“The secret of adventure, then, is not to carefully seek it out but to travel in such a way that it finds you. To do this, you first need to overcome the protective habits of home and open yourself up to unpredictability. As you begin to practice this openness, you’ll quickly discover adventure in the…
“Quitting, for me, means not giving up, but moving on; changing direction not because something doesn’t agree with you, but because you don’t agree with something. It’s not a complaint, in other words, but a positive choice, and not a stop in one’s journey, but a step in a better direction. Quitting–whether a job or…
“Whatever takes you to a place is less important than what you find when you get there.” – Rolf Potts Do you feel the pull of certain places? I do, and quite frequently. Local and faraway places call to me, even as I stay busy in the garden and with small projects in the home….
If you watch a commercial on television, or a reporter out on a city street, or even the cast intro on Saturday Night Live in February 2021, everyone is wearing masks. A year ago you’d have wondered at it, even as the pandemic rapidly descended on the world. Today it’s commonplace, and I’m more often…
“What is the purpose of writing? For me personally, it is really to explain the mystery of life, and the mystery of life includes, of course, the personal, the political, the forces that make us what we are while there’s another force from inside battling to make us something else.” – Nadine Gordimer I don’t…
“Make of yourself a light,” said the Buddha, before he died.” – Mary Oliver, The Buddha’s Last Instruction Last night I lay quietly in the backyard well past my bedtime watching bits of billion-year-old space dust streak across the sky in brilliant dying gasps of white light. The dust is debris from the comet Swift-Tuttle,…
I heard a Rolf Potts podcast interview with Alastair Humphreys during a long walk around town. I listen to podcasts when walking on loud roads because I can never fully immerse myself in nature when heavy objects traveling at terminal velocity are close enough to know the deodorant of choice of the driver. Of course,…
“What’s a more soulful way to live? What’s a way that I can benefit from the dynamism and prosperity of American society without having to play by these rules that keep us in a holding pattern?” – Rolf Potts, from his Deviate podcast Leave it to Rolf Potts to ask the question. The question that drives…
“The process of life should be the birth of a soul. This is the highest alchemy, and this justifies our presence on earth. This is our calling and our virtue.” – Henri Amiel I’ve managed to finish three books this year, a disappointing total to be sure. But I’m actively reading every day, and balance…