Holy moly, am I happy to make the introduction: 17 Ideas That Changed My Life is out, live, and available printed for purchase (and free to download).

A sort of “philosophical coffee table book,” it’s a photo-heavy homage and collection of the most useful and profound ideas I’ve found and integrated into my lens on life over a decade of exploring ideas (traveling, reading hundreds of books, deep soaks in diverse cultures etc.).

To be a mystic one need not add anything to their experience, but subtract. A mystic simply sticks with and perceives the basics of reality, because the basic of reality are wildly miraculous.

A few examples:

• We live on a tiny planet floating in the endless void of space.

• Time is an illusion made by measuring spins of the earth and laps around the sun. The past is a memory, the future a dream, and both are mental projections from the present. All is one ever-changing, eternal present moment.

• A single cell organism speciated into all forms of life on Earth. All life on our planet traces appears to trace back to one source, an unbroken chain of life branching out from a single trunk. To say we are “related” to all of life on Earth may be the grandest understatement.

Would you like to live a captivating life? To feel alive and engaged in the ways you spend your days? Interest is the unsung key.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about interest the past year and believe it to be the missing vital value and navigational compass for the modern day. Interest is the fountain of youth we don’t know we’re after, not in the sense of everlasting life, but of life ever-engaging. When rooted in your interests, you don’t need all the tips and tricks to be present, happy, and engaged — living in alignment with the delights and drives of your deeper self, you simply need a lot less soothing.

While the effort to discover your deepest interests is far from straightforward, the process is remarkably simple. So simple, in fact, it can be written out in the most standardized and trite form in the world: a three-step formula.

I am currently reading a book entitled The Denial of Death by Ernest Beckett. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 1974. As I’ve been quite into contemplating death for the clarity it brings to life for over a decade, I was surprised I had gone so long without knowing of the book before hearing its mention on a podcast a few weeks ago.

I immediately ordered a copy. By the time I was done with the introduction, I understood why I’d never heard its mention: the book is an unsettling, veil-lifting deconstruction of the psychological constructs that create us.

Yesterday, I encountered a passage on awe that struck me like lightning. I must have read it four times over and its implications have been echoing around my head ever since:

I was interviewed last week on the CEDAR Weekly Podcast by musician and artist-lifting host JJ Shafe. Our wide ranging discussion included subjects from death and long walks to the sense of wonder and the supreme value of commonplace books. It was a grand time.

I was climbing a mountain
a desert island in Phoenix.
It had just rained three days straight
and the unprecedented rain left
everything an unprecedented clear.

A nomad for the better part of the past five years, I sought to answer the question of "Why I travel?" in a notebook from the window seat of a Boeing 737 last December.

Late one night, I recorded that answer.

While I am no videographer and the majority of my moments go intentionally uncaptured, I did have enough footage from five years of travel to span four minutes. Backed by M83's Outro, this is the "why" behind my last five years of venturing out.

The phrase, “To see the sights!” is one of the most common Airbnb booking messages I receive as manager of a lodge a mile outside the northeast gate of Yellowstone National Park.

It’s a limiting, yet apt phrase, as many who visit our national parks get caught up in “seeing” a national park—reducing one of life's most immersive, transcendent experiences to simple observation.

The point is not to merely observe Yosemite's monolithic walls, the striated eons of the Petrified Forest, or Yellowstone's swirling of geologic, plant, and animal life, but to feel connected to Earth’s eternal procession. To recognize we are a part, not apart from, these fantastical displays of nature, evokes profound awe and mysticism within us that has been all but extinguished from our day-to-day lives.

We've been taught that the good life is found in comfort—in luxury, in relaxation, and in doing as little as possible. Those best living the American Dream have the constant experience of the highest comfort with butlers, drivers, cooks, maids, secretaries, and assistants to anticipate their every want and need. At that pinnacle of comfort, one shouldn't have to do so much as lift a finger, every desire as satiated as possible in every moment.

Is constant comfort, ease, and luxury the real pinnacle of human experience, though? The rightful aim of the western world?

I don't think so. In fact, I've increasingly come to see comfort as false gratification, as the wrong target most are unknowingly aimed at.

In the USA, comfort is our false idol.

While backpacking New Zealand earlier this year, I met a constant stream of new people. More than daily, I had those get-to-know-each-other conversations where topics of discussion circled around where you're from, what you do, how long you've been in the country, and other acquainting question and answer dialog.

These get-to-know-each-other conversations are vital in understanding another human being. However, after a few weeks, a hunger for more meaningful conversation grew within me.

I began to see this basic, everyday conversation as outer shell conversation that masked the inner shell conversation that we could be having of things deeper and more representative of who we are.

I'm two weeks into a road trip around the South Island of New Zealand. In my two months here leading up to it, I've been dedicated to reading, writing, and The Living Theory, but the past two weeks I've tried to do the total opposite—to just let go.

I'm naturally an organized, stick-to-the-plan kind of guy. But in the name of adventure and bending against my nature, I've let go of structure, plans, and literary ambitions for a bit. Not just for a break from a year-round focus on doing what I love, but to allow myself to drift in an unusual direction and see what I might discover. Instead of steering, I'm just enjoying the ride for a while.

This life is such an incredible gift. The opportunity to be alive, to be conscious, to feel passion, to feel love, to explore, and to take any number of infinite potential paths though this world... it's mindbogglingly beautiful.

I usually write to convey a message, but I think these three awe-inspiring videos come from a place closer to the source than written word. If only for a moment, they provide clarity and help us realize the opportunity that life implies.

When you have the time, take a deep breath. Sit down, turn the volume up, go full screen, and be inspired.

Over the past couple years I've read hundreds of articles, columns, books etc. about a variety of topics revolving around life, pursuit, and how to best spend our ultimately limited existence.

Here are three articles that each had their own unique, profound impact upon my life:

20 Year-Old Hunter S. Thompson’s Superb Advice on How to Find Your Purpose and Live a Meaningful Life

A letter legendary author, Hunter S. Thompson, wrote in response to a friend asking, “What should I do with my life?” Among other things, Thompson's insightful response explains that, “We must make the goal conform to the individual, rather than make the individual conform to the goal.”