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Yo, September has been a trip. A trip in the physical sense: the majority of the month spread across places and situations so varied and different. This month I have slept in: the Napa Valley farmhouse I wrote you from last month, the back of my car in Sacramento, the “bunkhouse” of legendary Vagabonding author Ed Buryn, the cheapest motel room I could find in Vegas, a tent on a slab of red rock along a creek near Sedona, my parent’s house for ten days while they were away, and the bedroom I’ve been renting the past five months in downtown Phoenix. A trip in the psychedelic sense as well: the juxtaposition of living like “the 1%” one day and a homeless man the next, kicking it for two evenings with one of my greatest author-heroes and having these incredible hour upon hour evenings of epic conversation, reading two-thirds of the book The Denial of Death which continues to unravel my illusions while illustrating just how important illusions are, debating whether or not to take a one way ticket to Mars in the year 2041 with a biweekly writing-letters-from-the-future experimental discussion group, and listening to all four Jordan Peterson vs. Sam Harris debates on the role of religion today while driving out to these massive swaths of heartlessly bulldozed desert to photograph newly erected sea-of-sameness homes. All this, while working forty or fifty hours a week on my buddy and I’s real estate photography business. It’s been nuts. Like getting to look into a tremendously cool, intricate kaleidoscope but its wheels often spin so fast that it all just blurs together. Like that ampm gas station slogan — “too much good stuff.” The kicker is that “too much good stuff” quickly becomes bad. If we just ingest all the time, there is no time to digest. We need both. No, this is not a braggadocious boast about the things I’ve done this month, this is a lamentable letter about the things slipping through my hands at this moment —a list of what has miraculously occurred, but is not being integrated. Over and over, I am just on to the next thing. I have spent most of my twenties ingesting and digesting experiences. Deliberately doing things that interest me and then taking the time to reflect (and often write about) those things to better understand myself and the world. Doing more than I ever have in a month this September, it’s clear I have overextended myself. While overdoing and under-doing helps to find balance, what is too far has surely been found. I feel fortunate that one night each month I am scheduled to stop and reflect through the act of writing this letter. Because, for me, writing is my act of digestion. I write not to support a conclusion but to come to one. Tonight is no exception. Thanks for reading these late night ramblings, for you give reason and meaning to the absurd act of combining symbols on my laptop screen into the depths of the night in a deliberate way that allows me to discover things like you need to stop throwing coals into a roaring fire in the locomotive of life if you don’t want to just mindlessly go zooming on past it all. With love and stoke, Ethan P.S. Yet another thing I did this month was get WONDER WANDER 2021 together. While it was more on the plate, my gut knows it was positively worth it. Come November 4th, it’s going to be five days to step away from the world, slow down, celebrate, and share among some surreal red rock country with a wonderful group of people. As I enjoy endlessly repeating to the chagrin of wonderwanderers soon to come and past, I am totally stoked.
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