The Afterglow Experience

The other day at the grocery store I bought a few sweet potatoes. Yesterday evening, as I was working, my amazing partner began making dinner and cut into one of the sweet potatoes, expecting to see a deep orange color that she typically associates with sweet potatoes. However, the flesh of these particular sweet potatoes was white. Granted, she was having a bit of a rough day up to this point and I think she really needed some food, but as an observer I have never seen such an aggressively adverse reaction to a white sweet potato. She cut off one slice of it, saw that the color was not the orange she expected, and walked away, ready to give up on that potato entirely. Substitutes like rice or pasta were considered. For some unknown reason, she absolutely hated that the inside of that potato was not orange. I am not a potato expert. At this point, my confidence that I really had grabbed a sweet potato from the store was shaken and I didn't know exactly what it was, but it sure look...

Going all in on anything is exciting. All in means it is your top priority and you are putting all of the time and energy into it that it requires. You might see rapid progress, you might get further in that pursuit than anyone every has before. Or you might at least be the best at that thing that you can possibly be. Lately, I've been struggling to balance everything going on in my life. I have passions that I would love to go 100% all in on. But I also enjoy my job and making enough money to live a comfortable lifestyle, and I don't have confidence that I could perform at the required level even if I went all in to make enough to continue living my lifestyle. Balance means compromise. It means understanding and accepting that you won't be as good at any of the things that you're balancing as you have the potential to be. I often find myself thinking, "I can have it all. I can make everything work." I know it isn't true, but that doesn't make it any l...

There are many parallels between mountains and life. Some of my most formative experiences in the outdoors were mountaineering with my dad. Climbing mountains was my deepest passion growing up. In high school, I would sit in class with ten different browser tabs open on my computer, and nine of them would be about the mountains I dreamed of summiting. Every weekend I was checking off another peak, some local day-hikes, some extended foreign expeditions. My dad and I got all the technical gear, all the safety training, and I absolutely loved it. He would occasionally get philosophical while we climbed, making connections between what we were doing and life as a whole. Years later, even though I haven't maintained the same consistency I once had with true mountaineering, I still catch myself finding meaning in the mountains. First of all, I recognize the privilege that my previous paragraph describes. Not everyone gets opportunities like that, and I feel extremely lucky. Not everyone...

Painting by Ron Fleishman Why do we work? I've been thinking about my career quite a bit lately and have some contradicting feelings that I want to put out there and try to sort out.  On one hand, I need money to survive and live the type of life that I love. Work provides me with health insurance, opportunities for personal relationships and problem solving, technical growth in an exciting field that is improving business and challenges me, and the promise of promotions and a secure financial future. On the other hand, I don't need that much money to enjoy life. I could work a lot less or in a very different industry doing something outdoors that pays enough to get me through each day. I could even just do an adequate job in my current position, have good benefits, and get paid fine, but still have plenty of free time. So why do I have this constant nagging desire to do more or to try to start my own thing or move up the ranks? ​The way I see it, in America w e work to earn mo...

Warlords of Atlantis - by Luminokaya I recently introduced a couple close relatives to the world of psychedelics. They had asked me if I knew anything about psilocybin and I ran upstairs, grabbed a jar of mushrooms, and we chatted about the effects, preparation techniques, past experiences, etc. well into the night. It turns out that they had done some previous research and heard about the potential benefits of psilocybin for treating depression, something that they were mildly dealing with and were interested in exploring alterative methods of treatment. Two days later, they were back over for their first trip. One of the points that I tried to emphasize to them before starting our journey was that it would be a much more positive experience if they could relax and accept whatever happened, knowing that they were in no physical danger and that we had created a very safe space. It is easy to be afraid when your entire mind forgets what is real and it feels like the trip may never end. ...

As a competitive ultrarunner who truly loves being in the mountains, finding the balance between training and enjoyment has always been present in my mind. On one hand, its hard to beat a long day exploring beautiful mountains with no pressure to maintain a certain pace, stay on a certain trail, or consider what people on Strava might think. However, that type of attitude and exercise aren't necessarily the best for reaching my fitness potential. Its often more beneficial to mix in flatter (less scenic) faster runs, and even when I get the chance to do longer mountain runs there is a specific route picked out that mimics race terrain. I've found a few keys to managing this balance, although I'm also open to suggestions about how to improve because this is still occasionally a struggle. Why compete? This is the first question to tackle. Competition, initially, may seem ego-centric and selfish. And in many ways it is. That's part of why I struggle to justify doing it. I r...