⚡️

When you spend most of your childhood in the same place, your comfort zone becomes real small. Same house, same neighborhood, same friends, same school. You know what to expect each day, every week, every month. The biggest changes are when your sibling gets married, and you have to learn how to accept a new person into your day to day life. Many people can live inside this comfort zone, thrive inside it even, but I knew pretty early on that this wasn’t for me.

Overlooking the small town I grew up in.

---

“Life begins at the edge of your comfort zone.”

-Neale Donald Walsch

---

When I was 13 my brother and I were looking for for a way to make a little money in the summertime. My dad was a professor at a local college and one of his students had grown up on a farm. Turns out, the farm needed extra hands for the summer. So my brother and I packed some bags and were driven the 4 hours up into northeast Washington to work the hay fields. About 10 miles from the Canadian border on the banks of the Kettle River there was a little farm. We spent five weeks living in a caravan that got only two radio stations, learning how to drive any farm equipment necessary for the plowing, planting, fertilizing, harvesting, baling, and delivering. It was so long ago, I’ve forgotten much of what I learned in those fields, but I know this for sure; it was outside my comfort zone.

When I was 15, I was again looking for work for the summertime. This time, on the promise of becoming a ranch hand I packed my bags and headed to northeast Oregon. Upon arrival, I was told that I was not going to be able to work on the ranch, but instead I could wash dishes in a local restaurant. Already having come this far, and not wanting to return home, I took up the offer. The restaurant sat on the rim of Joseph Canyon, 35 miles from the nearest town. I was given a room in a farmhouse with a few college aged guys, about five miles away. Every morning, I would get up and walk the five miles to the restaurant. When it wasn’t busy, I spent the early afternoons scraping paint off the outside walls prepping for a new paint job. After climbing ladders in the sun for a few hours, I would spend the next 6-8 hours standing at a sink in the kitchen washing plate after plate. I have tons of stories and memories of that summer, but the one thing that stands out more than anything… It was outside my comfort zone.

The next summer, when I was 16, I bought a plane ticket and flew to the south for a month and a half. I visited friends and explored as much as I could around Virginia, Alabama, Georgia, and Florida. I took a train - one of the only I’ve ever taken in the United States - from Atlanta to Birmingham. I spent weekends at basketball camps with people I had never met, and walked up and down the beach in Florida alone. It was a bit more comfortable because every week or so I’d see people that I knew, but it was still outside my comfort zone.

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

At 18, I packed my life into a couple suitcases and a few boxes, flew across the country, and got dropped off outside a dorm building on a college campus that I had seen one time in my entire life. Somewhere that I knew exactly four of the people on campus before arriving. To say it was outside my comfort zone would be an understatement.

At 21 years old I climbed onto a plane headed for South Africa for three months. I didn’t know anyone in the country, or even on the entire continent. At this point, what even was my comfort zone?

Overlooking Camps Bay, South Africa

At 22, I moved my entire life to a tiny island in the middle of the Pacific…

At 24, I quit my full-time job with salary and benefits in order to chase a dream I had…

At 26, I moved my entire life (AGAIN) to an unknown country in southeastern Europe…

A number of years ago, I came across a YouTube channel called Yes Theory. One of the things that drives the channel is the idea of seeking discomfort. Video after video they push themselves - and sometimes strangers - to push past their bubble of comfortability and see what kind of freedom lies on the other side.

---

“When we started Seek Discomfort, the lightning bolt quickly became a representation of the movement. It’s the spark that ignites when you dare to step outside your comfort zone. A sudden jolt of excitement within you when you move through fear. A flash of clarity when you realize that life is limitless.”

- Yes Theory

---

If life begins at the edge of our comfort zone, I want to be crossing that edge any chance I get. I’ve already been doing it for almost two decades without fully realizing it. Just looking for the next adventure has caused me to seek discomfort repeatedly. I don’t want to live a life that is too comfortable. By pushing that edge, my comfort zone grows and so do I.

Create • Explore • Learn

I love minimalist tattoos. Many of my tattoos are minimal, and the reason for it is two fold. First, I just like it. I like the aesthetic, and I like having a small, unsuspecting symbol that carries so much meaning. The second reason is something that is debated amongst anyone with tattoos. I know people that absolutely hate it when they repeatedly get asked what it means, and there are others that will go into every single detail, even down to the placement. As a storyteller, I love it when people ask about my tattoos. I thoroughly enjoy explaining the nuances of the different pieces.

So naturally, I’m always trying to find different ways of representing something big in a minimalist design. Which is what led me to glyphs. Simply put, they’re symbols that represent various aspects of life. They’re exactly what I like in a tattoo; small, unsuspecting symbols that carry meaning.

Create.

If you’ve found yourself reading this, it should come as no surprise that I love creating. For as far back as I can remember I’ve always loved being able to make things. As a teenager, and even at the beginning of college, I would get random work helping on construction sites. There was always something fulfilling about seeing a structure go up. Through the use of my own hands, and a variety of tools and materials, I (as part of a team, of course) constructed something that didn’t exist before.

This kind of fulfillment obviously continues in my life now, but in a more virtual space. I would love to continue creating in a physical capacity, but I don’t have the opportunities. Creating for me now is most often in video or photo form, and more increasingly in written form.

Explore.

Exploration is yet another passion of mine. One of my favorite parts of moving to such a relatively unknown country is that I hadn’t seen photos of it plastered all over the internet. Don’t get me wrong, I love New Zealand and Hawaii and all the photos people take there, but having the feeling of discovering something for the first time is unmatched. I realize that I will never be the first person to discover something, but being in Albania is as close as I can get. Swimming in lakes, chasing waterfalls, and climbing mountains that I never knew existed until recently makes me feel like a real explorer.

Learn.

It’s no secret that I am not a fan of school. I never have been. I went to college specifically to fulfill a dream of mine in playing basketball in the NCAA, but had it not been for that I possibly would have never bothered attending. As soon as I walked across that stage in 2014 there was no doubt in my mind that I would never go back into that form of education. That being said, however, I love learning.

Learning can be done in so many different environments that do not include a whiteboard, taking notes, or exams. When I finally understood this, I finally fell in love with learning. Through practical experience, through self-guided studying, and by listening to those wiser than myself I have learned far more than I would have expected. It’s possible that I have learned more outside of a classroom than I ever did inside one.

Watch me willingly let a man stab me repeatedly with a needle.

Anew

When I first started making YouTube videos I never expected it to go far, if anywhere at all. I did have one thought in my head, though, as I put my adventures and thoughts onto the platform. That thought was simply: “It would be cool to get a paycheck from Google for this.”

That was it. I was going to keep making videos no matter if I made money from Google Adsense or not, but in the back of my mind I just thought it would be fun. I kept making videos whenever I felt like it without giving that hope much thought.

Fast forward to summer 2018 as I prepped to move to Albania. I realized that there was little to no content on YouTube about the country. As someone who would always search for videos of a country before I went to visit, I was having trouble. I would see a video from BBC or maybe VICE, but there was no one personally creating content in Albania. I decided to fill that void as best as I could.

My plan was pretty simple; I would start a series entitled “My Albanian Life” and I would format it as a travel show about life, traditions, culture, and history in Albania through the eyes of a foreign host (me). I made videos about different types of traditional foods, delved into the history on bank notes, even tracked expenses to see how much 10€ could buy me in Albania.

My plan was working, I was creating content about an unknown country on the Adriatic and after a few months of weekly videos I was getting recognition for my work. I was interviewed on three national news stations, had a number of internet-based articles written about my work, and even was consistently being recognized on the street as the “American YouTuber.” I would get emails or DMs three or four times a week from people who wanted to visit or move to Albania. I became a bridge between foreigners and this country. Everything was working the way I wanted it to, and I could see my hard work was paying off. Then, in quick succession, a few things happened that threw everything off…

The first was that I got that first paycheck from the ads I was able to finally put on my videos. That initial fun thought had become a reality and it caused me to lose some of my drive to keep going. I had set a goal for myself, I reached that goal, and now I was losing the motivation of what to work for.

Secondly, I realized at the end of 2019 that basically every time I pulled out my camera during that year it was to create an episode for my “show.” I began to edit my yearly recap video and realized I had very little footage of the fun times and good memories of 2019, it was mostly scripted - often staged - moments that don’t really fit together into a feel good, nostalgic montage. When the goal of my yearly recap video is to help me remember the year, those are the moments I want to see. I was missing the parts of my year that made it special.

Third, 2020 hit. We all know what happened. But one of the biggest impacts on my work was that Albania was one of the few countries that remained open, allowing anyone to come in without tests or quarantines. While this was a great opportunity for more tourism in Albania, which was ultimately one of my goals, it had some unintended consequences. I no longer had a monopoly on Albania content on YouTube. People with far bigger platforms than myself had come and were making their own videos and slowly my videos were being pushed out of the search results due to sheer lack of views. Not a problem at all, no. Frankly, it didn’t matter at all. But that showed me that my show had run its course. It had provided the necessary information to those that wanted to come when the world was closed and Albania was open, and now the country was getting more recognition through the platforms of others.

My videos had done their job and were no longer needed.

Thank you to anyone that has watched, subscribed, shared, commented, or anything else. (except those people that stole my footage… definitely don’t thank them.)

But now it’s time for me to move on, it’s time to find a new direction for my channel and what I create. I am not leaving Albania yet, which means many of my videos may still revolve around Albania, but it’s time to make my channel my own. It’s time to include me, my life, my passions. It’s time to start anew.

Beauty through Brokenness

I took this photo less than a month after moving to Albania. We had visited a small village a little way up the mountain just outside Pogradec. The border between Albania and Macedonia cuts right down the mountain, and right next to the border is this building. It’s a bit old, but looks older because of how dilapidated it has become over the past few years. I wandered around the inside of the building with my camera trying to find some interesting things to shoot. This frame stood out to me mostly because of the jagged glass shards obstructing the view of the forest on the other side. When I took the photos, that’s all I thought about. When I got home with the SD card and started editing, I realized that it seemed to represent something more…

If you don’t know the history of Albania, I’d urge you to do some quick research. But an extremely brief overview is that the entire country was ruled by a communist dictator for over 40 years. Despite being overthrown almost 30 years ago, the lasting effects of the regime is still found in different places around the country. That being said, there is a beauty that is able to shine through. There is beauty in the natural landscape, there is beauty in the people, there is beauty in the culture, the traditions, and even the language. It is an undoubtedly beautiful country. But, you have to be able to see through the brokenness. I’m not saying to ignore it but rather to see it, accept it, and choose to see the beauty as well.

So, when I pulled this photo up in Adobe Lightroom to edit it, it hit me. This photo represents Albania. Beauty through brokenness. It’s impossible to look at the view without seeing the shattered glass. We can spend all our time talking about how terrible it is that this window is broken, or we can choose to accept that and look past it to appreciate the beauty on the other side.

Hopefully, over time, the window can be fixed. But let’s not let the fact that it’s broken cause us to forget the beauty on the other side.

Something New

I make videos, I take photos, I’m not a writer. But if my past has taught me anything, it’s that if you want to get better at something you have to do it. Again and again and again. I suppose that’s the short answer of why I started writing, but there is a longer answer as well…

I make videos and take photos for fun. I also make videos and take photos for work. This was something I had strived after for a number of years, and I love it. I love the fact that every day I get to do something that I truly enjoy. However, it comes with its downsides. For instance, when work becomes busy with video projects, I lose my motivation to make videos purely for my own enjoyment. I wouldn’t say that it kills my passion, but it definitely can lead to some level of burnout. So, I decided to exercise my brain in a different way.

I may be wrong on this - because I’m not a scientist - but it feels like writing exercises different things in my head than shooting and editing videos does. I spend so much time on creating visuals that I needed something to be able to retreat to when I am feeling tired, or unmotivated to create videos. Maybe writing will give me a breath of fresh air from constantly staring into a camera screen.

Going hand in hand with this, I’ve realized that I take photos mainly for the visual aspect of it. I take the photo that would get the most reaction on social media, even staging them at times to get the most out of the frame as possible. The problem I see here is that when I look at the photos I typically don’t see stories as much as I see, “Oh yeah, I moved my van there and made my friend sit in that spot because it was the most aesthetically pleasing.”

A few weeks ago I met a woman who has been a photographing different aspects of Albania for the better part of the last three decades, Jutta Benzenberg. During my conversation with her, and hearing her talk about the photos that she takes I realized that there are two main types of stories that a photo can tell. The first is obviously the story of what is actually happening in a photo, which is obviously important but it’s something that can typically be derived by just looking at the photo itself without any further explanation.

The second type of story that a photo can tell is the contextual story. By that I mean the story that you can’t understand unless you were in that very spot when the photo was taken. I was looking through one of Jutta’s photo books and came across a photo that I don’t think I would have even saved had it been on my camera. There was a man, squatting down on the front steps of a house, but half the frame was covered by the out of focus head of a horse that seemed to be passing through the frame. I pointed this particular photo out, and asked why she chose to not only keep it, but to have it printed in a book. She proceeded to tell me the contextual story around the photo, that they man was a school teacher in another village and had could no longer walk the distance, so he needed to use the horse to get to school every day. She highlighted that the head of the horse basically covered half of the man’s face which, to her, made it seem like the two are one. The man cannot have his fully functioning life without that horse. My appreciation grew for that particular photo, and now it sticks in my brain, which is a far different reaction than my first impression of “Meh.”

After hearing about the backstory, and further conversations with Jutta, I realized that very few of my photos had stories like this and the ones that did almost no one knew the story. So I’ve decided to write. I’ve decided to make an effort to take photos that may not be the best for Instagram, but the ones that have stories. And that is where the writing comes in; to tell those stories.

I make videos, I take photos, I’m not a writer. But I’m trying to be.

Reconsider

Since buying my van, I’ve tried to go out camping or traveling in it as much as I possibly can. Between my normal day job and the van having modifications done on it, this hasn’t been exactly easy. So when the opportunity presents itself I typically do whatever I can to ensure that it happens.

About a week ago, a few friends of mine suggested that we go for a Saturday night camping trip to Lake Prespa - a large lake that borders Albania, Greece, and Macedonia. It is about a 40 minute drive, so nothing too crazy, but more significant than just parking somewhere close to Pogradec and sleeping.

The days leading up to our trip the weather had been a bit fickle. Each morning we would have rain - sometimes quite heavy - and then the sun would come out and dry everything to the point that you wouldn’t even know it had been raining. Naturally, this resulted in us checking the weather frequently. As anyone who has looked at weather reports would know, they aren’t ever 100% reliable. But each day that week the reports had been almost spot on which gave us even more confidence that Saturday would be no different - rain, and lots of it. We made the decision to just play it by ear and wait to decide what to do when the time came.

I woke up Saturday morning with a headache. While not an uncommon occurrence for me, it does affect my motivation levels to do things like camping. To make things worse, the sky had opened up over night and was absolutely dumping buckets. I texted one of the guys to see if he still wanted to go. He was hesitant. But, he said, another of our group was insisting. They asked me to meet them for a coffee to discuss and make a final decision.

When I got outside the rain had let up slightly but not entirely. We started chatting about when to leave, and what to do. The idea was floated that we could go, and if the weather got really bad we could always turn around and come back. Worst case scenario was we go for a drive and have lunch by Prespa before coming home. I still wasn’t too keen. Within a couple of minutes, the clouds blew over and the sun came beaming through a clear blue sky. It was all the motivation I needed. We parted ways and agreed to meet a bit later to start the drive.

In the two hours that it took us to get things together the sun had come and gone a few times, and each time it left the rain came through. We began our drive with the windshield wipers on, and with high hopes that when we arrived at Prespa those droplets would be gone entirely. As we drove towards the mountain we would have to cross to get to the other lake, the clouds didn’t look too promising.

View fullsize

Knowing that if it was too bad, we could easily turn around and go home to sleep in our warm, dry beds, we pressed on. Still hoping for the best, but knowing that worst wouldn’t be that bad. As we crossed over the pass, up ahead a small sliver of a rainbow showed itself in the sky. A sign of hope. Because, obviously, there couldn’t be a rainbow without the sun, right?

View fullsize

Coming down the other side of the mountain we were greeted by the sight of Lake Prespa. Sun coming from the west, and rain in the northeast. We pressed on, still hoping for the last of the rain to clear out before we settled.

View fullsize

The final leg of the drive was through the sunlight. We knew that we were surrounded by rainclouds, but we had made it this far and we definitely weren’t going to go home without giving this the dedication it deserved. We came to our campsite which ended up being surprisingly dry despite the scattered rain throughout the day. As we set up camp (me finding the most level place to park, and a few of the other guys setting up their tents) the rain drizzled. But by now, we had committed. We were doing this and at this point it would take a torrential downpour to stop us.

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

As we sat around the fire chatting and laughing we watched the rainclouds move along the mountain on the opposite side of the lake from us. Constantly being alert in case we would want to jump into the van or tents to avoid being completely soaked. A few hours passed and the moon rose shining brightly. It looked like we were in the clear. Around 8pm, one of the guys looked up at the mountain again and noticed a faint light in the sky… he and I had talked about something like this before, but I didn’t expect to ever see it. And I especially never thought I’d be in a position to take photos of it.

It was a rainbow, without the sun.

(Yes, technically, it was by the sunlight reflected off the moon, but just let me have this one okay?…)

View fullsize

View fullsize

Not only did I not know this phenomenon existed, but even if I did know I wouldn’t have expected to witness it. And the only reason I had the opportunity was because I didn’t give in to my initial, gut reaction of being pushed inside by the rain and my throbbing head. So many times in my life I have had to make seemingly unimportant decisions about things like this. The more it happens, the more I realize that even if I am absolutely miserable in the moment and am regretting my decision, once the experience is over I am almost always happy that I went. I am a firm believer that we grow more during the challenges than from the things that come easy. So, let’s reconsider more. Rather than looking at decisions based on “How do I feel about it right now?” let’s look at them in the light of “What will I learn from this? And how might I grow?”

View fullsize

Thalassophile

A few nights ago I watched a documentary on Netflix called My Octopus Teacher. It’s a very simply put together film about a South African photographer and filmmaker, Craig Foster, who, upon reaching a level of burn out, decides to go back to where he spent most of his time as a child; diving in kelp forests off the coast of South Africa. While diving he comes across an octopus in the water and the entire documentary is about his connection with the octopus and what he learns or observes from it.

Now, I don’t want to write about a movie I watched - I think this basic synopsis is more than enough - but I do want to make a few comments on the feelings it stirred in me. I’m sure many people will watch this documentary and come away thinking about how interesting the common octopus is, or maybe learn things they didn’t know about aquatic life, but for me it was something different. It wasn’t the character that affected me as much as the setting.

Back in 2014, when I lived in Hawaii, I developed a connection with water that I am still trying to understand. There was something about the sheer power of the waves at the surface, combined with the calmness underneath that completely enraptured me. Being able to sink under the chaotic surface and be completely engulfed in the life below was an escape for me. Unfortunately, due to my severe lack of gills, it was an escape that I could only experience for short periods of time which only made me crave it even more.

After leaving Hawaii in 2015 I didn’t live close by to another body of water until moving to the shores of Lake Ohrid in August 2018, and over the course of those three years I had forgotten the pull that the underwater world had for me. So that brings me back to My Octopus Teacher…

When Craig opens the film he talks about going out into the water and exploring the underwater world. He talks about the kelp being like a three dimensional forest that he can approach from any angle, almost like he is flying. He was “walk” along the forest floor, or “fly” above the treetops. These descriptions, and the visuals that accompanied them, were what brought all my memories of diving in Hawaii flooding back. And now, I live next to the deepest lakes in the Balkans and have another opportunity to chase this escape.

Sanctuary

Having lived in Albania for two years now, I have a pretty good lay of the land - especially the land surrounding Pogradec. Back in May, I bought a 4x4 van and I’ve made good use of it exploring even more of the roads that crisscross in the mountains overshadowing Lake Ohrid. That being said, there was one spot that I hadn’t taken the van yet, because I was waiting for the right opportunity.

The primary reason I hadn’t gone to this particular spot was because I wasn’t 100% sure the van could make it. You see, with just normal street tires there are some things that I won’t make an effort to try. I’ve driven most of that road before, but there’s a small section at the end that made me a bit nervous. It’s quite likely that the van could make it, but because of my limited experience driving on these roads I just didn’t want to risk getting stuck when I’m driving around alone.

However, there was another slightly smaller reason. This particular spot is a small reservoir in the hills around the village of Çervenakë (and when I say village, I mean like six or seven houses total). I was introduced to this spot by a friend and it is kind of his secluded getaway. He uses it as a retreat, or even a reward, from the normal working life. I didn’t want to go here alone, because it feels a bit sacred. I don’t want to take over his sanctuary and make it mine, so I’ve made this rule for myself to only go there if he is coming along.

So that’s why, after owning my van for the last few months, this is the first time I’ve brought it to this exact spot. As I partially expected, I made it in and out without any problems with the road, but the reward wouldn’t have been the same had I been on my own.