”You have to show up for the experience if you want it to happen to you.”

- Ed Buryn

Hey,

Do you ever find yourself overcome with the sensation that all around the world, everything is happening at once?

Like right now, it’s noon somewhere and midnight somewhere else. Right now, people are dancing, brushing their teeth, being arrested, watching television, falling in love, eating noodles, being born, giving birth, dying, and doing, well, everything. It’s all happening right now at this very moment. Torrents of rain are pouring down in places while others lie under cloudless skies of scalding drought. A turtle is making its way ashore, an owl just spotted an unfortunate critter, and despite their keeper’s best, frustrated efforts, the panda bears just don’t seem all that interested in having sex at the zoo.

We start noticing this when we travel — no, not the panda bears — the everything at once. We arrive in some big far off city and see millions of people bustling about, living their lives, working their daily routine, and go, “Oh wow, it’s all happening here too.” I’ve encountered this sense many times, docking a cruise ship among east coast cities as a deckhand, wandering about places like Sydney and Hong Kong on layovers, climbing different yet same mountains in North America, New Zealand, and Nepal, residing on beaches in Mexico, Hawaii, and Cambodia… The feel of everything is happening at once is gained and grows through travel.

In contrast, with a shifting market, my buddy and I’s real estate photography business continues to boom and I worked the first twenty-three days straight this June. On the twenty-fourth, I was fortunately able to hop on a plane to Denver, borrow a car, picked up some great friends, and drive up into the Rocky Mountains for four days to celebrate the summer solstice and take a bird’s eye view at this midpoint of the year. My time in Phoenix had been quite repetitive, the scope of my experience small and concentrated. Then, suddenly, I’m at 9,700ft in elevation breathing cool, fresh Rocky Mountain air, chasing rainbows, talking philosophy, running dirt roads, ingesting psychedelic substances, and hot tubbing on the porch of an A-Frame cabin in unobstructed view of the Milky Way examining life with a wondrous group of friends.

We talked a lot about intentions during our gathering. Looking forward, my friend Alex’s main intention was to “show up” more, which I didn’t fully grasp the implications of until I rediscovered a little scrap of paper (which has already spawned an article) at the bottom of my bag the following morning, a quote I penned while hanging with one of my great author heroes, Ed Buryn, last fall:

It doubly dawned on me, if we want anything to happen to us, we have to be there for it to happen. Showing up is the only way to take part in that happening.

And so, asking ourselves the most basic questions about showing up can be mighty revealing:

“What do I show up for?”

“Am I showing up where I want to be?”

“Am I showing up for things I want to happen?”

Asking ourselves these questions and examining our answers, we can gain self-awareness of where we actually are, where we are actually going, and where we might want to show up more often if we want things to happen differently.

We live in a world where everything is happening at once. Yet as individuals, we can only be in one place at a time. So the trick (and the way we live by our values) is simple: we show up where it matters most.

Showing up — think about it!

With love & stoke,

Ethan

P.S. The WONDER WANDER 2022 application period closes August 2nd and a couple slots remain! If you’re on the fence, I encourage you to join me in taking the leap (I too get nervous about hosting this great thing each year, but as a wise man once said, “the cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.”).

Also, I’m still looking for a videographer to both capture and participate in the gathering — in exchange for an audiovisual tribute, the cost of attendance is waived. If you have a good friend with a good eye, please do let em’ know!

Newest Addition to the Bookshelf:
The Wisdom of Insecurity

The Wisdom of Insecurity is the book that I (as a scientifically-trained, agnostic human with an inkling there might be “something more” but was put off by the dogma of most religions) was looking for.

It uproots many western culture’s most foundational assumptions, from individualism and future focus to our egoic sense of soul, and offers to point the flashlight of our awareness in a very different way at this here eternally present moment (which, as Watts so poignantly points out, is really all there is).

Read on >

WONDER WANDER 2022

October 13th to 18th 2022 — I'm hosting WONDER WANDER 2022 — a gathering of curious, creative, and adventurous humans for a surreal experience among the upper elevations of Arizona’s Sonoran Desert.

We’ll be staying at the Pandora Ranch House, a six bedroom, thirteen bed private hacienda on twenty acres of remote high desert (think grasslands, mesquite trees, and mountains beyond mountains). We’ll ramble desert, bag peaks, stargaze, kick it, cook delicious food together, each attendee will again lead an experience for the group this year… this is an experience of deep connection and kaleidoscopic radness. If you feel called to come, do not hesitate to apply!

Apply here >