Have you ever read a quote that you had a visceral, physical reaction to? Made you stop and re-read? Maybe even put the book down and just stare at the wall?

"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country..."

And continuing a bit further:

“A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind.”

Thoreau published Walden in 1854, making an observation on dissatisfaction throughout society. He observed unconscious living, people becoming enslaved to the things that they believed improved their lives; expectations and societal norms.

Thoreau argued that people become ‘tools of their tools’, unable to live a life of fulfilment thanks to the construct of society. In Thoreau’s time, it was survival and social expectations. Subsistence farming was common practice, even as the world was beginning to industrialise.

Was he right then? Is he right now? I think the answer is yes, perhaps, even more true today than in 1854.

Today, we aren’t burdened to survive. Our burden is abundance.

An abundance of choice and possibilities can quite easily become paralysing. From choice of entertainment to food, possessions to experiences or careers, the list of abundance is endless.

We experience freedoms that Kings of old couldn’t even dream about, yet many of us still feel a quiet sense of being trapped.

Why? Because freedom creates responsibility. In a world full of opportunity where we can change our identity at the drop of a hat, every path unexplored is one of regret.

We hold ourselves accountable for choosing the ‘right’ path when there are thousands to choose from.

Quiet desperation has become the norm.

How often do you have the same conversation, somewhere along the lines of:

‘Hey mate, how’s work?’

‘Flat out, don’t even have time to think’

• ‘I’m exhausted’,

• ‘I’m tired’,

• ‘I’m so busy’,

• ‘I need a break’,

We’ve gotten to a place if you’re not barely keeping your head afloat, those around you think something is up. If work isn’t busy, are you about to get fired? Is your entire livelihood at risk? Are you about to go bankrupt?

We’re busy, but are we deluding ourselves, keeping busy to avoid our reality?

We don’t often escape ourselves.

Solitude is a rare luxury.

Thoreau walked in the woods with a notebook, letting his thoughts and observations come to him. No one to get a hold of him, nothing to distract him other than his surroundings and head noise.

If we walk in the woods, our phone and headphones come with us. We’ll bop to music, throw on a podcast, or have it just in case someone needs me.

Shower thoughts are a real thing, one of the final frontiers of quiet time with the self, though I’m sure I’m just unaware of some shower products to numb us. There are no podcasts, no shows, no music. Just the hot water and your thoughts.

Desperation no longer looks desperate.

Being desperate used to mean you’ve hit rock bottom. You could see the desperate people. Now, it can be disguised as a full calendar.

Take two lives.

Person A is clearly miserable, the mate at catch-ups hating what they’re doing, complaining about work, the girlfriend, their health and wishing for a different life.

Person B:

• has a house,

• two healthy kids,

• good marriage,

• annual overseas holiday,

• meets friends at the pub regularly,

• Often says they’re ‘living the dream’,

And yet, Person B is trapped, getting dragged downstream by commitments and expectations that they never actually wanted.

Does any of that scream quiet desperation? Person A is aware, and Person B may never know, having been unconsciously defanged, made impotent by the distractions available to us.

Reading Thoreau left me with a different question;

Did we choose this life?

I would never suggest that modern people live harder lives than Thoreau’s contemporaries, because that claim would be absurd. It’s my observation, however, that we’ve become outstanding at disguising quiet desperation with productivity, success and distractions.

We often live a life that we have fallen backwards into rather than one that we’ve consciously pursued, which leads me to question: at what point do we stop choosing?

No one consciously chooses to give up their agency; it happens one decision at a time. One more year in the job. A bigger house. Chasing the dream when work settles down. Every decision makes sense.

We get caught up in the river of expectations, norms, choices and distractions, gently yet relentlessly pushed downstream day by day for years. Then one day, we might read a quote or have a conversation where we’re shocked into resurfacing, look around and think ‘how the hell did I get here?’

I’ve been swept up plenty in my life, and each time I surface, I pop my head out of the water and realise it’s happened again. I always tell myself that from now on, I’ll keep my head up, be conscious and present.

I tell myself every time that maybe this time will be different.

In the modern era, we’re incredibly calculated. Everything is measured, timed and optimised.

We get up, brush our teeth until the toothbrush says stop, eat a nutritionally calculated breakfast, have the same coffee every day, go to the gym and lift a perfectly balanced bar in perfectly clean clothes, and crack the shits when our gym shoes have a dirt smudge.

We drive around using our maps for the most optimised route, and we find the cheapest possible fuel, which makes sense, because no one wants to give the oil tyrants more than we have to.

We stick to the path well travelled. Education. Safe job. Decent pay. Get the mortgage. etc.

We want our life to be smooth, frictionless and efficient.

Routine and plans are great. I’ve even written about the beautiful grind.

We’re missing a bit of friction. A bit of dirt on our shoes. The pulp in our orange juice.

Often we overoptimise and underlive.

We regularly feel numb, restless, anxious and under-stimulated.

What we’re missing is something I’m a huge proponent of: the ‘fuck it’ zone.

The ‘Fuck it’ zone shakes us awake. It’s the moment when you’re on the precipice of doing something epic, that moment when you’re being too damn rational, when you need to say ‘fuck it’ and metaphorically jump. Or literally. Whatever floats your boat. When you have the trip in your cart, or the car packed, or your shoes on, and you just need that slight push.

Fuck it. Let’s do something slightly stupid.

Not ‘locked-up’ stupid.

Not ‘wind-up-in-a-neckbrace’ stupid (mostly).

Just a bit dumb. Not the norm. Something that leaves your mouth a bit dry.

Slightly stupid means doing the thing. The thing you want to do, but you’re just too damn rational. Too sensible. Too calculated.

The goal is to occasionally say yes to the things that will make a great story in twenty years.

• Start a business selling penis-shaped candles on Etsy

• Book the ticket to the place

• Join the Zumba class

• Take a shitty Chinese motorbike around Mongolia

• Go bikepacking in Kyrgyzstan

• Talk to the hotty at the gym

Shoot your damn shot.

Slight stupidity isn’t to be destructive, but to live deeply. Live the experiences you’re craving.

I don’t know about you, but a lot of the best times in my life have started with something similar to ‘this is probably a bad idea’. I then hit ‘go’ and have memories that will last a lifetime.

Why do we avoid the friction?

We’re scared. Scared of the results. Scared of the judgment from our parents. Scared of the risk.

We’re overlooking the upside of saying fuck it. The upside of a life full of memories.

Even more seriously, we’re overlooking the downside of not saying fuck it.

A life full of the things that we could have done. A life full of regret.

You’ll never regret the things you do, just the things you don’t.

My kids love adventure.

Which is funny, because we don’t do it nearly enough. As someone who loves adventuring myself, that’s poor parenting.

Before Christmas last year, we wanted to surprise the kids with a trip to Indonesia, and asked them what they wanted to do for their next holiday. My son said see Komodo dragons, and my daughter said ‘go camping’.

Well.

Over the next few months, we inadvertently proceeded to give every excuse under the sun.

‘Too hot. We’ll wait until summer is over’

‘It’s meant to rain this weekend’

‘We might be a bit rushed to get back for that thing’

‘It’s going to be windy as fuck’

‘We don’t have the right gear’

It started to eat at me. I felt like a crap dad, until I cracked it.

I told my partner and the kids on Friday night that we’re going camping.

Where was the question?

The backyard was the answer.

I realised that the kids don’t need a perfect trip, they don’t need a campsite with all the amenities. They don’t need a secluded river with no one around. They just want the experience.

So we did it.

We ransacked my in-laws’ camping gear for the stuff we didn’t have.

We set up a full campsite in the backyard.

We had showers and put our pj’s on.

Brought the dog down. Made a fire, had marshmallows, slept in swags and tents and had a great time.

Sitting by the fire with my partner, kids in bed, I was assaulted by that warm, fuzzy feeling you get on the odd occasion.

We’d done something right and it felt great.

Like most parents, I want the best for my kids. I want things to be perfect. Wild holidays that they’ll remember when they’re old and wrinkly. Picturesque camping spots. The perfect dog. The perfect dad. Fun all the time.

What I forgot is that they don’t care. They don’t know what ‘perfect’ is; they just want the experience. Imperfection makes memories, perfection makes stress.

So I’ll try and take them for a bushwalk out the back, despite there being people in the carpark. I’ll take camping despite conditions only being a 9/10.

Adventure is everywhere. Sometimes it’s on the other side of the world. Sometimes its out the back door.

Our day is surrounded by bubble wrap.

We wake up in a nice, warm bed. Our morning coffee is always perfect and convenient. Clothes get washed by a machine. Water runs on demand. If we’re cold, we throw on a jumper; if we’re hot, we flick on the aircon.

We can work from home, the fridge keeps our food from spoiling, Uber Eats is half an hour away, and now even the grocery stores deliver, so we don’t have to put pants on for ungodly amounts of time.

Society has done a wonderful job of making life easy.

And yet, rates of anxiety, restlessness, and loneliness continue to climb.

The reasons behind this are beyond my pay grade, and layered like an onion, but I believe a significant portion is that we’ve removed our life’s texture: difficulty with a purpose.

We evolved with friction. Like the grip on our tyres, friction made our life work. Whether it was collecting water, finding a bite to eat, making a bed or defending the family from the neanderthals from the valley over.

For most of our history, difficulty wasn’t optional; it was mandatory. It wasn’t always a ‘fight for your life’ kind of difficulty, but at least there was some. 100 years ago, we’d chop wood to stay warm, grow our own veggies, and wash our clothes by hand. Life required effort as a baseline setting, and inconvenience was just life.

Now, inconvenience can feel personal. An injustice.

I’ve done it plenty. Sitting in traffic feels infuriating. One of my five streaming services being out can wreck an evening. A wrong coffee order can throw us off the deep end.

Something inside us craves resistance. A bit of suck.

This can be different for everyone. It could be:

• A cold early morning run

• A hard solo weight session

• A leg-burning hike

• Learning a new skill (and quietening our inner voice that says to quit)

Doing hard things is soup for the soul.

That’s why doing difficult things feels disproportionately meaningful. A night sleeping on the ground sends us back to society tired, but fresh. That brutal workout can clear your head better than therapy. Living off the back of a partly functional shitbox of a motorbike in the Mongolian wilderness for twelve days makes you reorganise your priorities upon returning home. Oddly specific, I know.

Difficulty allows us to shine a light on what’s important. Really.

You stop worrying about your emails and start worrying about staying warm. Forget about looking like a Greek god, and think about filtering water.

Somewhere, amongst the shitty sleeps, cold mornings, sore legs and frustration, we get back on track, rediscovering some of the texture we lost.

The Call

Why Mongolia?

Why not?

After years of having an almost dreamlike fantasy of visiting Mongolia, I finally plucked up the courage.

Visiting Mongolia is pretty simple. After reading countless books and watching endless videos, I was (and still am) obsessed.

The vast landscapes that were portrayed painted a wild picture. From harsh dry deserts to jagged rocky mountain ranges, thick pine forests and never-ending valleys, fermented mare’s milk and dung fires, Mongolia is about as far removed as you could get from my beachside suburban life in Australia.

To me, Mongolia was (and still could be) the final frontier, a vast region as old as time, with embarrassing riches in history, culture and nature.

The books painted Mongolia like a myth; however, the real country is just as amazing. Being the least densely populated country in the world, Mongolia is still home to around 200,000 nomadic families. Also calling Mongolia home are an amazing array of animals, from ground squirrels to brown bears, and over 98% of the country is still considered ‘pristine’ and unaffected by humans.

Landing in any other country, you’re immediately confronted with the differences. The security at the airport is minimal, the cars are a mishmash of left and right-hand drive, and the locals seem to be nocturnal - we hit a serious traffic jam at 2 am in Ulaanbatar. The smell of the city is different to anything I’ve ever experienced. UB has some of the worst air pollution in the world, and I could physically taste it. The air is almost gritty; it blocked up my nose, and I felt like my skin was dirty.

With a day and a half to spend in the capital, my partner had booked us a Mongolian 5-star; the bed was hard, and the room smelled like cigarette smoke. Regardless, you couldn’t wipe the smile off my face - we’d made it.

The city is an old Soviet relic, a mishmash of worn architecture, rough pot-holed roads, hustle and bustle, mall culture, and cheap Chinese goods, which is all fine, except for the smell and the pollution, which was something I just couldn’t get over. We came to Mongolia for wild places, and this wasn’t it.

The Tsaatan

One of the main reasons for us coming to Mongolia was to visit the Tsaatan people in the Taiga, an isolated, mountainous, forested area at the very northern tip of the country. These people are not only nomads, but their main source of livestock is reindeer.

That’s right. Reindeer herders.

Getting there was an adventure in itself.

A flight north from UB, finding a lady on the street in Moron who happened to have our visa, then a multi-day drive north to Tsagannur through wild country.

Not long after leaving Moron, we turned off the paved road onto a proper Mongolian road. Proper Mongol roads are a series of dirt tyre ruts, snaking, intertwining, separating, crossing over and winding in the same general direction. The roads are bumpy, tough going, hardcore and littered with goats, sheep, yaks and nomads on Shinaray’s, of which we would become intimately familiar with later in our adventure. And many a local in a Toyota Yaris as well.

Our driver, Muhu, absolutely hooked it, happy and yet driving almost with a vengeance. A couple of times, we got airborne, and he just sheepishly giggled without slowing down. I was transfixed for days with the changing scenery, from lakes, to narrow craggy rocky valleys, wide open plains and crossings through pine forests, the four-hour drive north had it all.

A picture that will stick in my mind forever is Muhu stopping high on a hill just outside the first tiny settlement we had seen to have a cigarette, fixing his car with some duct tape and yaks strolling past, surrounded by what felt to me to be towering mountains. We didn’t need a shared language, we just shared a knowing look and a giggle - ‘she’ll be right’.

Arriving in Ulaan-Uul for the Nadaam was one for the books.

The Naadam was a bewildering experience, exactly what you would expect in Mongolia. After an impressively long opening ceremony, highlighted by a man singing while driving around in a ute, there are three events: wrestling, archery and horse racing. I had no idea what was going on, or the order of events, and neither did Muhu. Everything just seemed to ‘be happening in a minute’. A family asked us to have khuushuur with them, a deep-fried meat wrapped in pastry, which was the first time we’d felt like we’d broken the barrier of being the only outsiders. After the main festivities were over, we hit the road to get to Tsaagannur, our last port of call before we headed into the wilderness.

Tsaagannur is a small, isolated community on a lake in the far north of Mongolia, the gateway to the Taiga wilderness region. The town has a population of around 1,100 people that fluctuates with the seasons. It was here that we met, link up, Zaya, whose family are Tsataan and in town for the summer. We were greeted with a fair bit of the Mongolian standoffishness, except for Zaya, until I managed to communicate through her our shared love of hunting, and then the walls came crashing down. Her husband and uncle are both of the Tsaataan people, growing up in the wilderness, and had hunted their whole lives for sustenance. What followed was an afternoon eating freshly roasted lamb (offal and all) with wild onions whilst having a few cups of airag before I took my partner on a motorbike around the lake to give her lessons for the next section of our trip. Riding a motorbike on the dirt tracks around the lake while the sun sets, dodging yaks, is yet another picture burned into my memory.

The following day, we hit the horses to get to the camp.

My partner was over the moon to be riding the horse through the wilderness, through pine forests, creeks and tracks on the horse. She’s a horse girl and looked as comfortable as anyone I had ever seen. And for me, it was my first ever time riding. I was buffeted around by the bouncing of the horse, hanging on for dear life while we were just walking. And then the guide got us to a trot, and I can only imagine how dumb and comical I looked - limbs flying everywhere, tense as all hell, gripping the pommel like it was the only thing stopping me from dying. My horse, named by me as Raelene, was a natural follower, thank god - I didn’t have to actually do anything except hold on as she followed the guide’s horse. I was essentially just her noisy cargo, and I was fine with that.

For someone who has had fantasies of riding a horse through the Mongolian wilderness (despite my lack of experience), this was as good as it gets. Riding through a valley floor, the birds were singing, the streams were crystal clear, the horses walked themselves so that I didn’t have to, and the forests looked majestic and old. And then our guide spewed after a big night on the vodka. Beautiful Mongolia.

Once we finally made it to camp, it was almost like stepping back in time. We turned the bend in the valley and saw the camp nestled between the towering mountains with ice caps still covering them in the middle of summer. Surrounding the camp were two separate glacial melts, essentially creating its own moat, joining together to encircle the camp.

There were around 35 tipis, most of them spouting smoke with kids running around, people going about their day-to-day lives, dogs running around, horses and reindeer grazing side by side.

We were with the Tsaataan for three sleeps and two days. The first day, we decided to keep it super chill and didn’t go far from our tipi. My butt cheeks had to recover, so we read, played chess, wrote, and went for a little dip in the freezing water away from camp. After literally months, it felt good to have a slow day, taking in camp life and the scenery. For someone like myself, it was incredibly hard not to have a to-do list or ‘the next thing’, so whilst we played chess, read out books and did a bit of writing, we made a plan to go to for a hike to the highest peak we could see the next day. High in the mountain camp, this was the first day we were really confronted with Mongolia’s famous changing weather. One minute we were hot, the next we were moving our gear away from the centre of the tipi, which was very much not rain-proof.

Our hike was majestic to say the least. We walked through camp and headed straight up the nearest climb, through the pine level and out the top, which headed along a mix of plateaus and rocky jagged peaks until we got to the highest peak in the area. The entire mountain top looked like someone had just stacked rocks on top of each other, so we had to be super careful in case of slippage. How did we know it was the tallest? Well, we didn’t until we got to the top, looking down on every mountain in the area, and someone had placed a wooden structure on the top.

We spent some time just admiring the view and the solitude. We were surrounded by countless other mountains and rivers, and from where we were, we couldn’t see camp. In the middle of such a vast and expansive wilderness, it wasn’t hard to imagine we were the only people in the world, and my childlike excitement was through the roof. We knew from speaking to the nomads that there were moose, brown bear, elk and any other number of charismatic megafauna in the area - as we sat on the mountain looking into the forest basins, my imagination ran wild thinking about the adventure that could be had down there. We also knew that speaking to Zaya, you could see Russia from where we were and despite the lack of reception, managed to figure out where to look on maps.

The Motorbikes

The next phase of our trip was equally high on my bucket list, and something I had never done - a DIY motorbike expedition.

To get the complete experience of Mongolia, we got the shittiest bikes possible, ones that we had so far seen every single nomad riding; the enigmatic Shineray.

Without much of a plan except a few places we wanted to go, we packed our bikes on the outskirts of UB and, like the old American long-hunters, headed west.

We would soon learn that we (mainly I) had really overestimated the daunting task we had set ourselves, particularly with my partner’s lack of motorbike experience, which was entirely my fault.

It was all going well, taking the classic Mongol tracks until we hit the highway, our only way to get to our destination was to hammer, which is when things became a bit hairy.

Trying to go ‘highway speed’ on a Shineray without it vibrating us off proved to be a challenge. Couple that with our lack of protective wear and Mongolian drivers hooning past on pot-holed single lane roads, and it made for hours of puckered posteriors.

Luckily enough, during one of our stops to let our hearts return to near-normal, a man looped back and handed my partner a long jacket, which proved to be an absolute godsend. Down to her ankles, protective and with a reflective patch around the stomach, the man couldn’t speak a word of English, but left us feeling super lucky, and Jaimee looking cooler than the other side of a pillow.

Our initial goal was to shoot through to the old capital of Kharkhorin, but as we found almost every day on our trip, getting to the destination in Mongolia takes longer than we planned. A 70-100km day could take 6-8 hours on the motorbike, especially once we got past Kharkhorin and into the Orkhon Valley.

When we realised that we couldn’t go much further, we scouted a ger camp near the Mini Gobi amongst some mountains named Khugnu Tarna, and what was initially pencilled in as a pit stop soon became one of our absolute favourites of the trip.

Khugnu Tarna borders the Mini Gobi, and riding in the landscape captured me and still hasn’t let me go. When we were in it, I couldn’t help but get the feeling that there are three separate ecosystems trying to outcompete each other. As we rode through the sea of crickets, one minute we were in soft sand, the next we were driving past cattle under a larch tree, whilst the entire time the air smelled like sage and dust.

The ger camp was what we wanted - cheap, with food and an Altan Gobi (the beer of the trip), the location itself was nothing short of spectacular.

Nestled right up against the abrupt rocky outcrop, larch trees briefly broke up the sea of desert shrubs. For sunset, Mother Nature provided us with the most amazing show as the lights bounced off the rocks, giving us a sense that we were watching something surreal and otherworldly, drawn and coloured by an amazing artist and not something that can happen in the wild at sunset. Pictures have never done the feeling justice.

Before leaving the area, I had to get a little weird. When I was doing some research, I saw a spot on the map near an existing monastery that had three reviews saying it was incredible - they were the ruins of the oldest known monastery in Mongolia. I love history, and I love being able to step back in time. With almost no information to go off, I was seriously second-guessing myself as I hiked up the narrow rocky gully, until it opened up into an awe-inspiring site.

Standing at these ancient ruins, you can see the life that the monks lived. Situated in a bowl, surrounded by high rocky peaks and a narrow path up to get in, the builder of the temple wanted safety in a dangerous time. A small spring-fed creek runs out of the rocks and through the small temple area, and as you stand in the middle, you can picture goats grazing on the hills and imagine a life of unbelievable isolation and self-sufficiency.

Not 10 minutes out from our departure, again heading towards the old capital, we went through a pass into a valley. As we hit the peak, I looked behind us to see a storm right on our rear. Not wanting to get caught, our only option was to hook it.

Picture this: headphones blaring ‘Open the Gates’ by Zach Bryan with a cross-wind coming from the south forcing us to ride at what felt like 45 degrees, and a storm front coming in from the east, we smashed it down a wild Mongolian steppe valley, my partners ankle length jacket flying out behind her like a bat out of hell - it was the fastest we had gone on the entire trip, and the alive I felt was better than any drug under the sun.

Fuelled by adrenaline and vinegar, upon arriving in Kharkhorin, I expressed how fun outrunning the storm was, along with my wonderment at where we should stay. My partner, who, unlike me, has ALL of her marbles intact, in no uncertain terms asked me to please cease talking and find somewhere nice to stay or else; she was done for the day.

Kharkhorin was a pit stop. We took in the obligatory historical sightseeing before hitting the road west.

We headed southwest out of the city towards the Orkhon Valley, taking the scenic route along the river. Within minutes of leaving the city behind, we were in quintessential Mongolia. Upstream from the ancient capital, the river was pure and shallow as we passed families camping where their ancestors had done so for literally thousands of years.

The track was great - single lane goat/bike track, not too easy and not too hard, undulating and following the river. I felt like we had reached nirvana, where everything had come together. For the next two days, we made slow but fine time, going with the flow downstream towards the waterfall, all the while in Mongolia motorbiking bliss until we got to the waterfall. After two days of hard riding, we were pooped, so after taking in the epic sights of the waterfall, we made camp along the river before setting off towards the Tsenker hot springs.

As opposed to taking a tour, one of the joys of doing DIY travel is the unexpected wins you get, and the motorbike leg of the journey had multiple.

Some of the wins for the good guys included a surprise ‘meal of the trip’ consisting of a service station goulash.

Another of our wins came off the back of a loss, which is the ultimate win, giving us a chance to experience Mongol hospitality. After leaving the waterfall and heading upriver, aiming for a crossing, my bike decided that accelerating was an unnecessary luxury whilst I was going up a hill. A local nomad gentleman came to the rescue, realising that I wasn’t a potato and the bike was, he invited us to his get while the entire valley joined in to fix my bike for a few hours.

After multiple days of hard riding, wrong turns, river crossings and stacks, we made it to the Tsenker Hot Springs for two days of soaking and relaxing.

The hot springs used to be epic. For thousands of years, locals had been coming to bath downstream. Now however, it gave me a bit of a gross feeling. Gigantic pumps were going 24/7, zigzagging across the valley floor, pumping water into each of the private hotel pools. 4wd’s and buses were everywhere and considering how remote we were, the mass of people was shocking.

Shortly after leaving the springs, to no ones surprise, my bike began to have issues again. After stopping for some fruit with an old couple and pushing it through the open steppe, I managed to limp into a town where there happened to be a mechanic. What the nomads fixed in four hours, these professionals fixed in a matter of 15 minutes, charging me a princely sum of 40,000 including parts, or around $13 AUD. A pleasant surprise. What was an unpleasant surprise was the power of the spicy instant noodles I ate from the general store while we waited.

Time was running low, and we headed back towards the capital, which was somewhat event-less in the way you want to end a trip. Nothing went wrong, neither of us came off, and we camped in on the steppe, under the stars, without any concern.

Returning to the city, we felt like the place had new meaning. We had briefly quenched our thirst for difficulty, open spaces and sleeping rough, and had the desire to take advantage of the amenities that UB provided. Choices for dinner. A beer, and a bed. We felt like we had achieved something.

Our bike trip had been scattered, unplanned and chaotic. We had things go awry, we had gone slower than anticipated, gotten lost, dropped our bikes, got our shoes wet and came off more than once.

And yet, amongst all the mayhem we had found a sense of calm. Internal capability. A self-respect that was waiting beneath the surface waiting to escape. A capacity to seek out difficulty and find comfort amongst the suck.

The rut is supposed to be loud.

Bucks scrape trees, fight each other and make otherworldly croaking, giving other bucks and hunters alike a beacon to aim towards.

Despite a couple of early sightings, by the second morning, walking dry ridges above dry creeks, I began to wonder. Wonder whether we were early. Wonder whether the deer were even here. Wondering what effect the bone-dry climate had on the rut.

The weather was unseasonably hot, easily 30 degrees and by mid-morning, everything was bedding down for the day, the bush going eerily still in the heat.

There hasn’t been rain in months. Surrounded by dry creek beds and dusty towering hills, you’d be forgiven for thinking you’d stepped back in time. No reception, no noise except the occasional flutter of a bird and the wind through the gullies, you feel far removed from society, right where you need to be.

At night, the sky becomes a masterpiece. The Milky Way cuts a clear path across the canvas above us. The stars and the silence hold your attention around the fire, sharp and peaceful.

The night is mild, and we go to bed, tent open, looking at the stars, hoping for change tomorrow.

——

We’re up well before first light, filled with the hunter’s optimism - every new day is the day that it will all come together.

In the darkest hour before dawn, have a coffee and listen to the bush wake up. We hear the orchestra of native birds start their morning call as the sun begins to make an appearance.

And yet, no croaking.

We set off towards the creek, and where we saw sign on the walk in. A few thrashed trees and deer prints in the dirt is all we have to work off.

Every step is tense. We’re stopping every few metres to listen, as though something may have changed, or the angle of the geography will have allowed for croaking to now reach our ears.

But no.

We push on, further from our camp and onto the flats between the ridges, slowly, listening and looking.

And then we see it. A young buck all alone. Moving from one of the few waterholes in the creek up into the hill.

Game time.

We find some cover and set up to rattle. I check the wind, pull my neck gaiter, up nock an arrow and take a few slow breaths.

He’s about 70 metres away, and upon hearing the rattle he stops his movement, and looks directly at us through the cover. He can’t see who’s making the rattle through the cover, but he’s intrigued.

Then something clicks, and despite our best efforts, he continues his retreat into the hills.

As he trots away, he leaves us wrapped and full of hope. The deer are here, just quiet.

——

The rest of the day is uneventful. Now that our cups are full of expectation, we work harder rather than smarter.

For the next few hours, we cover ground in the heat of the day, trying to find bedded deer. We blind rattle, expecting a ghost to appear from the shadows.

On the way back to camp we bump a small mob with a buck from their bedding in a cool gully with a slight tinge of green - a colour rare and almost as shocking to our eyes as the deer.

We recognise the gully for what it is, an oasis amongst the dry bush. There’s a tiny spring that provides the colour.

Later in the day, we return and wait. Wait at the oasis that the deer are surely to return to, and yet, after waiting for hours, we see nothing.

——

The following couple of days blend into one. We’re up early, hearing occasional and erratic far-off croaks.

We see sporadic sign. Cover more ground than is good for us, and get skunked over and over again.

We go shoeless and still hunt through suspected bedding areas. Nothing.

We sit off dams for hours. Nothing.

We blind rattle where we find a concentration of sign, hoping to entice a buck to come have a look. Nothing.

We’re taking the actions of optimistic men, whilst our hearts feel anything but. Over every ridge, our hopes are dashed, every plan that we enact comes up empty-handed, leaving us more and more dejected.

In the long hours of the day, away from society, you realise how much time you have. When you aren’t being pulled in every which direction and you can sit and do nothing, the hours seem to stretch.

Its in such a moment of quiet in a gully that I’m quietly beginning to think that this year won’t be the year.

Unlike other years where we will have at least sighted deer and had close encounters, this rut is beginning to feel doomed.

I don’t voice my feelings, but I can tell I’m not the only one feeling that way.

I go to bed on the last night of my trip resigned to the fact that perhaps this year just isn’t the year.

——

The last morning.

With no deadline to get home, I’m up early again. It will be another 12 months until we’re here for the rut, so I may as well make the most of it.

After half a dozen consecutive days of early mornings and hard hunting, it takes some negative self-talk to get myself up.

After a coffee, I hit the road to an area we haven’t tried yet, but that has held deer in the past.

As at the start of every day, I’m filled with hope, and for once this trip, I’m not disappointed. Upon approaching the area, I hear a faint yet persistent croaking.

My heart starts racing and I forcibly stop myself from breaking into a run lest the buck stop.

This is different. Rather than the occasional croak or two that we’ve been hearing, this time a buck is going full throttle, non-stop croaking.

He’s fired up and I know this is my chance. A photo finish at the line. A last-day buck.

——

I check the wind and work my way in. I can hear him loud and clear, no further than a hundred metres off. As a bow hunter, it’s these moments we live for. Nothing gets the heart pumping like being under the nose of an unsuspecting buck in full rut.

I see him at the top of a hill. A beautiful, large chocolate-coloured buck,

After all these days, the bush has come alive - he’s croaking to another buck across the valley.

I give a brief rattle to check his mood, but he’s not interested; all his attention is across the gully towards the other buck.

He keeps croaking, and I move in closer. I see off to my right that two does have deserted him and are moving towards the other croaking. He sees it too and, seeing his defeat, stops croaking. That’s fine, I have him in my line of sight. I continue to move in, now further than seventy metres away.

The wind is in my favour and the cover is good. I’m in the zone and beginning to feel like I’ve got a chance. And then the buck decides he’s had enough. His does are gone, he’s fed up, and decides to trot off down the gully, out of sight, away from me.

Gutted, and yet, against my better judgment, I hit double speed and go following, hoping to stay in touch with him. I crest the hill, and he’s disappeared into the thick scrub.

So close yet so far, another 30 metres closer and I’d have been comfortable with a shot.

I sit at the top of the gully and listen. Listen to the bush that’s now gone quiet.

As a last cast of the die, I decide to set up for a rattle. More out of not wanting to be done than hope.

I get further into the gully and start ranging potential shooting lanes and start rattling.

My cast antlers seem to shake the silence of the gully, reverberating off trees and rocks. Birds ignore me, as do a couple of small pigs that feed past at about forty metres.

As the minutes tick away, my mind begins to wander, I cease looking around as I rattle.

I’m in another world when I see a bird take flight off a shrub further down the gully. I realise that it’s just a bird, not spooked by a deer and temper my hopes for the hundredth time of the trip.

Just as I rattle again, the buck comes walking slowly into view, like a ghost emerging from the gully.

I rattle, he walks slowly. I stop, he stops.

He knows he’s close, so he’s peering around. He’s at thirty metres now. Bow in hand, I draw back and lean around the tree I’m behind.

He spots me and spooks, but not far. I stop him at fifty with a doe call. He’s broadside, stationary and confused.

I put my fifty pin on him, take a breath, and release.

Time slows. I watch my arrow rise beautifully through the air, hours and hours of practice all channelled into one shot. I watch it arc down in its flight, gravity taking a hold. I watch its line, perfect.

The buck hasn’t moved.

And then I watch it fly an inch over the bucks shoulder, and thud into a branch behind.

A miss.

The buck, unharmed, confused, not entirely scared, trots off into the bush, never to be seen again.

And so my rut ended.

Disappointed, yet whole.

——

Bowhunting for me has never been about the kill. If filling the freezer or taking trophies were the goal, I’d get a gun license.

It’s about the headspace that you get taken to, the zone of choosing either perseverance or quitting. Many weekends away, I’ve walked countless steps, stalked numerous animals, and chosen not to loose an arrow.

Bowhunting to me is about becoming part of the ecosystem, not taking it over.

Feeling the wind in your face, smelling the bush and the animals around you, seeing the tracks in the ground, the slight abnormalities left behind by your invisible quarry.

Sitting on top of a hill as the sun crests a far-off horizon in the east, feeling the first rays of sun hit your face while the birds begin their morning calls.

It’s a craft. From the shooting practice, to making your arrows, reading the environment and butchering the game.

Bowhunting is about what’s over the next ridge, what’s down in the next gully. What will happen tomorrow?

It’s hope, optimism, let down and puzzle solving.

I feel whole with a bow in hand, walking the hills.

And it always leaves you wanting more.

The first few minutes you jump in the water can be intense. Chaos.

Your breath is shallow, your heart is racing, and you’re always thinking that Jaws will make a cameo.

As well as reading more, meditation, yoga and colouring in, during COVID lockdowns I picked up spearfishing, as there was absolutely nothing to do and the water was amazing. I would waddle up to the beach and dive in, flounder around for an hour or two, usually getting skunked and waddle back salty, chafed and exhilarated.

Well, a few years later, and not much has changed about my skill level, and usually, the same results.

As I’ve spent more time in the water, I’ve become a touch more comfortable and aware of the overarching benefits that pretending to be a swordfish has on my body throughout the rest of the day and sometimes longer.

Usually, you’re jumping off rocks into the swell fully kitted, which is a challenge and a thrill. You spend some time getting clear of any waves, sussing out the visibility and panicking that you’ve jumped into the path of a lucky Great White shark. All of this usually leads to 2-3 minutes of accidental hyperventilation as you breathe through the pseudo gills humans have created, called a snorkel.

Then you become aware of your breathing and your racing heart.

Spearfishing is a relaxed game. You need to chill the hell out, or you’re going to scare all the fish away, and your breath hold will suck, which means no fish for dinner. Think about how hard it is to hold your breath when you have just sprinted to make your kids' sports on time…

You become aware of your breathing. You slowly breathe in… out… focus on deeeeep breaths, all the way to your belly…

Now. Let’s pause for a second.

How often does this happen in your day to day life? How often are you sitting in your car or walking to a cafe and you realise you’re shallow breathing for actually no reason? How often do you realise that you need to relax and control your heart-rate?

Rarely would be a stretch. Never is more likely.

Back in the water.

As you’re focusing on your breathing, you’re looking down and around, scouting for fish. You’re most likely not moving too much, you’re floating about. What’s on your mind? In the background you’re thinking that today is a perfect day for a fucking shark, but in the foreground of your mind, you begin to focus.

You’re focusing on the current. You’re focusing on the swell. You’re focusing on the fish. Where are they? Any shooters? Likely habitats? Can you see any schools further away? Do you want to head in a specific direction?

You’ve left your phone in the car. Your laptop is at home on charge. Your watch is JUST a watch.

There are no distractions.

If your breathing is off, you don’t last long.

Your focus is off? You spear nothing.

After multiple hours of incidental ‘mindfulness’, the after-effects of spearfishing stay with you for days. You become more resilient to the stimulation. More calm.

Being underwater gives you no choice but to focus solely on what’s around you, your breath and your heart rate. On land, when do we get a chance to do it for a minute let alone hours at a time?

Underwater, we have an excuse from the rest of the world to just ignore it completely.

Underwater, we are forced to be present through controlled stress.

Back on dry land, the stimuli comes rushing back. Traffic, people, notifications.

But you’re different. Your breathing is slower. Your mind is clearer.

Spearfishing forces you into an underwater world of presence. Forces you to focus on your breathing and the task at hand.

There comes a time when that beautiful monotony actually turns into aimlessly drifting through life, when you’ve had your head in the weeds for so long that you forget what it’s like to take a breath.

What happens when you do the same coffee run from the same place? Wear the same outfits to the same gym or workplace. See the same people at the same places. Have the same conversations and drink at the same overpriced pub?

At first, we love it. We love the routine. We know what we’re getting with each passing day.

And then?

Slowly, we get irritated. Bored. Restless. Whether we realise it or not, we feel like we’re running on a hamster wheel. We end up with a Grand Canyon-sized hole that we can’t quite seem to fill.

We get weird.

We dream.

We accumulate a bunch of peculiar hobbies or obsessions in an attempt to fill the chasm that we don’t know needs filling. We try new diets, new clothes, take up pottery, cold plunge in a wheelie bin each morning, brew beer in your bedroom or start fermenting vegetables in jars.

This year alone, I’ve become obsessed with rugby (again), oyster farming, Komodo dragons, surfing, survivalism, smoked meats, elephants, HRV, and back in love with bowhunting (which oscillates with how I’m shooting).

Whilst all this isn’t the worst thing in the world, it may also be a sign of something bigger.

Somewhere along the way, you lose your ‘je ne sais quoi’ for life. You lose the sparkle.

The Mismatch

Modern society is great. Despite current fuel prices, right now is perhaps the best time ever to be alive. We won’t die from a cold, we don’t have Genghis Khan potentially coming over the hills, we have a ridiculous amount of resources at our beck and call, and there is a level of equality that has never been had before. YTG.

And yet. Evolutionarily, we evolved in uncertain environments. We didn’t know where we would find food, what was over the next ridge, what was going to eat us or who was going to club us in the head.

We evolved with adventure, low-stress environments with occasional spikes, constant problem-solving, and regular novelty at a reasonable scale.

Our ancestors explored mountain ranges while we explore endless scroll. They navigated wild rivers, while we navigate traffic. They hunted wild animals, while we hunt the best deal on Uber Eats.

And we’re stressed as fuck.

Ancestrally, our bodies developed for short, acute bouts of stress followed by recovery. Think about running from a tiger, fighting Grok from the next tribe over, or hunting a deer. Fight or flight, then it’s over.

The stress was physical, purposeful and had a clear resolution. You’re dead, or you’re alive. Then came recovery.

Modern stress is different. Rather than the acute stress we have developed with, modern stress doesn’t stop. It’s low-grade, chronic, and has no endpoint in sight. Emails. Rent. Kids’ bags. Homework. Traffic. Lining up. Your mother-in-law.

Ancestrally, stress came in short, sharp, violent bursts.

Now, it hums 24/7 in the background, like an annoying mosquito you can’t squash.

Even those who live their best lives, we still have the everyday, unrelenting, ever-present stress of life buzzing on our nervous system.

“Do not be afraid of work that has no end” is a quote from Avot de Rabbi Natan. In the current economy, we may have to work until we’re 80 - why not put a pause on the endless work occasionally to maintain our marbles?

The problem isn’t the stress.

Its the lack of resolving it. No release. No outlet. No finish line.

So the body does it for you.

Have you ever got sick on the first day or two of a holiday? That’s the body saying ‘stop’.

All those random hobbies? That’s the body looking for a mental break.

Finding novel new hobbies is the body’s way of looking for what we’ve lost. Uncertainty. A challenge. The unknown.

We don’t need more comfort.

We need adventure.

We don’t need the Instagram version where we sit on a cruise or take a tour.

We need the type that will test you, even just a bit.

You don’t need to take a horse through the mountains of Mongolia - maybe just a hike in your local bushland?

Adventure gives us a goal, an endpoint, and replaces the endless noise with focus.

I love to spearfish.

When you’re face down in the water looking for fish, nothing in the world matters.

You’re focusing on your breathing, you’re looking for holes or potential habitat for your prey. You’re exploring reefs and rocks in a foreign world. You’re seeing animals that you really look like aliens to us landlubbers. The only sound I can hear is the movement of the water, my gun’s ‘whoosh’ and the occasional asshole on a jetski.

It’s paradise.

It’s not an escape. It’s alignment. I have never experienced presence like I do when I spear.

You don’t need to change your life.

You just need to interrupt it.

You don’t need to go spearing and risk headbutting a shark.

You don’t need to escape to the Alaskan wilderness for 14 days.

Do something accessible. Go for a bushwalk. Surf. An early swim. Take the long way to work. Ride your bike.

A bit of adventure isn’t a luxury.

It’s medication.

Most people don’t find their ‘Enough’, instead they have enough dictated to them by the world.

What does ‘Enough’ mean? At what point do our ambitions find their ‘enough’ point?

Hold on tight, because I’m hoping this essay hits you personally.

Society is designed to chase more, and holy moly, the chase is thrilling. We get pumped with ads for things we don’t need (but watch us justify it), we see people in positions we don’t want to be in and think ‘yes, that’s what I need’, we get a promotion or a pay rise and keep chasing the carrot that is dangled by society for more. More. Always MORE.

I’ve been there. Some days I am, some days I’m not. Some days I want a yacht to sail through Indonesia as a famous writer, and other days I just love my landscaping business.

When I was younger, I started a Fintech before fintechs were cool. I wanted to help heaps of people, create a big wave, and buy myself an island and an Aston Martin (because James Bond drove them. Duh.) I was as ambitious as they come.

The problem with my ambition was that it was all-consuming. Nothing was ever good enough, nothing smelled or felt quite right because there was always a carrot dangling.

The Fintech company didn’t go as planned.

And then I started a tourism company, which went gangbusters. During our peak, we sent $100,000 in one day of sales. We leveraged, took risks and tried to grow more. During our peak, rather than consolidating, systemising and putting in place safety measures, I took more risks and searched out more ways to grow. Every time we hit milestones, the bar would move - What’s next?

The result? Unsurprisingly, a divorce and bankruptcy.

Am I anti-ambition? God no. The opposite. Shoot your shot. Go find more.

The Problem?

More doesn’t find peace. More doesn’t have a ceiling. More doesn’t stop. More will make you miss the wholesome side of life which is what we’re actually all chasing.

More makes any achievement feel insignificant and impermanent. You may have been working to something for years, and before you achieve it, you’re already thinking of what’s next.

We need to remember to stop and smell the flowers, because right now is ‘the good old days’, we just don’t realise it. Yet.

If you’re always becoming more, you’re never being enough.

Enough as a feeling

There comes a point, perhaps it’s with age, where you find the feeling of enough. It may not be enough forever, but it’s enough for right now. You may not have a fat, juicy bank account, but you have a roof over your head, you’re loved, and you know where your next meal is coming from.

That’s pretty fucking cool.

Enough means that you may not be where you WANT to be, but you’re on the way. You’re content, yet ambitious. At peace, yet aspirational.

• You have enough muscles where you don’t feel like a dweeb.

• Enough money to buy an occasional meal out.

• Enough work done today.

Having enough isn’t laziness or settling. Enough is clarity and contentment.

Enough is smelling the flowers in front of your face rather than staring at the bouquet through the glass window.

This is Important.

When your identity is solid, you stop chasing external validation, and start cherishing the flowers you have.

You don’t lift for Instagram or the girls at the bar.

You don’t earn money to impress.

You don’t write for the overwhelming adoration of your 7 readers.

You lift for you, to feel good.

You earn because you want to, not because you have to.

You write about things you want, not what your screaming fans are clamouring for.

We smell the flowers.

Enough

Enough isn’t anti ambition. It’s identity defined. It’s ambition with boundaries - when to push, and when to enjoy a literal or metaphorical margarita on the beach. It’s being present in the moment, enjoying the little things that more doesn’t give us, like a smile, a laugh, or a hug. It’s enjoying the now, not anticipating the future.

Having a sense of enough means that we’re comfortable in our own skin, a trait increasingly less common today.

Enough is ambition with it’s bum in the sand, margarita in hand. Enough is enough, even just for now.

Identity isn’t who you say you are, it’s who you are when no one is watching.

It’s not who you post on stories, Snapchat, or tell your friends and family you are.

You aren’t the world’s strongest or fastest parent, even though you say that to your kids. Sadly, you don’t know everything either.

Who you are is what you repeatedly do. Your identity is evidence-based, not theory.

In my last post, we explored Discipline, but discipline only works when it comes from a place of self-respect, which in turn comes from knowing who you are.

We talk about discipline like it’s something we do, but in fact, disciplined is something we are.

Drifting is an Identity Problem.

We’ve covered drift a few times in this series.

What is it?

Drift is cruising through life, fluttering about like a dainty little butterfly. It’s life happening to you, not the other way around. Drift is casual chaos, where you’re living a life that you happened upon, not that you made happen.

We spoke last post about how you can be motivated every day, yet if you’re drifting, your goal may also change every day. One day it’s max squat, the next day ballet - drifting isn’t a discipline problem, it’s an identity problem.

When is our identity fuzzy?

• When everything is optional.

• Every decision is a debate.

• Every setback feels personal.

If you were to ask someone what they want, they’ll give you a hundred answers. From coffee machines to cars. Houses to holidays. Most people know what they want.

Now ask the same person who they are and watch them hesitate.

Drift is indecision, often disguised as freedom.

Identity is built through proof.

In our era, talk is cheap and easy. We can post up on our socials showing how happy we are. We can doctor photos to make us look completely different. We can AI a bank account statement just to show how fucking rich we look. We recently took the kids on holiday, and they had a tumultuous time to say the least, yet every photo they look happy and sane…

You can fool everyone else, but you know…

You don’t decide you’re jacked. You don’t decide you're smart. You can’t decide you’re rich.

You need to do the work to prove to yourself that you are what you say you are, or what you’re trying to be.

Identity is built through the proof we constantly show ourselves, the things we do each and every day.

Identity can’t be declared; it’s proven.

Identity is built in the beautiful monotony of day-to-day life, the lists on the fridge, the daily alarm clock. Identity is the habits that we allow ourselves to fall into, or will ourselves to do.

Through repetition, we build a figure of who we are, we create our strengths and weaknesses through our daily movements. I want to be a writer; I write. I want to be fit; I train. I want to create awesome balloon animals; I blow…

Standards vs Goals.

Everyone loves a goal, and yet, it’s the end of February and how many people have muffed their New Years goal, settling into the same old, drifting along doing the same shit.

Drifting thrives on goals, because goals are exciting, catchy and worth talking about. They’re external, give us something to chase and live in the future. This year I’m ‘getting fit’. Tomorrow I’ll ‘clean the shed’. A goal can be postponed.

Now, Standards.

Identity is built on standards. If you eat clean, train, recover and keep the garage tidy as a standard, that’s who you are, not what you’re ‘going to do’.

Standards can’t be postponed, because if you put it off, you’re dropping the standard.

Drop your standards enough and you stop trusting yourself entirely. Think about this: every time you break a promise to yourself, you feel a bit yucky, don’t you? Like you’ve let yourself down. You metaphorically feel a bit greasy, like you just rolled in a tub of KFC chicken. You create doubt in yourself, and make that next promise easier to break, or greasier to hold onto.

How to set your Standard?

I’ve always believed that life is a series of games and you get to choose which ones you’re participating in. Call them buckets. Or give-a-fuck points. Call them whatever you want, but I believe you get 5. No more, and actually, probably less. These are the things in life you get to have enough time and sanity to care about

Think about who you want to be. Who do you want to identify as?

Keep it clean and simple. Wash away the KFC grease.

• I look after my health every day,

• I write something every day,

• I am a family man,

• I am a bowhunter,

Live those long enough and your identity is no longer in question, there’s no debate, no decision.

You don’t need to wake up motivated. You wake up decided and ready to go.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve discussed having too much choice and how debilitating it can be. We then explored our innate need for simplicity in our lives, and how simplifying can be a cure for us in so many facets, providing clarity and purpose.

We’re trying to live a better life and not chase the new shiny thing.

It’s all well and good to talk about it, but how do we be about it?

The answer?

Discipline.

I can hear what you’re thinking: ‘Oh shit, here we go - another disciple at the altar of Goggins. Is he going to advocate for giving yourself shin splints and headbutting brick walls?’

Nope.

In the modern era, the word discipline has a hardcore vibe about it. Too much so.

When someone mentions discipline, it evokes an image of someone like David Fucking Goggins, carrying the boats while shouting at himself, calling everyone a m’fer.

A common modern view of discipline is as a form of self-hate: ‘I’m going to do X, Y and Z, fuck myself up, and I deserve this’. Or it’s something you have to force yourself to do, not what we actually want to do.

I think David is almost there, but there are some tweaks to discipline that we’re going to explore. Bear with me. You’ll enjoy this.

The Modern Lie.

We live in a world of ‘balance’. We’re told to be easy on yourself. Don’t do it if you aren’t feeling it. Be ‘nice’ to yourself. We’re told to follow motivation, wait until you’re ready, have balance, do what feels right, and give yourself a break.

We’re told to follow our gut, and if we aren’t feeling it, stop.

The problem with following our feelings is that our feelings can change with the weather. Motivation comes and goes. Discipline and structure stay.

We’re taught that discipline is almost a naughty word, in the ‘almost too hard’ basket. We’re taught that being disciplined is a form of restraint, a monkism from living the good life.

We’re taught that you have to will yourself to be disciplined, that it’s almost against our nature to stick our goals.

That’s so wrong.

Discipline is Freeing

When you have a litany of choices, limitless possibilities, you can work hard EVERY day towards a goal… but the goal can change at the drop of a hat. Today I could be training for my best ever squat, tomorrow I could be training to run an ultra, and the day after that I could be completely focused on my burgeoning cabaret career.

Without discipline, I’ll still be spinning my wheels in 12 months time.

Some people believe freedom is having nothing and no one to answer to. Some people believe that freedom is having nothing on the agenda, the ability to go to bed late, sleeping in later.

I call bullshit.

Endless options leads to anxiety.

No structure leads to drifting through life.

Drifting through life is chaos masquerading as freedom.

Discipline is clarity and steady progress.

Discipline removes the ongoing internal argument

When you’re living with 'freedom’, your time is your own, which is great and what we all want. You can waltz through days on end without progressing anywhere. You can wake up late, lay on the beach all day, go to a bar for the afternoon and repeat. This is fine for a few days, but after perhaps a week, most people will start to get antsy. We humans need progress.

Discipline gives us structure to our freedom.

There is no internal argument, no battle inside.

You train at a set time. You eat certain meals. You do XYZ in order to get from A to B.

Let’s use writing as an example.

I want to write. I don’t care if I become rich or famous, but I want a creative outlet to express myself.

Each day could wander around dreaming of writing.

I’ll have all these great ideas that I’ll tell my friends and family about - my latest and greatest stories or parables that I want to share. I’ll try and find some time to write, when the mood takes my fancy and when I’m not busy. At the end of each week, I look back and realise that I’ve written a grand total of fuck all. ‘Oh well, I’ll try again next week’.

Next week? Funnily enough, the exact same result.

Or.

I can create structure and discipline around my writing habits.

I know myself, and I know that if I leave it up to chance, it won’t happen.

I get up at 5 religiously. Every day. I shake the dust off, moan, groan, and open my laptop by 5:15am, writing a minimum of 200 words, sipping on a hydration elixir on one side and a black coffee on the other side - double parked baby.

I then leave to go to the gym at around 5:50, home about 20 minutes after the kids wake up.

Why?

Because if I don’t have that structure, it won’t get done later.

My logic? The earlier the better. I hit myself with the discipline hammer before I can bitch it. I have a physically intensive business, so at the end of the day, you won’t catch me doing much.

Win the morning, win the day.

The same lessons go for anything in life. Losing weight. Making more money. Buying a house. Staying injury-free.

You can’t just wing it. Discipline saves will power. Turns effort into default.

Don’t forget the 6 P’s: Proper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance.

Discipline is love.

Discipline isn’t easy. What’s easier is to indulge. Indulge in that sleep in. Clock in and out right on time. Smash that ice cream. Binge that show.

It gives you an out, and creates a little bit more of a black mark against yourself.

Try loving yourself. Respecting yourself.

Being disciplined is trying to give yourself better. Not because you’re a piece of shit who needs to carry the boats, but because you want to earn what comes with discipline.

Try stretching of an evening because you want to look after yourself. Try going after that side hustle because you want to push yourself.

You don’t need to be a monk, or live off of spreadsheets. You don’t need to be a navy seal or optimise every second.

Pick a few standards. Enjoy the beautiful monotony, and let that beautiful boring create something great.

Do stuff that your 85 year old self would approve of, not out of self flagellation, but because you value yourself enough to keep promises to yourself.

Last week, I wrote about the Paradox of Choice and why having too many options is bad for our monkey-brain. We explored the negative effect and mental load that having millions of decisions at our fingertips has, and how it leads to anxiety.

Having too many choices can literally freeze us. Having too many options can lead to a litany of issues, such as decision fatigue and dissatisfaction. The grass-is-greener complex, where we’re always looking for the next ‘best’ thing.

No one likes people who only see problems, so here’s a solution.

This week, we have the magic pill. The cure. The antidote. Our version of Ozempic.

Just kidding.

But we ARE exploring simplicity.

Simplicity as Strength

The modern world can often treat ‘simple’ as second-class, basic, almost as a weakness. If you don’t have 10 businesses, 100 people working for you, 17 houses and a massive dick/booty, you’re a failure. Yet, some of the most powerful parts of our nature are simple. Tired? Sleep. Hungry? Eat. Thirsty? Drink.

Looking at our own nature, complexity can often create fragility, whereas simplicity can create resilience. Travelling and missing a step in your 12-step morning routine? The day is basically fucked. Your morning routine is a glass of water and some deep breaths? The start to your day is pretty much bulletproof.

The Ancient Stoics were big believers in simplicity and removing what isn’t necessary. They saw the removal of literal and mental clutter as the first step to clarity. We’ll revisit this later.

Why Simplicity is the Antidote.

Maybe we should all aspire to become hermits. Escape the trappings of society and become goat herders in the wilderness.

Maybe we should delete all our social media accounts, all the dating apps and try to rewind to the year 2000?

Or maybe we can just try to simplify our lives?

A reasonable goal would be to reduce our cognitive friction by limiting our choices.

Every choice we make is another rep on our brain, another bit of mental fatigue added to the load. By reducing our brain strain, we free up space for the things that do matter, the things that deserve our attention.

Right now, every day we’re fighting battles on all fronts:

• What to wear,

• What to eat,

• When to train,

• What task to prioritise,

• What content to consume,

• Who to flirt with,

• What social events to go to, and so on

Every micro choice uses the same finite resource - our executive function.

This wears us down, creating an avalanche in our minds. Optionality makes discipline hard. Simplicity makes discipline automatic.

Living with Less Noise is An Art.

At the end of a week, do you ever feel like you are just surfacing after doing a max breath hold? Like you’ve been running back and forth both mentally and physically, from meeting to task, to checkbox to obligation. Then you have more tasks and chores and obligations on the weekend, only to realise that it’s Sunday afternoon and you haven’t had a fucking minute to be still, and you have to run it all back tomorrow?! We’re running on full throttle, like a clown juggling on a unicycle, through a ring of fire while avoiding a poorly trained lion.

It’s easy to live with noise. We get meeting invites that we have to say yes to. We get given tasks from our boss that have a deadline. We attend weddings of people we only half-like. Attention is captured by doom-scrolling, Netflix, YouTube or any number of other streaming services designed to trap our brains.

Our hardware was never designed for it.

Less chaos is less cortisol.

When do you get the feeling of simplicity? Clarity of thought? It might be when you go on holiday and realise that your schedule isn’t packed, in fact, your only decision is where to surf, or what bar to have a beer at. All of a sudden, you realise what your inner monologue sounds like because you aren’t bombarding it with inane garbage. And your inner monologue is fucking dreading going back to work.

Living simply doesn’t detract from life - it removes the waste and works as a magnifier to what’s important.

Living with more simplicity is an artform, and not easy to do.

So? Habits.

Routine. Regularity. Structure.

We are what our habits make us.

Give yourself some constraints that are in line with simplicity. Say no to things that you don’t need.

When you remove the unnecessary choices, you remove the need to feel ‘motivated’. You remove the other potential outcomes because, in fact, there are none.

• If you wear the same thing each day, no decision required.

• If your training schedule is set, no negotiating with yourself.

• If your diet is simple and easy, no need to go down the confectionery aisle.

• If your bedtime is set, no bargaining with yourself for one more episode.

If you delete your social accounts or set a timer, you’re constrained.

We are what we repeatedly do - simplicity and continual habits will breed self-confidence.

Simplicity as Strength

Cleanthes was one of the OG Stoics, living simply by choice. He studied under Zeno by day and carried water by night. He wasn’t a charismatic visionary like Chrysippus, or the founder like Zeno, but he was the strong right hand that embodied the philosophy. He lived a life free from clutter, with routine and discipline, and shunned the potential riches that were offered to him. He hauled water at night by choice, as a way to physically and mentally fortify himself for his studies.

There is honour in simplicity.

That’s not to say that we need to mimic Cleanthes, living with one robe and choosing poverty. We’re allowed to have a comfy bed and enjoy the trappings of our life. This is the best time to be alive, so we may as well enjoy it.

But rather than doing 100 things poorly, let’s focus on doing 3 things right. Rather than saying yes to everything, let’s say no unless it aids our core principles.

Let’s downgrade our clutter and upgrade our clarity.

More options don’t liberate us—they paralyse us.

Barry Schwartz

The modern world is a deep, dark pit of endless decision-making.

Have you ever spent an hour choosing food on Uber Eats or DoorDash? Or tried to find something to watch on your favourite streaming service, only to check streaming services 2, 3, 4 and 5?

Have you ever tried online dating? Set up a date, and then another cute match popped up and bam - you’re double booked? Or spent an inordinate amount of time just swiping.

Ever studied something or started a new job, only to change your mind quickly?

What about the daily dilemma of what to wear? Where or if to exercise? Or what car to buy? Who to socialise with, where to move to, what content to consume, what to buy at the supermarket?

Modern life gives us limitless options, and rather than liberating us, it can paralyse us.

Making decisions is hard, cognitively taxing, and studies show that having more to choose from can actually affect our mental health.

We weren’t made to analyse and choose between literally millions of different options, and making all these decisions affects us incredibly adversely.

Making an avalanche of decisions every day can lead to:

Decision paralysis: rather than just choosing something, you do nothing and you’re stuck staring at two identical white shirts. Totally not speaking from experience.

Decreased satisfaction: whatever we choose, we feel like it doesn’t live up the hype in our mind.

Increased regret: we make a decision and wish we had chosen differently.

Unrealistic expectations: we have sky-high expectations for our decision-making because there must be a perfect option.

Self-blame: if the choice we’ve made isn’t perfect, we blame ourselves for not making the perfect choice.

In short: abundance creates anxiety.

Deep down, we’re simple creatures. We’re semi-evolved apes, masquerading as galactic overlords.

Whether you believe in evolution, the Stoned Ape theory, some form of Holy Deity, or think that we were impregnated by aliens, the fact of the matter is, we never evolved to live in the environment that we’ve created.

Throughout 99% of our history, survival meant that you lived where the season and tribe dictated, you ate what was in season, you had one or two mating prospects, and your career path was mainly not to die.

You wore animal skins or nothing at all. You hung out with your tribe of max 150 people, you went to bed not long after the sun went down, and you slept until the sun came up. And you didn’t have to worry about what gym class to take.

Our brains evolved for scarcity, not abundance.

Optionality is cognitively expensive.

Now, your career paths are endless. You may not feel like it, but your mating options are ridiculously high. What you wear, eat, who you talk to, how you get to work, what vehicle you’re going to buy, where you’re going to holiday, even which “optimal morning routine” you’ll copy from some influencer who gets paid to coffee-douche, it’s all up to you.

It’s a bit silly, really. We live in a society where everyone struggles to choose what type of water to drink, yet every decision holds significant moral weight:

Choose the wrong job? You’ve wasted potential.

Choose the wrong partner? You ‘deserve’ better.

Choose the wrong booty influencer to copy? You’re falling behind.

Not eating Carnivore/Vegan/Paleo/Keto? You’re probably going to die slowly/shit yourself/never shit again/get hit by a bus from bad karma.

A world full of decision-making isn’t natural. Our brains were created in environments of scarcity, not abundance. A time when one option was good, two options are fucking great. When the only form of entertainment was dancing naked around a fire for kicks.

We’re operating on typewriter software, and our society demands we upgrade to IOS 55 when that shit is lightyears away.

And so. We become restless, anxious, perpetually unsatisfied and always looking for the shiny new thing.

Paradoxically, having a world of options makes us feel like we’re always choosing the wrong one.

It affects our self-confidence, erodes our self-belief, and we end up with a nagging feeling that things could be better.

The internet has turned decision-making into a competitive sport. Let’s use dating as an example. At your fingertips, you can swipe on an absurd number of people in a 100km radius. If you pay, your dating profile can travel the world. You can slide into as many hotties as you want on Instagram, again, anywhere in the world. You can cast as many lures as your fingers can handle before cramping.

You may be amazingly content in your dating life; that’s fine. Dating is a microcosm for the rest of life. We have:

• chronic dissatisfaction

• fear of committing

• “grass is greener” syndrome

We’re missing simplicity.

I once had a conversation with my dad about starting a new business. I said I don’t know what the right option is.

I’m a somewhat clever and ambitious individual, hindered by my past decisions in terms of education and career. I was single-parenting at the time, and I still had way too many options, which led to literally months of inertia, stuck in a job I hated.

Dad had some hard words for me before saying to just choose. Make a decision.

‘Don’t worry about making the right choice. Choose, and MAKE it the right choice..

Not just for a week or a month or a year.

Simplicity certainly isn’t sexy. Simplicity isn’t $35 supplement-fueled juices and 12-step morning routines to optimise your day. Simplicity sure as fuck isn’t wearing copper-wired ‘grounding shoes’ to help you absorb the earth’s energy better.

Simplicity is drinking 3 litres of water, turning your phone off, reading and getting to bed early.

Simplicity is slowly walking barefoot down a dirt track.

Simplicity is quieting the noise around us, so that we can decrease our anxiety and hear our life again.

Simplicity decreases our mental load and kills the worm of anxiety before it even hatches.

So?

Let’s make life simple.

Not stone-age simple, but simpler.

Close some tabs, both literal and metaphorical. Throw out the shit you don’t need. Skip the biohacking, just get some more sleep. Commit. Stick with something until you get really good.

Focus on simplicity, not the shiny new object.

Find contentment where it matters.

Take joy in the simple.

Take yourself back to the year 323 AD, a time when Roman rule extended throughout most of the known world. The Empire was split under two rulers governing the East and West, tensions were rising before a war that would unite the Empire in 324.

Constantine, who would eventually unite the East and West, was also increasingly pro-Christianity. In the year of our writing, this is an important note, as religion is the primary means by which saints are anointed.

In the East, Persia was ruled by the Sassanians, Rome’s main rivals on the world stage. They were the last great pre-Islamic Persian Empire, essentially the Frazier to Rome’s Ali, or the Pepsi to Rome’s Coke.

Sophisticated, powerful and ahead of their time, they were Zoroastrians long before Antonio Banderas donned the mask.

Other than immense amounts of tension and build-up, the year 323 wasn’t characterised by any big events except for one - the introduction of our hero, Maximus Leonidas Brothentine.

Maximus Leonidas Brothentine was born to common folk on the shores of the Mediterranean in the small fishing village of Stabiae (pronounced Stabby-Eye), an ominous prelude to our hero’s downfall.

His father, Leonidas, was a fisherman and would go away for days at a time chasing big pelagic fish across the sea to sell at market. His mother, Aurelia, kept house for Maximus and his eight brothers while his father was away.

Maximus and his exploits are the origin of the term ‘brother’, or so the legend claims. Before this, the general term used for males of the same parentage or close emotional ties was ‘frāter’. For brevity, we will continue to use the modern terminology.

Maximus was the second oldest to Commodus, who happened to be a few sestercii short of a denarius. As such, Maximus took on most household male duties long before he could grow a beard.

As Maximus grew into his teens, the people around him saw greatness, though not a common greatness. In a time of darkness, people around him saw the light that was Maximus. What they saw wasn’t what historians will deem as ‘great’, nor what is lauded in the history books.

There was no conqueror in Maximus (unless you were a fish). There was no oratory prowess, political or educational acumen. In that, he was common.

He was of average height and probably a 7.5/10 in looks. In that, he was also common.

What they saw in Maximus was what has come to be known in the modern world by many terms. In common era London, you’d hear someone call him a ‘diamond geezer’. Throughout the USA, you’d hear him referred to as a real one. In Cairo, he would be called a راجل جدع.

During his teen years, in Stabiae, he was referred to as the original homo honestus - a bloody good bloke.

That’s right. In a time of rough-housing slaves, mistreating women, sleeping with your friend’s wives or side-booty or side-side booty, running out on tabs at the taverna, attending orgies uninvited and all-around bad-bloke behaviour, Maximus became a shining example of being the bro.

In his teens, if one of his friends was going to get into a fight, Maximus would be there, offering snacks of dried fish or jerky to both parties before swiftly de-escalating the situation either with his fists or silver tongue.

He would often pack a spare cloak or tunica, as his brothers would often get theirs dirty. If he just so happened to be short, he would give the tunica off his back - he would rather be seen in a compromising position than one of the boys, thus coining the term ‘giving the shirt off your back’.

He always had a small toolkit with him and fashioned it into the original multitool. He had a knack for fixing things, be it a broken pair of sandals, a cart axle or a broken heart - whenever any of the boys needed something fixed, they knew that Maximus had it covered.

As Maximus grew into a young adult, he had several career paths to choose from. He could become a fisherman, a trademan, a merchant, or join the legion, travel the world and fight, as many men of the era had a desire to do.

Maximus persuaded his brothers and friends to forgo the legion and choose less violent careers. He won them over with his words ‘Hodie hostis, cras frater’, translating to ‘Today’s foe, tomorrow’s bro’

So what did he do? Taking his hard-earned denarii from odd jobs and fishing, he did as all men truly wish, and chose the life of a small-time tavern owner. In reality, this was truly just a chance to hang out, sling every second person an amphora on the house and talk rubbish with the boys, loosely masquerading as a career path.

Maximus’s tavern became known as the place to go, and throughout his mid-to-late-

20’s, he continued his pattern of being the man. Some say this is where the term ‘a man of the people’ comes from.

Stories of him are too numerous to put in one essay, though there were trends that showed character.

If one of the boys was having a tough time, he would shut the taverna and ‘take them fishing’ or help them ‘fix a wheelbarrow’. Before the metaphorical legionary could shout ‘charge’, they would be deep in the weeds talking about life, love and laughing.

If a weary traveller came through the tavern, Maximus would welcome them in and introduce them to the local patronage. He would encourage them to share their stories and never judge a soul.

He was a fair trader, as fair as they come. As the price of commodities fluctuated to run the taverna, he would always ensure that a fair price was had by all, be it the most lowly of fishermen or the hootiest-tootiest Roman officials.

He was a storyteller beyond reproach. He would remember the stories of others and retell them to the unsuspecting crowds of the tavern. He never let the truth get in the way of a good story, especially if it was embellishing the feats of the boys. He could laugh at himself like no other - one time he went on a date and wanted to show off by skipping a rock ‘at least seven times’ of the dock. As he threw it, he fell in. The rock skipped twice and didn’t skip a beat, laughing at himself.

He was the man we all aim to be almost 2,000 years later. A mean fisho, could hold his drink better than a camel, and could rizz the Governor’s daughter and keep his head. But. Have you ever heard of Harpastum? Of course you haven’t unless you’re a weird history buff, so let me educate you.

Harpastum was the original tough man sport, a spastic ancestor of rugby, wrestling and bar fighting. The goal of the game was to keep the ball on your team’s side by any and all means possible, hitting, bleeding, scratching, nut-shot, wrestling and personal sleights were all normal, and it was used as training for war.

You guessed it - Maximus was a machine at Harpastum, despite his lack of desire to fight professionally. Whenever he hit the field, a switch flicked, and he turned it on. His exploits are where the terms ‘big game player’ and ‘built for the arena’ were coined.

He was the original G.O.A.T., long before Michael Jordan, Roger Federer or Jahangir Khan. « Hit the link.

The Stabbed Eye of Stabiae

Life was going swimmingly for Maximus. Despite not yet having a family, his business was growing, primarily due to his regional popularity. He became the bro of all bro’s, the original bro, the bro in the know wherever he did go.

My dear reader, you must understand that good blokes in this era were uncommon. Your ‘boys’ were more likely to mess with your ale and lighten your purse than sit and have a good new-fashioned chin wag about the gladiators.

Other men came from far and wide to be in the presence of a genuinely good dude, and he set a trend for how brothers of blood and not should treat each other.

Enter Lucius the Taxman.

Some professions have never been popular amongst the people, nor will they ever be. Think: Parking Officers, Real Estate Agents, Telemarketers, Cold Callers, and anything to do with Tax; these are all universally hated by everyone, even those within the profession. And then there are the people who are suited to said profession - they came out of their mother’s womb and immediately should have been put back.

That was Lucius.

By all accounts, Lucius the Taxman was a prick, forged in the depths of hell, made out of spite and ink.

He always came by unannounced, he never said thank you, he was meticulous with his work, had zero leniency for those he was blood-letting/taxing, his beady little eyes were too close together, and he always had his greasy black hair slicked back with olive oil.

Lucius the Taxman has been lost to history except for the tale I’m about to tell you, and if it weren’t for this specific story, everyone, even Lucius’ mother would say that he is a bloke whose life should be washed down the toilet.

Lucius was a jealous man, a prideful man, and one who, much like a modern-day Parking Inspector, tried to wield his token power like it was Thanos’s Infinity Glove.

On the 12th of January, 355 AD, Lucius the Taxman came to collect from the tavern after issuing a fabricated fine. Maximus, ever the gentleman, had his T’s crossed and his i’s dotted and was prepared for the local living embodiment of a poo dag to visit him.

Upon arrival, Maximus deftly shut Lucius’ claim down within the confines of the law, inadvertently in front of a bit of a mid-afternoon crowd. Maximus, realising that Lucius was most likely feeling rather embarrassed, attempted to warmly laugh off the incident, and offered Lucius a free amphora and a seat with the boys. It was, in truth, the kindest gesture Lucius had ever received.

Lucius freaked. Having never even been offered his mother’s breast after she recognised internal fangs of the little devil, he wasn’t used to any form of kindness.

He lost the plot and, grabbing a bronze-handled sardine scaler off a nearby fishmonger, lunged at Maximus, striking him straight through the eye.

As he expired before the boys, he giggled as he pointed to his face and said his last words; ‘Eye really didn’t see that coming’.

At the ripe old age of 32 winters, he died as he lived - trying to uplift the boys one last time.

That wasn’t our hero’s end.

Like a wheel running down a hill, Maximus’s legend continued to grow after his death as people spread the stories of his diamond nature. Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Genghis Khan and Guy Fieri; as tends to happen, exploits grow legs that fit only the greats of history, and Maximus is no different.

Years later, the fishermen of the region spoke of the time Maximus Leonidas Brothentine lifted all their spirits during a storm in which many ships were lost, filling everyone in the village’s wine jug from a single half-empty amphora.

Decades later, people of the region spoke of the time that Maximus of Stabiae fixed a widow’s cart with naught but a fish bone and some dried meat, then

Centuries later, among his many exploits, people throughout the known world spoke of his good-natured generosity and willingness to help out anyone in need. They spoke of the time he rescued a fishing boat that had gone adrift full of sardines and without its crew. In a time when not many people could swim, he knew it was his time to shine. He shut the tavern and dove in fully tuniced, swam to the boat and took it back to shore all on his own. Some say he harnessed each of the sardines as power and rode them like a chariot. Some say he taught them Latin along the way.

When the officials asked for evidence that Maximus was worthy of sainthood, the people presented fourteen conflicting versions of this one event.

But across every account, one detail stayed the same:

Despite saving a families livelihood, he didn’t ask for a single coin in return. He just said, “Anyone want their cup filled?;

And thus the legend grew

Saint Brothentine, the Patron Saint of Bros.

In the 5th century, the Church was looking for local heroes as a bit of a marketing move. More heroes equals more followers, an equation as old as time. Obviously, Maximus stood out like goat’s balls.

• universally loved.

• generous as they come.

• died tragically young via outrageous circumstances.

• fit neatly into the Church’s desire for relatable, humble saints

So in 502 AD, the Bishop of Nuceria canonised him as:

Saint Brothentine of Stabiae

Patron Saint of Brotherhood.

Over the years, people stopped using frāter and began using Brothentine, shortened to brother when referring to their boys. Brother is even today seen as one of the highest compliments.

So now, on the 12th of January every year, the day of his passing, we celebrate Saint Brothentines’ Day.

Have a wrestle, share a pint, buy a weird stubby holder for those you hold near and dear. And never forget that a ‘Today’s Foe is Tomorrow’s Bro’.

*Important historical notes

• Maximus’s birth year is 323… if you multiply 3x23, you’ll get 69. Nice.

• This is mostly true. Some facts, characters, times, places, sayings and other bits and bobs may have been appropriated.

I always dream of being in the wilderness.

Not going on a bush walk, or going hunting on big properties marred by fencing or roads.

I dream of isolation, far and wide, with nothing around me but Mother Nature as far as I can see and imagine. I dream of rolling hills, mountains and plains unmarked by man. No roads, no buildings. No power lines. No fences.

I dream of a place so isolated and so untouched that not even planes fly over, a place to sit and hear nothing but the wind.

Often when I’m hunting, I’ll imagine that I’ve found the spot. I’ll sit on a hill or in a creek and close my eyes and just pretend that I’m there. Then that illusion is broken as I’ll hear the drone of an aeroplane flying high overhead, or I’ll walk out of a gully to see a far-away fence.

Mankind has forced its will everywhere. The will to own and control, to bend nature to our doing. To order things just right to suit our needs.

And then there is Mongolia, a country with an absurdly low population density, with untold square kilometres of untouched and uninhabited land. A country that doesn’t so much live on the land as live with it, as many of those outside the city migrate according to the seasons.

I had heard nothing about the Taiga region until I went looking for it. A vast mountain range in the northern-most area, straddling the border with Russia. An area so isolated and so wild that the only way in and out is on foot, be it yours or a horse.

It took me years to take the leap and go. It took me four days to get to the area, six hours to get closer on horseback, and then five hours again to walk it before I found what I was looking for.

We found the biggest mountain in the area and climbed it. It wasn’t particularly arduous, though it was everything I’d ever hoped.

After leaving camp, we climbed up past the tree line into an altitude where ice caps still covered the mountains, although it was the middle of summer. We walked along the rideline, along hillocky mountain plateaus and craggly peaks.

We climbed up a mountain top that seemed almost purposefully built, stacking rocks on top of each other by giants.

And we hit the peak.

We couldn’t see camp.

We couldn’t see fences.

We couldn’t see planes, or trains or cars.

We couldn’t see a far-off town, road, or even a far-off track.

We looked around us, and all we could see was the wild.

As far as we could see, it was mountain tops, glacial rivers and boreal forests, left alone by mankind.

I’d finally made it.

The morning to remember actually started the day before.

At 9:04 am, coffees in hand, we’re headed northwest, an hour and a half past Tamworth for 8 days in the bush.

Most people would never bother coming here — a few silos, two pubs, and a long-closed asbestos mine. But on the surrounding farmland, which holds craggy gullies and granite hills to resist the plough, the wild things thrive: goats, pigs, and our quarry — fallow deer.

It’s a special time of year for hunters, it’s what is called the rut - a time when fallow bucks lose their marbles and are overcome with testosterone-fuelled lust. They become maddened by their need to procreate, and will grunt, scrape antlers on trees, and fight other bucks for the right to mount a doe.

The morning started off early, just before dawn. We camped on top of a hill next to our car, where we would leave it for the next 5 days as we lived off our backs walking the hills. The air was a crisp four degrees — the kind of clear you only get far from concrete and cars. The sunrise was a deep orange, and we watched it break over the far hills to the east as we descended into the valley.

During the rut, fallow deer make an otherworldly croaking noise to signal how ready they are to party, somewhere between a gigantic frog and a race car. As we were strapping on our packs we heard the first croaking of the trip. We couldn’t believe our luck - only just first light and already the hills were talking to us. My hunting buddy Cal hit me with his big lopsided grin: ‘Well I guess we’re going that way!’.

As the sun rose, the familiar and full beauty of the isolated valley was exposed to us. The stream had split into multiple smaller creeks in the valley, a deep set creek ran through a rocky canyon to our left.

We walk along a winding road that follows the valley high up a hill, snaking its way towards the croaking. We walk quietly through the bush, our feet crunching and breaking through the morning choir of the birds and the bucks.

One of the best tactics to use in areas low on doe numbers during the rut is rattling. Whilst most hunting is done quietly, rattling most certainly isn’t. Rattling means the banging together of two antlers (or antler-like object) to feign two bucks fighting - the prevailing logic is that the real bucks hear it, think it’s a fight and then want to come and scrap too.

As we pass a few small gullies, the croaking feels like its very slowly getting closer, until quite suddenly we crest the third small gully and it feels like the croaking is right there. We can’t see them, but they sound close, just over the next ridge about 30 meters away, but they’re hidden from view by a patch of juvenile gum trees.

The bush vibrates all around us at each croak, heightening our senses to the point that we can’t see, think, or feel anything outside our most primal of missions.

It’s my turn to shoot.

We creep closer to the croaking, keeping the scrub between us and him, shielding us from the eyes of the wary prey animal.

Cal sets up about 10 meters behind me as I find cover with a shooting lane, guarding against probable avenues - I envision the buck approaching us straight through a small break in the scrub, and I range a few trees to get an idea of potential shots. Nothing over 18 meters. Close.

I nock an arrow, pull up my face mask and give Cal a nod.

Cal rattles. The buck stops mid-croak and answers faster. Angrier. He’s coming.

Cal rattles again, and the buck continues croaking, getting closer.

Cal goes again, and the buck is just through the scrub.

I draw back.

Cal stops.

The buck comes walking through a shooting alley, looking for the fight.

He’s so close, I can’t see anything through my peep sight but his chest as he faces me quartering on.

I breathe.

And release my arrow.

The buck reacts quickly to the sound, thrashing through the bush and running downhill. I don’t see my shot, but as he runs away I see my arrow dangling out of his mid-section and my stomach drops fearing the worst. A gut shot, which would mean a long and painful death for the deer, and a poor job by me. But then I realise that the angle of the exit wound would signify a well-placed shot and my hopes skyrocket again.

I turn around to Cal and he has his arms up in silent celebration, I pump my fist silently in return.

I turn back to see the deer going downhill, maybe 150 meters away, but he’s staggering and swaying, becoming discombobulated.

And then he spins and goes down.

I’ve done it.

WE have done it.

As a bowhunter, I had always dreamed of harvesting a mature fallow buck and I had finally done it. I was speechless with awe. After years and countless attempts, here he was.

As I approached him, I had never seen anything so magnificent.

The brown coat was coarse, tough yet soft, his muscles glistened through the fur. His neck was thick and meaty, the sign of a strong animal, and he had a number of scars across his body, whether it be from predators or other bucks, we will never know. A true warrior of the bush.

As lots of hunters do, I felt remorse for taking an animals life, but as we butchered every morsel I thanked the animal, knowing that this pure, healthy meat was going to feed my family for months to come.

The time is 8.05 a.m on the first morning of our 8-day hunt. Over the next week, we would walk around 20 k

m per day through the bush, getting close but never close enough, over and over. It didn’t matter. Everything after was a bonus.

I’ve been a single dad with the majority custody for almost two years now, and what a ride it has been. After finding out my then spouse was cheating not long after we got married (roughly 6 months), it was a quick slide from ‘making it work’ to ‘fuck you and fuck this’.

During a rough couple of months, it was so incredibly hard to be present for the kids, and yet when we hit the other side it was like coming through a dark cave into the light of fucking Valhalla. The best.

Men have the raw end of the deal when it comes to separating - I got unjustly dragged through the mud with lies and accusations I will never forgive or forget. Thankfully my kids weren’t completely exposed to them.

Once I got my head above water as I restarted my life, I could actually see how truly blessed I was.

1. There is more time than you think.

My initial stress was time.

How the HELL do I have enough time to pay my bills, train, take the kids to multiple activities per week, have a dating life, keep the house tidy, make time for my passions, and have time to chill out…

Fear not. There is plenty of time in a day, and I make it work. Now, given, I sometimes drop the ball. Sometimes the house gets untidy with piles of washing and dishes. Sometimes I don’t have time to train. Sometimes I haven’t shot my bow or gone on a hunt for months. At the end of the day though, it always gets done one way or another, and the world doesn’t fall apart.

When you’re time-poor, you also realise the priorities more clearly - sure the kids have made a mess with all their art and books are lying everywhere, but it’s perfectly fine to be present with them now and tidy it up when they’re in bed, it just means one less episode of Vikings. Sure, the pile of clothes to fold is SKY high, but folding the clothes isn’t as important as my health, so I’ll train… and catch up on Vikings tonight while I fold.

2. It’s HARD To Be Everything To Everyone, But It Can Be Done.

Traditionally, Mum is the patient soft touch and Dad is the authoritarian. Being firm has come pretty easily to me, I set boundaries clearly and make sure the kids understand them. One of my flaws is that sometimes that boundary is way too firm and it’s ok to have a little give. They’re 3 and 5 for goodness sake.

What has taken some time, and something that I struggle with regularly is the soft touch, patience. When a tantrum is being thrown over what shoes to wear, my natural reaction is to use a hammer and not a scalpel. I have to work very consistently on my finesse parenting. I am regularly trying harder to be more patient, more understanding and have a bit more of a feminine touch depending on the occasion.

It takes some serious introspection and objectivity. Often when I sit down to journal, my mind will naturally float to my parenting performance above all others, and in that I am incredibly critical.

Its a double-edged sword, but for me being self-critical to a point allows for better parenting.

3. Every Day Is A Fresh Start.

No matter how hard I try, I fuck up all the time.

I lose patience, I don’t exercise, I can’t be bothered to do the dishes, I cut corners.

I make sure I own my fuck ups to my kids. I’m not afraid to say to them ‘Hey, Daddy shouldn’t have gotten angry, I’m sorry’. It’s important they know that it’s ok to make mistakes. It’s good to own them. It’s good to apologise. It’s fine to see that Dad isn’t perfect, but he tries.

The most most important thing is for them to see that I’m trying my best.

Tomorrow is a new day. A day to try again. A day for more hugs. A day to train.

To fold the washing.

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I gave my kids to my ex-wife on a Thursday, threw all my gear into my little

mumma-wagon and hightailed it up to one of my favourite hunting properties on

the New England Tableland, thick with deer.

For a rifle hunter, this would be a quick and simple exercise harvesting some

venison for the freezer, but as a wannabe solo-hunter yet to kill a deer with the

bow, this would be anything but easy.

After the usual pleasantries with the farmer, I head out the back nearer where the

deer live to lessen my morning commute. On a property thick with deer, I

have never found camping near them to change their pattern, in fact, often I’ll

arrive back to camp in the evening and they will be feeding 50m from where I

sleep.

They’re thick in numbers on the property, and yet after 6 weekend trips I’m yet to

get one on the ground with the bow: they aren’t dumb, they’re still deer. Over the

past few days I have had innumerable opportunities to stalk in, however I just can’t

seem to get within my outer limit of 30m. Something always goes wrong; a swirl of

the wind, a minuscule crack of a twig, a previously unsighted doe raising the

alarm.

Its the afternoon before I go home, and I’m getting cranky which is a trait that

never helps in a finesse sport. There are so many deer that sometimes when I’m

planning a stalk, I see more deer. It’s a first world hunting problem however its still

a problem nonetheless - I’ve put countless hours in, and I feel like I deserve this

success, which is a shocking attitude to have.

With the wind blowing out of the creek from the opposite perimeter, I walk slowly

along the hillside boundary of a scrub paddock. As I continually scan, before long I

spot some movement to my back left, at roughly 150m to my 8 o’clock. I watch a

patch of dark chocolate brown walking at a leisurely pace through one of the many

game trails, heading in the same direction as myself.

Gametime.

Due to the lack of rain in late January, the ground in and amongst the scrub is

incredibly crackly. I quickly drop my pack next to a fence post in order to avoid the

extra burden, as well as my shoes - as any hunter knows, socks are much quieter

than shoes on the dry foliage.

My plan is to get 50ish meters further into the paddock and wait in ambush as

whatever animal it is comes along. As opposed to putting a stalk on and trying to

balance any number of things that can go wrong, an ambush is much more

controlled - sit and wait.

I shimmy my way silently under the wire fence, creep along a small trail for 35

metres before seeing an intersection of what could be the does path. I get closer

and find some cover, heart beating in my chest. At most I’ll have a few seconds to

shoot, though the distance will be about 15 metres.

I listen intently waiting. Have you ever tried to hear an animal walk through the

bush? They are incredibly quite, and yet I hear some movement coming towards

me along the path - it’s on. I wait a few seconds before I draw back and wait.

Unlike rifle hunting, often a bowhunter will have both eyes open in order to extend

their periphery beyond the narrow sight - I learned this from a regular hunting

buddy, as I squint my left eye, looking through my right.

Holding my Mathews VXR back at full draw for around 15 seconds, I am calm and

focused. Time to do my job.

And then, she’s there. A beautiful colour-phase fallow doe, walking languidly into

the shooting lane, no idea that I am there. Even at her slow pace, I have around 3

seconds to shoot. I focus the pin on her vital area just behind the front shoulders,

though at this distance my set up will punch through any bone.

Like many ancient hunters before me, I go through my process, release my

breath…

And stop myself.

A heartbeat prior to release my arrow into its target, I catch a glimpse of a smaller

brown deer just a few steps behind the lead deer - a fawn.

In Australia, where we hunt almost exclusively invasive species, a lot of hunters

take a ‘if it’s brown, it’s down’ approach, and that’s completely fine, it’s their

prerogative, and they’re doing the land a favour.

When I was at full draw on this doe, I wanted nothing more than to join the club

with a deer fallen to my arrow. Theoretically, an arrow through the lungs is as

merciful a death as it gets in nature - before the animal even feels what’s going on,

it drowns as its lungs fill with blood. Compare this to being eaten alive by wild

dogs, dying of infection or starving, and I know what way I would choose.

I just couldn’t stomach condemning the fawn behind her to a slow starvation as

failed to get the nutrients from its mothers milk.

I knew what I wanted, yet, knew in a split second what the right decisions for me

was, hoping that karma comes back around.

In today’s society, there’s no such thing as an ‘accidental challenge’.

We don’t need to fight other tribes for territory or survival. We don’t have to move to better hunting grounds. We have no need to find water. We’re inoculated against most of the diseases that kill us. Hell, we can (and do) spend an entire day sitting down without the fear of starving because the fridge or Uber Eats is right there.

In the modern world, we need to seek out physical challenges, and therein lies the psyche of the modern bowhunter.

Everyone has a different challenge they seek. You could be like Goggins, running countless miles whilst swearing at yourself and everyone around you. You could be like Courtney Dauwalter, who isn’t just one of the best female ultramarathon runners, but one of the best runners full stop. You might fancy yourself as a bit of a Ross Edgley, and carry a log on an Ironman. You could emulate Eddie Hall and try to lift the Empire State Building.

The modern bowhunter craves a challenge of the highest magnitude, with the highest potential stakes - life and death.

The bowhunters not only challenge themselves, but they’re reinserting themselves into nature, becoming part of the ecosystem. A bowhunter will hike for days on end, carrying a bow and a pack, all their food and water, medical supplies, knives, somewhere to sleep… the lot. Then, once they’re battered and bruised, they’ll get within shooting range of a target species… and then the wind will swirl.

Bowhunters are resilient.

Our success isn’t just determined by how hard we try. We also have to contend with Mother Nature and everything she has to throw at us. If you want to run 100 miles, you can do it, no matter how much it fucking sucks. Comparatively, I might desperately want to harvest a mature fallow buck, but no matter how hard I try, if Mother Nature says no, then I may as well be on the couch.

If killing was the goal, then we’d pick up a gun.

A bowhunters ultimate goal is to take a life, but that isn’t the extent of the pursuit. We aren’t picking up a bow to kill. We chase the pursuit, the chess battle for life and death. We need to make things just a bit harder. We need to push our limits and the limits of our pursuit. Just a bit closer. A better angle. A closer shot.

We love hard.

We don’t just want to shoot any animal, we’re selective. Like the sushi chef picking out the finest tuna, we aim for the pinnacle. The toughest challenge. Often, this means older animals, smarter. They’ve been living a long time through their wits. This is their territory, we’re just a visitor, and to best a mature animal on their home turf, we can’t afford a mistake.

We can’t afford the crack of a twig. The brush of some leaves. We can’t afford a swirl of the wind. A stumble. A cough.

And should we make a mistake? Or should Mother Nature declare that today isn’t the day?

That’s fine.

We’ll be back tomorrow.

Pause and think for a second — when do you feel most like yourself?

I feel most at home in the bush, surrounded by imposing peaks and steep ravines. I feel free when I throw on my camo, put my bow over my shoulder and go on the hunt for food. At the end of the day, I can sit in front of the fire either alone or with company and feel at peace.

My mind is still.

I don’t get that in my day-to-day life. I can work hard, I can be productive, I can bust myself all day, and yet, at the end of the day when it’s time to unwind I find my mind going a million miles an hour. I find myself checking my phone for ghost notifications. Scrolling. Googling inane subjects, whittling down the time before I go to bed.

Obviously you aren’t me, but here’s my argument: everyone needs a bit of the wild, a reset, and they need it more than they think.

One of the joys of my life is taking people from the city camping, helping them set up their tent or swag, getting a fire started and introducing them to the outdoors.

Some people love art, or architecture, nice dresses, suits or fancy food. Everyone appreciates Mother Nature. When we walk through the bush, I’ll hear ‘how great is this’, and smile. No matter who you are, you’re home.

The stars. After years in the city, watching someone's face light up as they stare up at the Milky Way, feeling so small, so whole.

I’ll set up the chairs with our backs to the fire so that we keep warm and not let the fire impede our vision of the spectacle above.

When you escape the city lights, the hustle and bustle, the constant racket of humanity and find relief in the bush, you slow down and watch the greatest show from Earth, as the stars slowly slide by. As you’re eyes begin to adjust, you realise that the more you look, the more specks there are above you.

When a guest from the city heads home, they’re wrapped. The time spent sleeping on the ground, walking through the bush, getting back to basics has given them a fresh perspective. They feel a refreshed beyond what their every day life can give them. The detox from technology and the little bit of rewilding has renewed their energy like only Mother Nature can.

They may not have slept the greatest, they may have walked more than they have in years and they may have eaten more basic than they can ever remember.

And all they talk about is doing it all over again.