was a welcomed caesura in all the madness. My bad habits were overwhelmed by the constant assault of new experience. When you’re in a new landscape in a foreign land, your inboxes can wait patiently. Sometimes, circumstance dictates that your inboxes have to wait (maybe you hike through the mountains to Machu Picchu).

In this space of pause, I was able to gain a little perspective. I began to write a whole lot more. (Travel tends to do that to me.) I liked this different me: more confident, more expressive, more reflective. Every day had a tangible feeling of value to it. I was traveling alone and every new person became a chance to authentically relate my identity with confidence and passion. When I could “connect” I was excited to do so. I just had so much to share!

It seems to be a theme so far in this journey, but I really want to hold onto the relationship with the online world crafted in the furnace of travel. So, starting today, I’m going to begin anew. My manifesto: tabula rasa. For all I know, the internet didn’t exist before now.

What does that mean?

It means that I have a chance to build the relationship I want. The world is not returning to more simple times, to some fabled analog past of pure, meaningful interaction. If anything, it’s hurtling in the opposite direction. We must do the work of sorting out what it means to find quality in a digital world.

The more shit we create, the harder it is to find the good stuff. I can’t with a clear conscience contribute to the noise; I have to help light the signal. I want to be quality-obsessed: if I’m not creating or interacting with value, it’s going to be cut. I must dare to be brilliant and fail often in that endeavor. I must craft my own identity with care and every time I come to the table is a chance to shape it. Judgements be damned! I’d rather my voice be heard in its imperfection than it become lost in disuse. To disengage is not the answer.

That doesn’t mean the ideas of mindfulness and disconnection go out the window, either. I must build in those caesuras. In a world that demands constant connection, a pause can be good for us. It can pull us back and help us commit anew to the pursuit of quality tomorrow. But a pause cannot be permanent. The work of missing hands will, if absent too long, be replaced by the unsavory. Just like outside of the confines of the Internet, I must build the world I want.

Practically, this means that I might share more (links, thoughts, writing). Or maybe less. It means I have a firm grasp of what I’m looking for online and a way to weigh the pros and cons of a service. Maybe it means I ditch Facebook or give Twitter another try. I don’t know. I will sort it out. But I will mindfully work through that process with a blank slate behind me and vision of a future focused on quality ahead.

This is mostly for me, but maybe it resonates with you. If it does, join me! Let’s start a new movement and take back our relationship with the connected world. The tabula rasa Internet is waiting.

When 12 Means 20

I had initially thought I would go straight from La Paz to Uyuni. Like most plans, this quickly changed after I met some people who had traveled through Bolivia and said Sucre was worth a stop.

I found myself on a bus to Sucre on Monday night and went to sleep ready to wake up to some sunshine and a new city to explore twelve hours later.

I woke up at around 4am to a stopped bus. The frozen window next to me made it hard to see what was going on, but I could make out another bus beside me. I figured we were at some sort of bus depot and tried to fight the cold back to an uneasy sleep.

I woke again close to 6am to the rustling of bags around me. A few passengers were gathering their things and leaving. I watched one father go to the front of the bus, wipe the windows clear, and puzzle at the scene before him. I couldn’t see from my seat so I was left in the dark.

I decided to do what makes sense in most situations: follow the crowd. I grabbed my pack and descended from the bus and found that we were stopped in a long fleet of other buses with people streaming past. I found someone who I knew spoke English and asked her what was going on. She told me there was some sort of blockade up ahead by miners in the area. We found the bus driver and he said the blockade could be broken in minutes or hours but he just didn’t know.

At that moment I began to take more notice of the people walking past us. They were all heading to the other side of the blockade in the hope that there were buses available to continue their trips. It was freezing, I had little hope that there would be movement with the blockade soon, and I was up for a stroll so I started walking.

Along the way I picked up a few friends and oranges. The friends were from America and Canada and had the same reasoning for walking as I did. The oranges were a gift: a man spilled his bag of fruit and I stopped to help pick them up.

At the heart of a small town that was the miners’ staging ground, I came across large rocks blocking passage and haggard men huddled around large fires. We passed to the other side of the blockade and found people walking the opposite direction; it was Mother’s Day, after all, and people had places to be. The group of gringos I was with decided our best bet was to walk past the crowds of people and convince a passing car to turn around and drive us to the nearest town.

As cars passed us, drivers made a circular motion with their hands signaling they were turning around, then passed us again stuffed with people. Our plan appeared to not be the best one. A Bolivian was almost successful in getting a pastry truck to give us all a ride, but he promised he’d pick us up on the return only to pass us full of people.

I made friends with the Bolivian man - Saol - but the other gringos decided to turn around. The haze behind us in the morning was apocalyptic with the stretch of people with their luggage, the stopped lines of buses, and the burning fires of protesters in the distance. I much preferred the open road ahead and my new friend’s ability to get somewhere after he told me he had a one year old at home - Abigail - and wanted to celebrate the day with his wife. So, we walked. And walked.

While walking, I learned that he was a mechanic from Sucre. We discussed traveling, Bolivia and my future at law school. Miles later, Saol and I stopped at the outskirts of a pueblito (a small town) to rest for a moment. Suddenly, some sort of transport truck appeared to be stopping and a chorus of voices encouraged us to hop in. I climbed up to see a horde of people stowed in the bed of the truck. Women were huddled at the floor, sitting, wrapped in blankets. Men were holding on to whatever they could.

Shouts of “¡Dentro, dentro!” filled my ears. It became clear that they wanted me to descend into the pit, but I couldn’t see anywhere to put my feet. One older man told me to put my feet on the side and shimmy to the middle of the bed using the center rail. With some dexterity I moved into position and asked for someone to take my backpack. After managing to drop down without hurting anyone, I gave thanks to all amidst a few cheers.

I spent the next three hours standing up, one hand on my jacket thrown over the center rail and the other with a tentative hold on one side. With some jolts in the road we all quickly made friends as we grabbed onto whatever was closest. It became apparent that I was the only gringo among the 50 odd people riding and everyone got a kick out of my attempts at Spanish. The landscape cast around us was beautiful and it felt like another great example of “frameless travel” that I’ve written about before on The Orange Sky.

Nearing the end of the journey, a few of the men made guesses at how close we were and then we all laughed at the bad answers as the time passed. Finally, we made it to Potosi, dropped off near the bus terminal. Saol walked with me, pointed out a good company to get to Sucre and we wished each other well.

A few hours later I made it to Sucre without incident. In the waning light I decided to walk to my hostel from the station and was rewarded with a spray painted message on a quiet street reading “Education is a right, not a commodity”. The fight lives everywhere.

Finally at my destination hours after I expected, I collapsed gratefully in my bed. A 12 hour journey had grown into 20. Still, it was an adventure worth experiencing. I felt that there was a sense of a temporary community. As bus passengers, walkers, and then hitchhikers there was a common thread woven through us all. Before, we were isolated by our separate buses and separate seats. Maybe for a few moments I wasn’t that gringo passing through Bolivia unnoticed but a part of a community surrounding a blockade 100 kilometers from Potosi. Maybe not. At the very least, it was a reminder that things don’t always go as planned and the only way to deal is to pick up your pack and make your own luck.

Surviving Death Road (Twice)

I mountain biked for the first time the other day. With a few friends from my travels in Peru, I barreled down Yungas Road outside of La Paz, Bolivia, also known as “the world’s most dangerous road” and “Death Road”. It’s a twisting mountain road that hugs a cliff with incredible views for 40 miles of downhill.

Before tempting the curves, I had never really ridden a bike for an extended period of time. Sure, I had done a bike ride with my cross country team eight years ago, but nothing like the adventure of mountain biking. Needless to say, I was nervous about the ride at the beginning.

Then, a funny thing happened. Only moments into the ride, the fear evaporated. I got the sense that the ride was a lot about confidence. Not the reckless bravado that gets you into trouble, but a quiet comfort in your ability to handle the situation. When that realization settled into my bones, I shouted with joy at the scenery and let gravity pull me down the path with unsettling speed.

The first stretch was on paved road and gave me the chance to get used to the feel of the bike and to mold my muscle memory. By the time we made it to the unpaved and infamous road, I was ready. I quickly found the best space to rocket down: just behind the leaders of the group. My friend Jo was battling to beat the tour guide the whole time and had an experienced rider right behind him. I settled in behind the third rider and in front of the rest of the group. It gave me the chance to explore different speeds, be aggressive with some parts and to completely immerse myself in the experience without worrying about he other riders.

I was awash with adrenaline from start to finish. The rush pushed me through sharp turns, land-mines of rocks, waterfalls, and streams. Before I knew it, we made it to the bottom to enjoy a cold beer.

The adventure wasn’t over yet, though. About an hour into the three hour trip back to La Paz - back up the road we had descended - there was a problem with the bus. The headlights were causing some issues with the engine. The obvious solution? Tape a flashlight to the front of the bus, leave the headlights off and continue on slowly but surely. The bus driver took his time and often had the help of other cars’ lights, but to say the ride was nerve wracking would be an understatement. Nervous chatter occasionally punctured the silence as we successfully navigated back to La Paz.

In both directions on the road, fear was in the mix. However, the fear on the return trip was a different. It was fear without control. Unlike the ride down, my fate was in the hands of a (very capable) driver. The presence - or absence - of control makes all the difference.

I think a lot about what we take back with us from traveling. Recently, I’ve noticed a little more courage within myself, whether in hiking for days, repelling down buildings, or mountain biking. I think I’ll always be unsettled by the fear in moments where I don’t have control, but I think I’m beginning to handle the fear where I can change the situation. A lot of the fear of travel is unsettling but fixable: you only have to be bold. Unfortunately, I think some of the confidence we earn through travel dissipates on the way home. Something about the familiarity of home pushes us back to normal. Maybe through putting that realization into words, I can bottle some of that boldness and release it like those shouts of euphoria as I raced down the road. I know I will end it when I get back home.

Trails as Story

I completed a five day trek to Machu Picchu via the Salkantay Pass. I walked around 50 miles and seemingly reached the top of the world. I could share lots of details about the trip: the long miles and tired feet, the meals shared over dim light, the uncooperative tents, or the constant assault of impressive views. In truth, these are neither new nor particularly interesting stories. Instead, I thought I’d share a few thoughts that stayed with me along the way.

In many ways, I approached the long slog to Machu Picchu as a pilgrimage. I don’t mean in the traditional sense: I am not, after all, a professed member of any faith nor do I have some connection to the people who walked the trails centuries ago (admittedly, by the final climb of Huayna Picchu, I had gained a healthy respect for religions of old that saw the mountains as gods). Despite my lack of membership in the religions of pilgrimages, something about the act devotion and the sense of purpose appealed to me as I thought about how I wanted to travel a few months ago. The intentionality inherent in pilgrimages lends a weight of importance to every step and the trek was a great chance to immerse myself in that mindset.

Unlike established pilgrimages, my journey to Machu Picchu lacked a real focus of devotion. On reflection, I didn’t think it was a moment for spontaneous conversion to faith or a good time for self-absorption. As a result, I began walking with an idea of open meditation. The basic idea? Embrace mindfulness throughout the day in all its forms. I tried to eat a little slower. I tried to observe the challenge or ease of each step. I tried to pause at vistas and bear witness to their beauty before taking a picture. I tried, when appropriate, to find some solitude on the trail. I opted to walk whenever the option was available, forgoing ziplines and shuttle buses in favor of humbly putting one foot in front of the other.

Out of this open meditation came one pervasive thought: trails are a fantastic way of framing the collective storytelling that is life. I’ve been enamored with this idea of the power of storytelling for a while now - even using it as the framework of my personal statement for law school - and it popped up again as I adventured to Machu Picchu.

Trails are a living embodiment of collective storytelling that reaches through time. In the past, trailblazers are the initial discoverers, some by accident and others through purpose. They forge a path that we all generally follow. In the present, we trod upon the footsteps of our forbearers, fine-tuning the worn trail with every footstep. Occasionally we find new, better, and more interesting pathways to the same destination. Finally, just as the past communicates with the present, in the current moment we communicate with the future, showing the way we took in the hope that those wiser than us can amend our missteps.

In each dimension of time - the past, the present, and the future - there is a constantly changing understanding of the story in the eyes of the individual. Every person, despite having many examples to follow in the established trail and fellow hikers, will travel along the trail in a unique way. It is only when we add up the sum of parts that we get something greater: a collective understanding of the road we have traveled to be shared with others preparing for the same journey.

For me, this sophomoric revelation made me think even more about what story I’m telling and how it will fit into the larger whole. What footprints am I leaving behind in my actions and writing? What would be the impact of someone following those footprints? Who am I following? Where are all these trails taking us?

Although none of these questions will be resolved through an act of thinking, it’s good to pause and think about where our feet have been, where they are and where they are taking us. Ultimately, however, I keep returning to a brilliant phrase I read years ago: “we make the road by walking”.