#437 – Jordan Jonas: Survival, Hunting, Siberia, God, and Winning Alone Season 6

0:00:03 The following is a conversation with Jordan Jonas,
0:00:08 winner of Alone Season 6, a show where the task is to survive
0:00:12 alone in the Arctic wilderness longer than anyone else.
0:00:17 He is widely considered to be one of, if not the greatest,
0:00:19 competitors on that show.
0:00:24 He has a fascinating life story that took him from a farm in Idaho
0:00:28 and hoboing on trains across America
0:00:33 to traveling with nomadic tribes in Siberia.
0:00:38 All that helped make him into a world-class explorer,
0:00:40 survivor, hunter, wilderness guide,
0:00:43 and, most importantly, a great human being
0:00:46 with a big heart and a big smile.
0:00:52 This was a truly fun and fascinating conversation.
0:00:57 Let me also mention that, at the end, after the episode,
0:00:59 I’ll start answering some questions,
0:01:01 and we’ll try to articulate my thinking
0:01:04 on some top-of-mind topics.
0:01:07 So if that’s of interest to you, keep listening
0:01:11 after the episode is over.
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0:02:01 I’ve got a chance to recently visit
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0:02:19 Maybe I’ll have a conversation with Elon soon.
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0:05:56 Every genius idea is obvious in retrospect.
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0:06:08 And from each we’ll learn.
0:06:10 And we always rise.
0:06:12 That’s the fascinating thing about us humans.
0:06:16 We’ll always survive, we’ll always find a way.
0:06:20 That’s actually one of the central kernels
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0:06:45 And actually back to capitalism
0:06:46 because once again,
0:06:49 business is at the core of the capitalist machine.
0:06:53 I find that there is various communities now
0:06:55 that dedicate themselves
0:07:00 to rigorously analyzing the failures of capitalism
0:07:01 at the edges.
0:07:03 But in those communities that in general
0:07:06 we don’t often celebrate the positive impacts,
0:07:10 the positive metrics over time
0:07:13 that capitalism has resulted in in society.
0:07:17 And I think just the number of people living in poverty
0:07:19 decreasing drastically under regimes
0:07:24 that enable free markets should serve as a inspiring notion
0:07:29 for anyone who wants to build a business
0:07:32 for the very fact that humans build businesses,
0:07:34 that we together keep trying.
0:07:35 It’s the craziest thing.
0:07:38 To start a business is the craziest idea
0:07:40 ’cause most likely you’re going to fail.
0:07:43 It really is the stupidest possible thing
0:07:45 except it is not.
0:07:47 Except that dream is the very engine
0:07:49 that enables progress.
0:07:53 So I’m a big fan of startups of small businesses
0:07:56 and grateful that humans take the risk
0:07:58 and I’m grateful that humans find a way.
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0:08:35 But yes, you have to consume a large amount
0:08:37 of electrolytes before and after
0:08:39 to make sure I’m feeling good.
0:08:41 One of these days I should probably run a marathon.
0:08:44 But I don’t run for time, I don’t run to a destination,
0:08:48 I don’t run because I have to or even,
0:08:51 I don’t really run for exercise sake.
0:08:56 I run so I can think clearly and contend
0:08:59 with the heavier of my thoughts.
0:09:01 Because when I’m out there just by myself,
0:09:04 whether no sound or brown noise in my ears,
0:09:06 I get to really think.
0:09:08 There’s something about sort of physical challenge,
0:09:10 especially the higher pace,
0:09:12 where I start getting uncomfortable
0:09:15 and the uncomfortable thoughts rise up
0:09:19 and I get to think and I get to face those thoughts
0:09:21 and either meditate them away
0:09:25 or try to figure out what is the kernel of the thing
0:09:27 that disturbs me about those thoughts?
0:09:29 What is it so uncomfortable?
0:09:32 What is the thing that causes anxiety?
0:09:33 This could be everything
0:09:36 from intellectual philosophical type thoughts, technical,
0:09:38 design, engineering challenges
0:09:41 or just personal life stuff, all of it.
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0:11:08 And now, dear friends, here’s Jordan Jonas.
0:11:12 (gentle music)
0:11:27 – You won a loan season six.
0:11:31 And I think are still considered to be one of,
0:11:34 if not the most successful survivor on that show.
0:11:35 So let’s go back.
0:11:37 Let’s look at the big picture.
0:11:39 Can you tell me about the show alone?
0:11:40 How does it work?
0:11:45 – Yeah, it’s a show where they take 10 individuals
0:11:48 and each person gets 10 items off of the list.
0:11:52 You know, basic items would be an ax, a saw, a frying pan,
0:11:54 you know, some pretty basic stuff.
0:11:56 And then they send them all,
0:11:58 drop them off all in the woods with a few cameras.
0:12:01 And so the people are actually alone.
0:12:03 There’s not a crew or anything.
0:12:07 And then you basically live there as long as you can,
0:12:10 you know, and so the person that lasts the longest,
0:12:13 you know, once the second place person taps out,
0:12:16 they come and get you and that individual wins.
0:12:20 So it’s a pretty legit challenge, you know,
0:12:23 they drop you off, helicopter flies out,
0:12:25 and you’re not gonna get your next meal
0:12:27 until you make it happen.
0:12:28 So you have to figure out the shelter,
0:12:30 you have to figure out the source of food,
0:12:32 and then it gets colder and colder
0:12:34 ’cause I guess they drop you out in a moment
0:12:36 where it’s going into the winter.
0:12:39 – Yeah, they typically do it in temperate,
0:12:40 colder climates, things like that.
0:12:43 And they start in September, October,
0:12:45 so the time’s ticking when they drop you off.
0:12:48 And yeah, the pressure’s on.
0:12:51 You know, you get overwhelmed with all the things
0:12:52 you have to do right away.
0:12:54 Like, oh man, I’m not gonna eat again
0:12:56 until I actually shoot or catch something.
0:12:58 Got to build a shelter, it’s pretty overwhelming.
0:13:00 Figure your whole location out,
0:13:03 but it’s interesting ’cause once you’re there a little while,
0:13:07 you kind of get into a, at least for me it did,
0:13:09 there was like a week, or maybe not a week,
0:13:13 but that I was kind of a little more annoyed with things,
0:13:16 you know, it’s like, oh, my sight sucks, sucks.
0:13:18 And then you kind of accept it.
0:13:20 Like, you know what, it is what it is.
0:13:23 No amount of complaining is gonna do anybody any good.
0:13:26 So I’m just gonna make it happen.
0:13:28 So then, or, you know, do my best too.
0:13:29 And then I felt like I got in a zone
0:13:32 and I felt like I was right back in kind of Siberia
0:13:36 or in that headspace and I found I actually really enjoyed it.
0:13:39 I had been a little bit out of, I guess you call it the game,
0:13:44 ’cause I had had a child and so when we had our daughter,
0:13:47 we came back to the States and then a bunch of things happened
0:13:50 and I just ended up, we didn’t end up going back to Russia.
0:13:52 So it had been a couple of years that I was just,
0:13:54 you know, we were raising the little girl and boy then
0:13:56 and then– So you’ve gotten a little soft.
0:13:58 So I was like, did I got a little soft?
0:14:00 (laughing)
0:14:03 But then it was fun how like after just some days there,
0:14:06 I was like, oh man, I feel like I’m at home now.
0:14:08 And then it was like, you’re kind of in that flow state.
0:14:10 And it was– Actually, there’s a few moments
0:14:13 like when you left the ladder up or with the moose
0:14:15 that you kind of screwed up a little bit.
0:14:16 Oh yeah.
0:14:19 How do you go from that moment of like frustration
0:14:21 to the moment of acceptance?
0:14:24 I mean, the more you put yourself in life
0:14:27 in positions that are kind of outside your comfort zone
0:14:31 or push your abilities, the more often you’re gonna screw up
0:14:34 and then the more opportunity you have to learn from that.
0:14:36 And then to be honest, it’s kind of funny,
0:14:41 but you almost get to a position where you don’t feel
0:14:43 that uncomfortable, it’s not unexpected.
0:14:45 You know, you kind of expect you’re gonna mess up here
0:14:46 and there.
0:14:50 I remember particularly with the moose,
0:14:53 the first moose I saw, I had a great shot at it,
0:14:55 but I had a hard time judging distance
0:14:59 because it was in a mud flat, which means it’s hard to–
0:15:00 it’s hard to tell yardage, you know,
0:15:03 because you usually typically go in by trees or markers,
0:15:06 be like, oh, I’m probably 30 yards away.
0:15:09 This was a giant moose and he was 40-something yards away.
0:15:11 And I estimated that he was 30-something yards away,
0:15:15 so I was way off and shot and dropped between his legs.
0:15:17 And then I realized I had not grabbed my quiver,
0:15:19 so I only had one shot and I just watched him
0:15:21 turn around and walk off.
0:15:24 But I was struck initially with, like,
0:15:28 I actually noticed how un-mad I was.
0:15:30 I was like, oh, this is actually, I was like,
0:15:32 that was awesome, I was like seeing a dinosaur,
0:15:32 that was really cool.
0:15:34 And then I was like, oh, what an idiot, how’d I miss?
0:15:37 But then I was like, but it made me that much more determined
0:15:40 to make it happen again.
0:15:44 It was like, okay, nobody’s gonna make this happen
0:15:46 except myself, can’t complain.
0:15:47 It wouldn’t have done me any good to go back
0:15:48 and mope about it.
0:15:50 And so then I was like, I had a thought.
0:15:54 I was like, oh, I remember the native guys telling me
0:15:57 they used to build these giant fences and funnel game
0:15:59 into certain areas and stuff.
0:16:01 And I was like, man, that’s a lot of calories,
0:16:03 but I have to make that happen again now.
0:16:07 So I kind of went out there and tried that.
0:16:09 And that was kind of an attempt at something too
0:16:10 it could have failed or not worked,
0:16:12 but sure enough, it worked.
0:16:15 And the opportunity came again.
0:16:18 The moose came wandering along and I was able to get it.
0:16:21 But being able to take failure as soon as you can,
0:16:24 the better, accept it and then learn from it
0:16:28 is kind of a muscle you have to exercise a little bit.
0:16:29 – What’s interesting, ’cause in this case,
0:16:33 the cost of failure is like, you’re not gonna be able to eat.
0:16:35 – Yeah, that was really interesting.
0:16:39 I mean, the most interesting thing about that show
0:16:40 was how high the stakes fell.
0:16:42 ‘Cause it didn’t feel…
0:16:43 You didn’t tell yourself you’re on a show,
0:16:44 at least I didn’t.
0:16:46 You just felt like you’re gonna starve to death
0:16:47 if you don’t make this happen.
0:16:50 And so the stakes felt so high.
0:16:55 And it was an interesting thing to tap into
0:16:57 because I mean, so many of our ancestors
0:16:59 probably all just dealt with that on a regular basis,
0:17:03 but it’s something that we’re all the modern amenities
0:17:06 and such and food security that we don’t deal with.
0:17:10 And it was interesting to tap into what a,
0:17:12 kind of a peak mental experience that is
0:17:16 when you really, really need something to survive.
0:17:18 And then it happens, you can’t imagine.
0:17:22 I mean, that’s what all our dopamine and receptors
0:17:24 are tuned for that experience in particular.
0:17:27 So it was, yeah, it was pretty awesome,
0:17:30 but the pressure felt very on.
0:17:35 Like I always felt the pressure of providing or starving.
0:17:36 – And then there’s the situation
0:17:40 when you left the ladder up and you needed fat.
0:17:43 And what is it, the ovary needs some of the fat?
0:17:47 – Yeah, well, when I got the moose, I was so happy.
0:17:50 The most joy I could almost experience maxed out.
0:17:55 But I didn’t think I won at that point.
0:17:58 I never thought like, oh, that’s my ticket to victory.
0:18:00 I thought, holy crap, it’s gonna be me
0:18:02 against somebody else that gets a moose now.
0:18:04 And we’re gonna be here six, eight months.
0:18:05 Who knows how long.
0:18:08 And so I can’t be here six, eight months and still lose.
0:18:09 So I’ve got to like,
0:18:12 I’ve got to outproduce somebody else with a moose.
0:18:14 So I had all that in my head.
0:18:16 And I already was of course pretty thin.
0:18:19 And so I was just like, man, somebody else gets a moose.
0:18:20 I’m still gonna be behind.
0:18:23 And so everything felt like precious to me.
0:18:25 And then I had found a plastic jug
0:18:27 and I put a whole bunch of the moose’s fat
0:18:30 in this plastic jug and set it up on a little shelf.
0:18:31 I thought, you know what, if a bear comes,
0:18:34 I’ll probably hear it and I’ll come out and be like, shoot it.
0:18:36 So I went to sleep and I woke up the next morning
0:18:39 and I went out and I was like, where’s that jug?
0:18:42 And then I was like, wait, what are all these prints?
0:18:44 And I started looking around
0:18:46 and it took a second to don on me
0:18:49 ’cause I haven’t interacted with wolverines very often in life.
0:18:53 And I was like, oh, those are wolverine tracks.
0:18:55 And he was just so much sneakier than a bear
0:18:55 would have been or something.
0:18:56 So it kind of surprised me.
0:18:59 And he took off with that jug of fat.
0:19:02 And so then I went from feeling pretty good about myself
0:19:04 to like, now I’m losing again against whoever,
0:19:06 you know, this other person is with a moose.
0:19:10 So I, again, kind of the pressure came back to,
0:19:12 oh no, I got to produce again.
0:19:15 It wasn’t the end of the world.
0:19:17 And I think they may have exaggerated a little bit
0:19:19 how little fat I had left.
0:19:21 You know, I still have, a moose has a lot of fat,
0:19:25 but it did make me feel like I was at a disadvantage again.
0:19:28 And so, yeah, that was pretty intense
0:19:32 ’cause those wolverines, they’re bold little animals
0:19:35 and he was basically saying, no, this is my moose.
0:19:37 (laughing)
0:19:40 And I had to counter his claims.
0:19:42 – Well, yeah, they’re really, really smart.
0:19:45 They figure out a way to get to places really effectively.
0:19:48 Wolverines are like fastening in that way.
0:19:52 So let’s go to that happy moment, the moose.
0:19:55 You are the first and one of the only contestants
0:19:57 to have ever killed a moose on the show,
0:20:01 a big game animal with a bow and arrow.
0:20:02 So this is day 20.
0:20:05 So can you take me through the kill?
0:20:07 – Yeah, so I had missed one and I just decided,
0:20:09 I’m not here to starve.
0:20:12 I’m here to like try to become sustainable.
0:20:13 So I was like, I don’t care if it’s a risk.
0:20:14 I’m gonna build that fence.
0:20:16 I built it.
0:20:19 I would just pick berries and call moose every day.
0:20:20 And it was actually a pretty pleasant
0:20:22 just sitting a berry patch and call moose.
0:20:24 (laughing)
0:20:25 But then I also had this whole trap
0:20:27 and snare line set out everywhere.
0:20:31 So I had all these, I was getting rabbits.
0:20:36 But, and I was actually taking a rabbit out of a snare
0:20:38 when I heard a clank
0:20:40 ’cause I had set up kind of an alarm system
0:20:43 with string and cans, so.
0:20:44 – It was a brilliant idea.
0:20:46 – Yeah, another thing that could have not worked,
0:20:48 but it worked. (laughing)
0:20:50 And it came through.
0:20:52 And I was like, oh, I heard the cans clank
0:20:52 and I was like, no way.
0:20:55 And so I ran over, I didn’t know what it was exactly,
0:20:57 but something was coming along the fence.
0:20:59 And I ran over and jumped in the bush
0:21:01 next to the funnel exit on the fence.
0:21:04 And sure enough, the big moose came running up.
0:21:07 And you know, your heart gets pounding like crazy.
0:21:08 You’re just like, no way, no way.
0:21:10 I probably could have waited a little longer
0:21:12 and had a perfect broadside shot,
0:21:17 but I took the shot when he was pretty close,
0:21:20 like 24 yards, but he was quartering towards me,
0:21:21 which makes it a little harder
0:21:24 to make a perfect kill shot.
0:21:27 And so I hit it and it took off running.
0:21:31 And I just thought, you know, I was super excited.
0:21:33 I couldn’t believe I actually, you know,
0:21:34 I was like, oh my gosh, I got the moose.
0:21:36 I think that was a really good shot.
0:21:38 You get all excited.
0:21:39 But then it plays back in your head.
0:21:43 And particularly when you’re first learning to hunt,
0:21:45 there’s always an animal that gets away, you know,
0:21:47 and you like make a bad decision
0:21:50 or not a great shot or something.
0:21:52 And it’s just part of it.
0:21:55 And so of course you’re like,
0:21:58 I’m not gonna be satisfied until I see this thing.
0:22:01 So I followed the blood trail a little while
0:22:02 and I saw some bubbly blood,
0:22:04 which meant it was hitting the lungs,
0:22:06 which meant it’s not gonna live.
0:22:07 You know, you’ll get it.
0:22:09 And so as long as you don’t mess it up.
0:22:12 And so I went back to my shelter and waited an hour.
0:22:13 I skimmed to that rabbit that had caught
0:22:17 and then super nervous, the slowest hour ever.
0:22:20 And then I followed it along,
0:22:21 ended up losing the blood trail.
0:22:23 I was like, no, no.
0:22:26 And then I was like, well, if there’s no blood,
0:22:28 I’m just gonna follow the path that I would go
0:22:29 if I was a moose, you know,
0:22:31 like the least resistance through the woods.
0:22:34 So I followed kind of along the shore there
0:22:36 and sure enough, I saw him up there.
0:22:38 Oh, you know, that was so excited.
0:22:42 Lay down, but he hadn’t died yet.
0:22:46 And so he just sat there and he would stand up
0:22:49 and I would just like, no, no, no, no.
0:22:51 And he would lay back down and he was like, yes.
0:22:52 And then he would stand up.
0:22:55 And it was like that for, you know,
0:22:57 a couple hours that took him.
0:22:58 And then finally at one point,
0:23:00 I, you know, and a lot of people have asked like,
0:23:02 why wouldn’t you go finish it off?
0:23:05 So when an animal like that gets hit,
0:23:06 it had no idea what hit it.
0:23:08 You know, just all of a sudden it’s like, ah,
0:23:10 something got it and it ran off and it lays down
0:23:12 and it’s actually fairly calm
0:23:14 and it doesn’t really know what’s going on.
0:23:16 And if you can leave it in that state,
0:23:17 it’ll kind of just bleed out
0:23:19 and it’s as peaceful as possible.
0:23:22 If you go chase after it,
0:23:24 that’s when you lose an animal.
0:23:26 ‘Cause as soon as it knows it’s being hunted,
0:23:27 you know, it gets panicked,
0:23:29 adrenaline and it can just run and run and run
0:23:31 and you’ll never find it.
0:23:33 So I didn’t want it to see me.
0:23:35 I knew if I tried to get it with another arrow,
0:23:36 there’s a chance I could have finished it off,
0:23:39 but there’s also a not bad chance
0:23:42 that it would see me take off or even attack
0:23:44 ’cause moose can be a little dangerous.
0:23:46 And so I just chose to wait it out.
0:23:49 And at one point it stood up and fell over
0:23:52 and I could tell it had died and walked over,
0:23:55 like you actually touch it and you’re just like,
0:23:57 whoa, no way.
0:23:59 Like that whole burden of weeks
0:24:01 of you’re gonna starve, you’re gonna starve.
0:24:03 And it got rid of that demon.
0:24:06 To be honest, it’s one of the happiest moments of my life.
0:24:08 It’s really hard to replicate that joy
0:24:10 because it was just so, so real.
0:24:13 You’re so directly connected to your needs.
0:24:15 It’s all so simple, you know?
0:24:20 It was a peak experience for sure.
0:24:23 – And were you worried that it would take many more hours
0:24:24 and would take it into the night?
0:24:25 – Yeah, I was.
0:24:27 I mean, until you actually have your hands on it,
0:24:29 I was worried the whole time.
0:24:31 It’s a pretty nerve-wracking period there
0:24:34 between when you get it and when you actually
0:24:36 recover the animal, get your hands on it.
0:24:40 So it took longer than I wanted, but I finally got it.
0:24:43 – Can you actually speak to the kill shot itself
0:24:44 just for people who don’t hunt?
0:24:45 – Yeah.
0:24:47 – Like what it takes to stay calm,
0:24:51 to not freak out too much, to like wait,
0:24:52 but not wait too long.
0:24:53 – Yeah, yeah.
0:24:55 I mean, another thing about hunting
0:24:56 is that for every animal you get,
0:24:59 you probably don’t get nine or 10
0:25:03 that just turned the wrong way when you were drawn back
0:25:04 or went way behind a tree
0:25:06 or you never had a clean shot or whatever it is.
0:25:10 And so every time you can see a moment come
0:25:13 and your heart really starts beating
0:25:16 and you have to like breathe through it.
0:25:19 You can almost feel the nervousness of it.
0:25:22 And then you just try to stay calm,
0:25:23 you know, like whatever you do,
0:25:27 just try to stay calm, wait for it to come up,
0:25:29 draw back, you’ve practiced shooting a lot.
0:25:31 So you have like kind of a technique,
0:25:34 like I’m gonna go back, touch my face,
0:25:37 draw my elbow tight and then the arrow’s gonna let loose.
0:25:38 – It’s a muscle memory most of the time.
0:25:40 – It’s kind of muscle memory.
0:25:43 You have a little trigger, like draw that elbow tight
0:25:48 and then it happens and then you just watch the arrow
0:25:48 and see where it goes.
0:25:52 Now with the animal, you know, you try to do it ethically.
0:25:54 That is like make as good of a shot as you can.
0:25:58 Make sure it is either hit in the heart or both lungs.
0:26:01 And when that happens, it’s a pretty quick death,
0:26:03 which is death is a part of life.
0:26:04 And but honestly, for a wild animal,
0:26:07 that’s probably the best way to go they could have.
0:26:12 Now when a animal’s kind of walking towards you,
0:26:15 if it’s walking towards you, but not directly towards you,
0:26:17 that’s what you call quartering towards you.
0:26:19 You can picture it’s actually pretty difficult
0:26:22 to hit both lungs because the shoulder blade
0:26:23 and all that bone is in the way.
0:26:27 So you wanna, so you have to make a perfect shot
0:26:28 to get them both.
0:26:29 And to be honest, when I took my shot,
0:26:32 I was a couple inches or a few inches right.
0:26:35 And so it went through the first lung
0:26:38 and then it sunk the arrow all the way into the moose.
0:26:42 But it didn’t, it allowed that second lung to stay breathing,
0:26:45 which meant the moose stayed alive longer.
0:26:47 – What’s your relationship with the animal
0:26:48 in this situation like that?
0:26:50 You said death is a part of life.
0:26:51 – Yeah, that’s an interesting thought
0:26:55 because no matter what your relationship to,
0:26:58 however you choose to go through life,
0:27:00 whether you know, whatever you eat, whatever you do,
0:27:04 death is a part of life.
0:27:06 You know, like every animal that’s out there
0:27:09 is living off of a dead, even plants.
0:27:11 You know, it’s all, we’re all part of this ecosystem.
0:27:13 I think it’s really easy in a,
0:27:15 particularly in an urban environment,
0:27:19 but anywhere to think that we’re separate from the ecosystem.
0:27:21 But we are very much a part of it.
0:27:25 Whether it be, you know, farming requires, you know,
0:27:28 all this habitat to be turned into growing soybeans
0:27:31 and da-da-da-da, and when you get the plows and the combines,
0:27:33 you know, you’re losing all kinds of different animals
0:27:36 and all kinds of potential habitat.
0:27:38 So it’s not cost-free.
0:27:40 And so when you realize that,
0:27:42 then you want to produce the food
0:27:46 and the things you need in an ethical manner.
0:27:51 So I, so for me, hunting plays a really major role in that.
0:27:55 Like I literally know how many animals a year
0:27:57 it takes to feed my family and myself.
0:27:59 I actually know the exact number, you know,
0:28:02 and it’s like, and I know what the cost of that is.
0:28:04 And I’m aware of it because I’m out in the woods
0:28:07 and I see these like beautiful elk and moose.
0:28:10 And I really love the species, love the animals.
0:28:15 But there is a fact that one of those individuals,
0:28:17 you know, is going to have to feed me.
0:28:20 And I, and particularly like on a loan,
0:28:22 it was very heightened that experience.
0:28:27 So I shot that one animal and I was so, so thankful,
0:28:29 you know, that I wanted to give that big guy a hug
0:28:33 and like, “Hey, sorry, it was you, but had to be something.”
0:28:36 – Yeah, there’s that picture of you just almost hugging it.
0:28:39 – Right, right, totally.
0:28:41 – And you can also think about the calories,
0:28:44 the protein, the fat, all of that,
0:28:46 that comes from that, that will feed you.
0:28:47 – Right, you’re so grateful for it.
0:28:52 Like the gratitude is like, you know, definitely there.
0:28:54 – What about the bow and arrow perspective?
0:28:55 – Well, when you hunt with a bow,
0:28:58 you just get so much more up close to the animals.
0:29:02 You know, you can’t just get it from 600 yards away.
0:29:06 You actually have to sneak in within 30 or so yards.
0:29:09 And when you do that,
0:29:11 the experiences you have are just,
0:29:13 they’re way more dragged out.
0:29:14 So, you know, your heart’s beating longer,
0:29:17 you have to control your nerves longer,
0:29:19 more often than not, it doesn’t go your way
0:29:21 and the thing gets away and, you know,
0:29:23 you’ve been hiking around in the woods for a week
0:29:27 and then your opportunity arises and floats away.
0:29:29 (laughs)
0:29:32 No, and then, but at the same time,
0:29:35 that’s the only time when you like really have
0:29:36 those interactions with the animals,
0:29:38 where you got this bugling bull, you know,
0:29:41 like tearing at the trees right in front of you
0:29:45 and other cow, elk and animals running around.
0:29:49 You know, you end up having really,
0:29:52 I don’t know, there’s intimate experiences
0:29:55 with the animal just because you’re in it.
0:29:57 You’re kind of in its world, you’re playing its game.
0:29:59 It has its senses to defend itself
0:30:02 and you have your wit to try to get over those.
0:30:05 And it really becomes, you know, it’s not easy.
0:30:09 They’re not, it becomes kind of that chess game
0:30:13 and those prey animals are always tuned in.
0:30:15 It’s, you know, slightest stick there,
0:30:17 looking for wolves or for whatever it is.
0:30:21 So, there’s something really pure and fun about it.
0:30:24 You know, I will say, there is an aspect that is fun.
0:30:24 There’s no denying it.
0:30:28 It’s like how we’re, you know,
0:30:30 people have been hunting forever
0:30:34 and I think it speaks to that part of us somehow.
0:30:37 But, and I think our bow hunting
0:30:40 is probably the most pure form of it
0:30:42 and that you get those experiences more often
0:30:44 than with a rifle.
0:30:47 So, I don’t know, I enjoy it a lot.
0:30:50 And the way they do regulations and such,
0:30:54 kind of the best times to hunt are usually allowed for bow
0:30:57 because they’re trying to, you know,
0:30:59 keep it fair for the animal and such.
0:31:02 So, the distance, the close distance
0:31:05 makes you more in touch with sort of
0:31:09 the natural way of the predator and prey.
0:31:12 You just wanna, you know, one of the predators
0:31:15 where you have to be clever, you have to be quiet,
0:31:18 you have to be calm, you have to, all of that.
0:31:23 And the full challenge and the luck involved in catching it.
0:31:25 The same thing as the predators do.
0:31:27 Exactly, how many times do they snap a stick
0:31:31 and watch them run off and like, darn, my stock was failed.
0:31:34 Or, you know, so, yeah, you’re just,
0:31:37 you’re in that ecosystem.
0:31:39 How’d you learn to shoot the bow?
0:31:41 So, yeah, I didn’t grow up hunting.
0:31:44 I grew up in an area that a lot of people hunted,
0:31:46 but my dad wasn’t really into it.
0:31:47 And so, I never got into it until,
0:31:49 until I lived in Russia with the natives.
0:31:51 It was just such a part of everything we did
0:31:54 and a part of our life that when I came back,
0:31:58 I got a bow and I started doing archery in Virginia.
0:32:00 They had, it was a pretty easy way to hunt
0:32:02 ’cause the deer were overpopulated
0:32:04 and you could get these urban archery permits.
0:32:08 So, they’ll go out and, you know, every couple of days
0:32:11 you’d have an opportunity to shoot a deer
0:32:12 that they needed population control.
0:32:13 And so, there were a lot of them
0:32:16 and it gave you a lot of opportunities to learn quickly.
0:32:18 So, that’s what got me into it.
0:32:20 And then I found I really enjoyed it.
0:32:23 Do you practice with the target also or just practice out?
0:32:26 Oh, no, I would definitely practice with the target a lot.
0:32:28 You want to, again, you kind of have an obligation
0:32:31 to do your best ’cause you don’t want to be flinging arrows
0:32:33 into like the leg of an animal.
0:32:34 And it’s a cool way, honestly,
0:32:36 to provide quality meat for the family.
0:32:40 You know, it’s all raised naturally and wild and free
0:32:41 until you bring it home into the freezer.
0:32:46 So, if we stop back, what are the 10 items you brought
0:32:48 and what’s actually the challenge
0:32:50 of figuring out which items to bring?
0:32:52 Yeah, the challenge is that you don’t exactly know
0:32:54 what your site’s opportunities are going to be.
0:32:55 So, you don’t really know.
0:32:57 Should I bring a fishing net?
0:32:59 Am I going to even have a spot to net or not?
0:33:01 And things like that.
0:33:06 I brought a axe, a saw, a leatherman wave,
0:33:11 ferro rod, this is like a mixed sparks to start a fire,
0:33:16 a frying pan, a sleeping bag, a fishing kit,
0:33:22 a bow and arrow, trapping wire and paracord.
0:33:25 And so those are my 10 items.
0:33:28 Is there any regrets, any…
0:33:29 No major regrets.
0:33:32 I took the saw kind of,
0:33:35 I thought it would be more of a calorie saver
0:33:38 than I didn’t really need it.
0:33:39 In hindsight, if I was doing, you know,
0:33:42 season seven instead of six and got to watch,
0:33:44 I would have taken the net
0:33:46 ’cause I just planned to make a net,
0:33:48 but I would have rather just had two nets,
0:33:50 brought one and left the saw
0:33:52 because in the Northern wards in particular,
0:33:55 every tree is, you know, the size of your arm or leg,
0:33:57 you can chop it down with an axe and a couple swings.
0:34:00 Yeah, yeah, you don’t really need the saw.
0:34:02 And so it was handy at times and useful,
0:34:04 but I think it was my,
0:34:06 if I had to do nine items,
0:34:08 I would have been just fine without the saw.
0:34:12 So two nets would just expand your…
0:34:13 Food gathering potential.
0:34:18 And then in terms of trapping,
0:34:20 you were okay with just the little you brought?
0:34:22 The snare wire was good.
0:34:24 I ran some, you know, I put out,
0:34:26 I used all my snare wire.
0:34:28 I ran Trap Line,
0:34:31 which is just a series of traps
0:34:33 through the woods and brush.
0:34:35 Every place you see sign, put a snare,
0:34:37 put a little mark on the tree
0:34:38 so I knew where that snare was
0:34:41 and just make these paths through the woods.
0:34:42 And I put out, you know,
0:34:44 I don’t know how many, 150, 200 snares.
0:34:48 So every day I’d get a rabbit or two out of them.
0:34:50 And then I had a lot of rabbits,
0:34:53 but once I got the moose,
0:34:55 I actually took all those snares down
0:34:56 ’cause I didn’t want to catch anything needlessly.
0:34:58 And when you come to find out,
0:35:00 you can’t live off of rabbits.
0:35:03 Man cannot live off a rabbit alone, it turns out.
0:35:06 So you set up a huge number of traps.
0:35:09 You were also fishing
0:35:14 and then always on the lookout for moose.
0:35:14 – Yeah.
0:35:17 – So like what’s in terms of survival,
0:35:19 if you were to do it over again,
0:35:20 over and over and over and over,
0:35:25 like how do you maximize your chance
0:35:27 of having the food to survive for a long time?
0:35:29 – You have to be really adaptable
0:35:31 because everything’s gonna,
0:35:32 it’s always gonna look different,
0:35:33 your situation, your location.
0:35:34 I actually had a,
0:35:37 what I thought was a pretty good plan going into a loan.
0:35:40 Then it just, you know,
0:35:42 the location didn’t allow for what I thought it would.
0:35:43 – What was the plan?
0:35:46 – Well, I thought I would just catch a bunch of fish
0:35:48 ’cause I’m on a really good fishing lake.
0:35:49 I’d catch a whole bunch of fish
0:35:51 and let them rot for a little while
0:35:53 and then just drag them all through the woods
0:35:56 into a big pile and then hunt a bear
0:35:58 on that big fish pile.
0:36:00 – Yeah, yeah.
0:36:01 – That was the plan.
0:36:03 And I thought, but when I got there,
0:36:06 for one, I had a hard time catching fish off the bat.
0:36:08 You know, they didn’t come like I was hoping.
0:36:11 And then for two, it had burned prior.
0:36:12 So there were no berries.
0:36:14 And so there were very few berries,
0:36:17 which meant there weren’t grouse, there weren’t bear.
0:36:17 There weren’t, you know,
0:36:20 they had all gone to other places where the berries were.
0:36:24 And so what I had grown accustomed to
0:36:27 kind of relying on in Siberia wasn’t there.
0:36:29 There, you know, so in Russia,
0:36:31 which was a similar environment,
0:36:33 it was just grouse and berries and fish
0:36:34 and grouse and berries and fish.
0:36:36 And then occasionally, you know,
0:36:37 you get a moose or something.
0:36:39 But I had to reassess,
0:36:41 which was part of me being grumpy at the start.
0:36:43 I was like, God, this place sucks.
0:36:48 And then, once I reassessed and, you know,
0:36:50 right away, I saw that there were moose tracks and such.
0:36:53 So I just started the plan for that.
0:36:58 I moved my camp into an area that was as removed
0:37:00 as I could be from where all the action is,
0:37:01 where the tracks were,
0:37:03 so that I wasn’t disturbing animal patterns.
0:37:05 I made sure the wind, the predominant wind,
0:37:09 was blowing out my scent to sea or, you know, to the water.
0:37:12 And then really, to be honest,
0:37:14 if you wanna actually survive somewhere,
0:37:18 is different than alone, but you do have to be active.
0:37:20 And it has to, you’re gonna have to,
0:37:21 you’re not gonna live,
0:37:24 you’re not gonna be sustainable by, you know, starving it out.
0:37:28 You’d have to unlock the key that is sustainability.
0:37:29 And I think there’s a lot of areas
0:37:31 that still have that potential,
0:37:32 but you have to figure out what it is.
0:37:34 It’s usually gonna be a combination of fishing,
0:37:36 you know, trapping and then hunting.
0:37:38 And then once you have some fishing and trapping,
0:37:41 it’ll get you until you have some success hunting.
0:37:43 And then that’ll buy you three or four months of time
0:37:47 to continue, you know, to keep hunting again.
0:37:49 And you just have to roll off of that.
0:37:52 But every, you know, depends on where you are,
0:37:54 what opportunities are there.
0:37:55 – So okay, so that’s the process,
0:37:58 fishing and trapping until you’re successful hunting.
0:38:02 And then the successful hunt buys you some more time.
0:38:03 – Right, right.
0:38:04 – And just go year-round.
0:38:05 – And then you just go year-round like that.
0:38:08 And that’s how people did it forever.
0:38:10 And the pressure, I noticed that, you know,
0:38:12 you got that moose and then you’re happy for a week or so.
0:38:15 And then you start to be like, you know, this is finite.
0:38:17 I’m gonna have to do this again.
0:38:18 And you imagine if you had a family
0:38:21 that was gonna starve if you weren’t successful,
0:38:22 you know, this next time.
0:38:25 And there’s just always that pressure, you know,
0:38:27 it made me really like appreciate
0:38:30 the amount of what people had to deal with.
0:38:32 – Well, in terms of being active,
0:38:34 like so you have to do stuff all day.
0:38:37 So you get up and planning.
0:38:41 Like when am I gonna, in the midst of the frustration,
0:38:43 you have to figure out, like what’s the strategy?
0:38:46 Like how do you put up all the traps?
0:38:46 Is that a decision?
0:38:49 Like, you know, most people like sit at their desk
0:38:51 and have like a calendar.
0:38:53 Are you like figuring out like–
0:38:56 – One thing about wilderness life in general
0:38:58 is it’s remarkably less scheduled
0:39:01 than anything we deal with.
0:39:04 Schedules are fairly unique to the modern context.
0:39:06 So you’d wake up and you just sort of,
0:39:11 you have a, you know, confluence of things you wanna do,
0:39:13 things you need to do, things you should do.
0:39:15 And you just kind of tackle them
0:39:18 as you see fit as it flows in, you know?
0:39:20 So, and that’s actually one of the things
0:39:22 that people really, that I really appreciate
0:39:24 about that lifestyle is it really is,
0:39:26 you’re kind of in that flow.
0:39:28 And so I’d wake up and be like,
0:39:31 maybe I’ll go fishing and then I’ll wander over and fish.
0:39:34 And then I’d be like, I’m gonna go check the trap line,
0:39:38 add every day, if I add five or 10 snares,
0:39:39 you know, you’re constantly adding
0:39:41 to your productive potential.
0:39:44 And then, but nothing’s really scheduled.
0:39:47 You’re just kind of flying by the seat of your pants.
0:39:50 – But then there’s a lot of instinct
0:39:51 that’s already loaded in. – Oh, there’s so much, yeah.
0:39:53 – Like you already just like wisdom
0:39:55 from all the times you’ve had to do it before.
0:39:58 You’re just actually operating a lot on instinct.
0:40:00 Like you said, where to find, to place the shelter.
0:40:02 Like how hard is that calculation,
0:40:03 where to place the shelter?
0:40:05 – If you’re like dropped off,
0:40:06 and this is all new to you, of course,
0:40:08 all those things are gonna be things
0:40:10 you have to really think through and plan.
0:40:11 When you’re thinking about a shelter,
0:40:14 you have to think of, oh, here’s a nice flat spot.
0:40:15 You know, that’s a good place.
0:40:17 But also, is there firewood nearby?
0:40:18 And if I’m gonna be here for months,
0:40:20 is there enough firewood that I’m not gonna be walking
0:40:22 half a mile to get a dry piece of wood?
0:40:24 Is the water nearby?
0:40:27 Is there, is it somewhat open,
0:40:30 but also protected from the elements?
0:40:32 ‘Cause sometimes you get a beautiful spot.
0:40:33 It was great on a calm day.
0:40:35 And then the wind comes, like (blows air)
0:40:37 And so there’s all these factors, you know,
0:40:42 even down to taking in what game is doing in the area also
0:40:44 and how that relates to where your shelter is.
0:40:45 – You said you have to consider
0:40:46 where the action will be.
0:40:48 And you wanna be away from the action,
0:40:49 but close enough to it.
0:40:50 – To see it.
0:40:51 Yeah, you wanna be, yeah, right.
0:40:54 And so ideally, you know,
0:40:56 and it depends, you’re always gonna make given takes.
0:40:58 And one thing with shelters
0:41:00 and location selection and stuff,
0:41:03 it’s another thing you just have to trust your ability
0:41:04 to adapt in that situation.
0:41:07 Because everybody has a particular, you know,
0:41:09 he got an idea of a shelter you’re gonna build,
0:41:09 but then you get there
0:41:11 and maybe there’s a good cliff that you can incorporate,
0:41:14 you know, and then you just become creative.
0:41:16 And that’s a really fun process too,
0:41:19 to just allow your creativity to try to flourish in it.
0:41:21 – What kind of shelters are there?
0:41:24 – There’s all kinds of philosophies on shelters,
0:41:27 which is fun, people, it’s fun to see people
0:41:28 try different things.
0:41:30 Mine was fairly basic for the simple reason
0:41:34 that I lived, you know, winters through winters
0:41:35 in Siberia in a teepee.
0:41:39 So I knew I didn’t need like anything too robust.
0:41:41 As long as I had calories, I’d be warm.
0:41:43 And I wasn’t particularly worried about the cold.
0:41:49 But you’ll see, so I kept my shelter really pretty simple
0:41:52 with the idea that I built a simple A-frame type shelter.
0:41:55 And then most of my energy is gonna be focused
0:41:56 on getting calories.
0:41:58 And then, of course, there’s always gonna be downtime.
0:42:01 And in that downtime, I can tweak, modify,
0:42:02 improve my shelter.
0:42:04 And that’ll just be a constant process
0:42:05 that by the time you’re there a few months,
0:42:07 you’ll have all of the kinks worked out.
0:42:09 It’ll be a really nice little setup.
0:42:11 But you don’t have to start with that necessarily
0:42:13 ’cause you got other needs you gotta focus on.
0:42:16 That said, you’ll see a lot of people on a loan
0:42:18 that really focus on, you know, building the log cabin
0:42:20 ’cause they wanna be secure
0:42:25 or incorporating, you know, whatever the earth has around,
0:42:28 whether it be rocks or whether it be digging a hole.
0:42:30 You know, and we’ve seen some really cool shelters
0:42:34 and I’m not gonna knock it.
0:42:37 Everybody’s got different strokes for different folks.
0:42:41 But my particular idea was to keep it fairly simple,
0:42:44 improve it with time, but spend most of my energy.
0:42:46 You know, the shelter you really need to think about,
0:42:49 it can’t be smoky ’cause that’ll be miserable.
0:42:51 But it is nice to have a fire inside.
0:42:53 So you need to have a fire inside
0:42:57 that’s not gonna be dangerous and smoke-free
0:42:58 and then also airtight
0:43:01 because you’re never gonna have a warm shelter out there
0:43:04 ’cause you don’t have seals and things like that.
0:43:06 But as long as the air’s not moving through it,
0:43:08 you can have a warm enough shelter.
0:43:09 – With a fire.
0:43:12 – With a fire and dryer socks and stuff.
0:43:14 – How do you get the smoke out of the shelter?
0:43:17 – If you have good clay and mud and rock,
0:43:18 you can build yourself a fireplace
0:43:20 which is surprisingly not that hard.
0:43:21 You know, you just–
0:43:22 – Oh, really?
0:43:23 – With one thing to do, it works well.
0:43:25 You know, take a little hole,
0:43:26 start stacking rocks around it,
0:43:29 make sure it’s opening and it actually works.
0:43:33 You know, so that’s not as hard as you might think.
0:43:35 For me, where I was,
0:43:40 I kind of came up with it as I was there with my A-frame.
0:43:44 You know, I hadn’t built an A-frame shelter like that before.
0:43:46 And so when I built it,
0:43:48 and then I had put a bunch of tin cans in the ground
0:43:51 so that air would get the fire.
0:43:54 So it was fed by air, which helps create a draft.
0:43:57 But I realized in an A-frame,
0:44:00 it really doesn’t, the smoke doesn’t go out very well.
0:44:01 Even if you leave a hole at the top,
0:44:03 it like collects and billows back down.
0:44:08 So then I cut some of my tarp and made this,
0:44:11 and cut a hole in the A-frame.
0:44:13 And then I made like a hood vent
0:44:15 that I could pull down and catch the smoke with.
0:44:16 And so while the fire was going,
0:44:18 it would just billow out the hood vent.
0:44:21 And then when it was done burning
0:44:23 and was just hot coals, I could close it,
0:44:25 seal it up and keep the heat in.
0:44:26 So it actually worked pretty well.
0:44:28 – So start with something that kind of works
0:44:29 and then keep improving.
0:44:30 – Yeah, exactly.
0:44:34 – I was wondering, I mean, the log cabin,
0:44:35 it feels like that’s the thing
0:44:38 that takes a huge amount of work before work.
0:44:41 – The difference between a log cabin and a warm log cabin
0:44:43 is like an immense amount of work
0:44:46 and all the chinking and all the door sealing
0:44:48 and the chimney estimate.
0:44:50 Anyway, so otherwise it’s just gonna be
0:44:52 the same ambient temperature as outside.
0:44:57 So I don’t think it loans the proper context for a log cabin.
0:45:02 I think like log cabin’s great as a hunting cabin,
0:45:04 as if you’re gonna have something for years,
0:45:07 but in a three, six month scenario,
0:45:10 I don’t know that it’s worth the calorie expenditure.
0:45:12 – And it is a lot of calories.
0:45:14 But that’s an interesting sort of metaphor
0:45:16 of just like get something that works.
0:45:18 You see a lot of this with companies,
0:45:21 like successful companies, they get a prototype,
0:45:25 get a system that’s working and then improve fast
0:45:27 in response to the conditions, to the environment.
0:45:29 – Yeah, ’cause it’s constantly changing, yeah.
0:45:31 – And you end up being a lot better
0:45:35 if you’re able to learn how to respond quickly
0:45:37 versus like having a big plan
0:45:39 that takes a huge amount of time to accomplish.
0:45:41 – Right, and forcing that through the pipeline,
0:45:44 whether or not it fits, yeah.
0:45:46 – Can you just speak to like the place you were,
0:45:49 the Canadian Arctic, it looked cold.
0:45:51 – Yeah, we were right near the Arctic Circle.
0:45:53 I don’t know, it was like 60 kilometers
0:45:54 south of the Arctic Circle.
0:45:59 So it was, it’s a really cool area, really remote.
0:46:01 Thousands of little lakes, you know,
0:46:03 when you fly over, you’re just like, man, that’s incredible.
0:46:04 There must be so many of those lakes
0:46:05 that people haven’t been to.
0:46:09 You know, it really was a neat area, really remote.
0:46:12 And for the show’s purpose, I think it was perfect
0:46:13 ’cause it did have enough game
0:46:16 and enough different avenues forward
0:46:18 that I think it really did reward activity.
0:46:21 So I think, but it’s a special place.
0:46:25 It was a Denne, it was a tribe that lived there,
0:46:28 the Denne people, which interestingly enough,
0:46:29 here’s a side note.
0:46:32 When I was in Siberia, I floated down this river
0:46:34 called the Padkamanaya Tunguska.
0:46:38 And you get to this village called Sulomai
0:46:40 and there’s these Ket people there called.
0:46:43 And there’s only 600 of them left,
0:46:45 but it isn’t a middle of Siberia,
0:46:47 not in like the Pacific coast,
0:46:51 but their language is related to the Denne people.
0:46:54 And so somehow, you know, that connection
0:46:56 was there thousands of years ago, super interesting.
0:46:59 – Yeah, so language travels somehow.
0:47:01 – Right, and the remnants stayed back there.
0:47:04 It’s very interesting to think through history.
0:47:07 – Yeah, within languages contains a history of peoples
0:47:10 and it’s interesting how that evolves over time
0:47:12 and how wars tell the story,
0:47:15 like language tells the story of conflict
0:47:19 and conflict shapes language and we get the result of that.
0:47:20 – Right, so fascinating.
0:47:23 – And the barriers that language creates
0:47:26 is also the thing that leads to wars
0:47:28 and misunderstandings and all this kind of stuff.
0:47:32 It’s a fascinating tension, but it got cold there, right?
0:47:33 It got real cold.
0:47:35 – Yeah, I mean, I think I don’t know
0:47:36 that I didn’t have a thermometer,
0:47:40 but imagine it probably got to negative 30 at the most.
0:47:42 You know, I might have gotten,
0:47:43 it would have definitely gotten colder
0:47:47 had we stayed longer, but yeah, to be honest,
0:47:50 I was, I never felt cold out there.
0:47:53 I was pretty, I had that one pretty dialed in.
0:47:55 And then once you have calories, you can stay warm.
0:47:56 You can stay active.
0:48:00 You can, you know, you got to dress warm.
0:48:01 You know, you don’t, never let,
0:48:03 there’s a good one if you’re in the cold,
0:48:05 never let yourself get too cold.
0:48:08 ‘Cause what happens is you’ll stop feeling what’s cold
0:48:10 and then frostbite and then issues.
0:48:11 And then it’s really hard to warm back up.
0:48:13 So every, it was so annoying.
0:48:16 I’d be out going to ice fish or something.
0:48:18 And then I would just notice that my feet are cold
0:48:20 and you’re just like, “Oh, dang it.”
0:48:23 I just turn around, go back, start a fire,
0:48:25 dry my boots out, make sure my feet are warm
0:48:26 and then go again.
0:48:28 I wouldn’t ignore that, you know.
0:48:30 – Oh, so you want to be able to feel the cold.
0:48:32 – Yeah, you want to make sure you’re still feeling things
0:48:34 and that you’re not toughing through it
0:48:36 ’cause you can’t really tough through the cold.
0:48:38 It’ll just get you, so.
0:48:41 – What’s your relationship with the cold?
0:48:43 Psychologically, physically?
0:48:45 – That’s interesting.
0:48:47 Well, I actually, there’s some part of it
0:48:48 that really makes you feel alive.
0:48:50 You know, I imagine, you know, sometimes in Austin here,
0:48:54 you come go out and it’s hot and sweaty and you get that
0:48:56 kind of, kind of saps you.
0:48:58 There’s something about that brisk cold
0:49:00 that hits your face that you’re like,
0:49:03 wakes you up, makes you feel really alive, engaged.
0:49:05 You know, it feels like the margins of air are smaller
0:49:08 so you’re alert and engaged a little more.
0:49:11 There is something that’s a little bit life-giving
0:49:15 just because you feel on an edge, you’re on this edge.
0:49:18 But you have to be alert because even some of the natives
0:49:22 I lived with, the lady had face issues because
0:49:24 she let her head get cold when they were on a snowmobile.
0:49:26 Hat was up too high, you know, that little mistake
0:49:28 and then it just freezes this part of your forehead
0:49:31 and then the nerves go and then you got issues.
0:49:33 Everyone just hat wasn’t high enough.
0:49:36 So you kind of got to be dialed in on stuff.
0:49:38 – Well, there’s a psychological element to just,
0:49:40 I mean, it’s unpleasant.
0:49:43 If I were to think of what kind of unpleasant
0:49:48 would I choose, you know, fasting for long periods of time
0:49:51 and was going without food in a warm environment
0:49:53 is way more pleasant than–
0:49:55 – Being fed in a golden.
0:49:56 – Yeah, exactly.
0:49:57 Like if you were to choose–
0:49:58 – I choose the opposite.
0:50:00 – Oh yeah, okay, there you go.
0:50:04 I wonder if that’s, I wonder if you’re born with that
0:50:07 or if that’s developed, maybe your time in Siberia like you
0:50:09 or do you gravitate towards that?
0:50:12 I wonder what that is ’cause I really don’t like
0:50:14 survival on the cold.
0:50:15 – Being a little bit of it is learned.
0:50:19 He like almost learned not, you learn not to fear it.
0:50:22 You learn to kind of appreciate it.
0:50:25 And a big part of that is, I mean, to be honest,
0:50:28 it’s like dressing warm, being in good.
0:50:31 It’s not that, you know, there’s no secrets to that.
0:50:33 As you just can’t beat the cold.
0:50:34 So you just need to dress warm.
0:50:37 The native, you know, all that fur, all that stuff.
0:50:39 And then all of a sudden you have your little refuge,
0:50:43 have a nice warm fire going in your teepee, you know.
0:50:46 And then, I bet you you could learn to appreciate it.
0:50:50 – Yeah, I think some of it is just opening yourself up
0:50:52 to the possibility that there’s something enjoyable about it.
0:50:57 Like here, I run in Austin all the time in like 100 degree
0:51:02 heat and I go out there with a smile on my face
0:51:04 and like, I learn to enjoy it.
0:51:05 – Oh yeah.
0:51:08 – And so you just like, I look kind of like
0:51:10 you doing the cold.
0:51:11 I don’t think I enjoy the heat,
0:51:13 but you just allow yourself to enjoy it.
0:51:14 – Yeah, yeah, yeah.
0:51:15 I do feel that way.
0:51:18 I mean, I don’t mind the heat that much,
0:51:20 but I think you could get to the place
0:51:22 where you appreciated the cold.
0:51:24 It’s probably just a lack of,
0:51:26 it’s kind of scary when you haven’t done it
0:51:27 and you don’t know what you’re doing
0:51:29 and you go out and you feel cold.
0:51:31 It’s like not fun, but I bet you could,
0:51:32 you’d enjoy it.
0:51:33 You’ll have to come out sometime.
0:51:34 – 100%.
0:51:35 I mean, you’re right.
0:51:37 It does make you feel alive.
0:51:41 Maybe that’s the thing that I struggle with
0:51:43 is the time passes slower
0:51:45 ’cause it does make you feel alive.
0:51:47 You get to feel time.
0:51:49 But then the flip side of that is you get to feel
0:51:53 every moment and you get to feel alive in every moment.
0:51:57 So it’s both scary when you’re inexperienced
0:52:00 and beautiful when you are experienced.
0:52:02 Were there times when you got hungry?
0:52:04 – I got shot a rabbit on day one
0:52:07 and I snared a couple rabbits on day two.
0:52:10 And then more and more as the time went.
0:52:13 So I actually did pretty well on the food front.
0:52:16 The other thing is when you have all those berries
0:52:18 around and stuff, you do have an ability
0:52:19 to like fill your stomach.
0:52:22 And so you don’t really notice if you’re getting thinner
0:52:23 if you’re losing weight.
0:52:28 So I can say on a loan, I was not that hungry.
0:52:31 I’ve definitely been really hungry in Russia.
0:52:34 There were times when I lost a lot of weight.
0:52:37 I mean, I lost a lot more weight in Siberia
0:52:38 than I did on a loan.
0:52:39 – Oh, wow.
0:52:41 Okay, we’ll have to talk about it.
0:52:44 So you caught a fish.
0:52:45 You caught a couple.
0:52:47 – I think I caught like 13 or so.
0:52:49 They didn’t show a lot of them.
0:52:51 – You caught 13 fish.
0:52:53 13 of those big fish too.
0:52:55 I caught a couple that were small.
0:52:57 – This is like a meme at this point.
0:52:59 – You’re a perfect example of a person
0:53:01 who was thriving this service.
0:53:05 – I was thought, you know, this is in hindsight.
0:53:06 Again, when I was out there,
0:53:08 I never let myself think you might win.
0:53:10 I just was going to be out there as long as I could
0:53:12 and tried to remain pessimistic about it.
0:53:16 No, but then the, but I remember a thought that I was like,
0:53:18 I wonder if they’re going to be able to make this look hard,
0:53:20 you know, I didn’t have that thought at one point.
0:53:23 And cause it went pretty well.
0:53:26 And I was definitely, it was hard psychologically
0:53:29 because I didn’t know when it was going to end.
0:53:31 Like I thought this could go, you know, like I said,
0:53:34 six months, could go eight months a year.
0:53:36 And then you start to cause, you know,
0:53:38 I had a two and a three year old
0:53:40 and you start to weigh in the, is it worth it?
0:53:43 If it goes a year and it’s not worth it.
0:53:45 If it goes eight months and I still lose.
0:53:47 So I feel like I had this pressure
0:53:50 and then it was psychologically difficult for that reason.
0:53:53 Physically, that wasn’t too bad.
0:53:55 – This is off mic.
0:53:59 We’re talking about Gordon Ryan competing in Jiu Jitsu.
0:54:02 And maybe that’s the challenge he also has to face
0:54:03 is to make things look hard.
0:54:08 Cause he’s, he’s so dominant in the sport
0:54:12 that in terms of the drama and the entertainment
0:54:15 of the, of the sport and in this case of survival,
0:54:17 it has to be difficult.
0:54:19 – You know, I’ll add that for sure though,
0:54:21 that it’s, it’s the woods, it’s nature.
0:54:22 You never know how it’s going to go.
0:54:23 You know what I mean?
0:54:24 It’s like every time we’re out there,
0:54:26 it’s a different scenario.
0:54:29 So whatever, Hallelujah went well.
0:54:33 – So you, you won after 77 days.
0:54:35 How long do you think you could have lasted?
0:54:37 – When I left, I weighed what I do right now.
0:54:39 So I just weighed in my normal weight.
0:54:42 I had, you know, a couple hundred pounds of mousse.
0:54:45 I had at least a hundred pounds of fish.
0:54:49 I had, you know, a pile of rabbits, a Wolverine.
0:54:51 I had, you know, I had all of this stuff.
0:54:55 And I know I hadn’t gotten cold yet.
0:54:58 I just thought, but in my head,
0:55:03 I’d thought if I get today 130 or 40,
0:55:05 even if someone else has big game,
0:55:07 I had a pretty good idea they might quit
0:55:11 because it would be long, cold, dark days.
0:55:12 And how miserable is that?
0:55:14 Just, it’s so boring, it’s freezing.
0:55:17 And so I thought the only time
0:55:20 I thought I could think about winning
0:55:23 is when I got today 130 or 40.
0:55:27 And I definitely had that with what I had.
0:55:29 Now, maybe I would have gotten, you know,
0:55:31 I probably would have gotten more.
0:55:34 I had caught that big 20-something pound pike
0:55:36 on the last day I was there.
0:55:37 Maybe catch some more of those.
0:55:39 You know, and I don’t know,
0:55:41 like I don’t know how many calories I had stored,
0:55:42 but I had a lot.
0:55:44 And so how long would that have lasted me
0:55:46 assuming I didn’t get anything else?
0:55:47 It definitely would have,
0:55:49 I would definitely would have reached my goal
0:55:52 of 130 or 40 days.
0:55:53 And then after that,
0:55:55 I thought we were just gonna push into the who, you know,
0:55:57 then it’s just to see how much,
0:55:59 who has what reserves and will go as far as we can.
0:56:02 And that would get me through January into February.
0:56:03 And I just thought, man,
0:56:06 that’s gonna be miserable for people.
0:56:08 – And you were like, I can last through misery.
0:56:09 – And I knew I could do it.
0:56:12 What aspect of that is miserable?
0:56:15 – The hardest thing for me would have been the boredom
0:56:20 because it’s hard to stay busy when it’s all dark out,
0:56:23 when the ice is, you know, three, four foot thick,
0:56:27 you can’t fish and I just think,
0:56:29 I think it would have just been really boring.
0:56:31 He would have had to been a real Zen master
0:56:33 to push through it,
0:56:35 but because I’d experienced it some degree,
0:56:36 I knew I could.
0:56:40 And then I think things that might, you know,
0:56:42 you start thinking about family and this and that
0:56:44 in those situations.
0:56:45 And I just knew that those,
0:56:47 because I’d gone to all these trips to Russia
0:56:49 for a year at a time,
0:56:51 the time context was a little broader for me
0:56:53 than I think for some people.
0:56:57 ‘Cause I knew I could be gone for a year and come back,
0:56:59 catch up with my loved ones,
0:57:01 you know, bring what I got back,
0:57:04 whether that be psychological, whatever it is,
0:57:05 and we’d all enrich each other.
0:57:06 And once it’s in hindsight,
0:57:08 that year would have been like that talking about it.
0:57:11 So I had that perspective and it,
0:57:12 so I knew I wasn’t going to tap for any other reason
0:57:14 other than running out of food someday.
0:57:16 So that was my stressor.
0:57:19 – See, you’re able to, given the boredom,
0:57:21 given the loneliness, kind of zoom out
0:57:26 and accept the passing of time, just let it pass.
0:57:29 – You know, for me, I’m a fairly, I like to be active.
0:57:32 And so I would try to think of creative ways
0:57:33 to keep my brain busy.
0:57:36 You know, we saw the like dumb rabbit for skit.
0:57:39 But then I did a whole bunch of like elaborate,
0:57:41 Normandy re-invasion, you know,
0:57:42 vagranactments and stuff.
0:57:45 I was like, there was a, every day I would think,
0:57:47 I gotta think of something to make me laugh, you know,
0:57:50 and then do some stupid skit.
0:57:50 And then that would be,
0:57:52 that would fill a couple of hours of my time.
0:57:54 And then I’d spend an hour or two,
0:57:55 couple of few hours fishing.
0:57:58 And then you spend a few hours, you know,
0:57:59 whatever you’re doing.
0:58:00 – Would you do that without a camera?
0:58:01 – Yeah.
0:58:05 – Oh, no, the skits, funny question.
0:58:05 That’s a good question.
0:58:07 I don’t know, I actually don’t know.
0:58:10 That, I will say that was one of the advantages
0:58:13 of being on the show versus in Siberia.
0:58:17 So no, ’cause I didn’t in Siberia just do skits by myself.
0:58:18 But I didn’t film it.
0:58:23 And so it was quite nice to have this camera
0:58:25 that made you feel like you weren’t quite as alone
0:58:28 as if you were just in the woods by yourself.
0:58:31 And I think for me, I was able to,
0:58:33 it was a pain, it was part of the cause
0:58:34 of me missing that moose.
0:58:36 You know, there’s issues with it,
0:58:38 but I just chose to look at it as like,
0:58:40 this is an awesome opportunity to share with people,
0:58:44 a part of me that most people don’t get to see, you know?
0:58:46 So that was, I just chose to look at it that way.
0:58:47 And it wasn’t advantage
0:58:49 ’cause you could do stuff like that.
0:58:51 – I think there’s actual power
0:58:53 to do this kind of documenting,
0:58:56 like talking to a camera or an audio recorder.
0:58:59 Like that’s an actual tool in survival.
0:59:02 I had a little bit of an experience
0:59:04 of being out alone in the jungle
0:59:08 and just being able to talk to a thing is much less lonely.
0:59:09 – It is, it really is.
0:59:12 It’s a, it can be a powerful tool
0:59:14 just sharing your experience.
0:59:17 I had the, I definitely had the thought.
0:59:20 So going back to your earlier comment,
0:59:21 but I definitely had the thought
0:59:23 if I knew I was the last person on earth,
0:59:24 I wouldn’t even bother.
0:59:24 Like I wouldn’t do that.
0:59:28 Like I would just, I’d just give up, I’m sure.
0:59:31 Because even if I had a bunch of food in this and that,
0:59:35 but because I knew, you know, you’re a part sharing,
0:59:37 it gives you a lot of strength to go through
0:59:41 and having that camera just makes it that much more vivid
0:59:43 ’cause you know, you’re not just gonna be sharing
0:59:45 a vague memory, but an actual experience.
0:59:47 – I think if you were the last person on earth,
0:59:50 you would actually convince yourself.
0:59:53 First of all, you don’t know for sure.
0:59:54 There’s always going to be-
0:59:55 – Hope dies last, yeah.
0:59:57 – Hope really does die last.
0:59:58 – You really don’t know.
1:00:00 You really, you really hope to find.
1:00:03 I mean, if you’re like an apocalypse happens,
1:00:05 I think your whole life
1:00:06 will become about finding the other person.
1:00:08 – It would be, and there’s a chance.
1:00:10 I mean, I guess I’m saying if you knew,
1:00:11 you were for some reason knew you were the last.
1:00:12 I wonder if you would.
1:00:15 I wonder if that was a thought I had.
1:00:17 If I knew I was the last person.
1:00:19 Like, ’cause out here I was having a good time,
1:00:22 having fun fishing, plenty of food.
1:00:23 But like, if I knew I was the last person on earth,
1:00:25 I don’t know that I would even bother.
1:00:28 But now if that was for real, would I bother?
1:00:29 That’s the question.
1:00:31 – No, no, no, I think if you knew,
1:00:33 if somebody, some way you knew for sure,
1:00:37 I think your mind will start doubting it.
1:00:39 That whoever told you you’re the last person,
1:00:42 whatever was lying.
1:00:42 – Right, right.
1:00:46 The power of hope might be more stronger than I accounted
1:00:48 for in that situation.
1:00:51 – Also, you might, if you are indeed the last person,
1:00:54 you might want to be documenting it
1:00:58 for once you die, an alien species comes about.
1:00:59 ‘Cause whatever happened on earth
1:01:00 is a pretty special thing.
1:01:02 And if you’re the last one,
1:01:06 you might be the last person to tell the story
1:01:07 of what happened.
1:01:09 And so that’s gonna be a way to convince yourself
1:01:11 that this is important.
1:01:12 And so the days will go by like this,
1:01:14 but it would be lonely.
1:01:16 Boy, would that be lonely.
1:01:18 – It would be, wow.
1:01:22 Maybe delving into the dredges and the depths of it.
1:01:24 – Yeah, I mean, there is going to be
1:01:28 existential dread, but also, I don’t know,
1:01:30 I think hope will burn bright.
1:01:32 You’ll be looking for other humans.
1:01:33 – That’s, you know, one of the reasons
1:01:35 that I was looking for talking to you,
1:01:37 I think that I appreciate about you is you’re always,
1:01:40 not out of naivety, but you’re always choose
1:01:42 to look at the positive, you know what I mean?
1:01:46 And I think that’s a powerful mindset to have.
1:01:47 I appreciate it.
1:01:48 – Yeah.
1:01:50 That’d be a pretty cool survival situation
1:01:52 if you’re the last person on earth.
1:01:54 – Yes, you could share it.
1:01:56 (both laugh)
1:01:57 – You could share it.
1:01:58 Yeah.
1:02:01 Like I said, many people consider you
1:02:04 the most successful competitor on a loan.
1:02:06 The other successful one is Roland Welker,
1:02:07 Rockhouse guy.
1:02:09 – Oh yeah.
1:02:11 – This is just a fun, ridiculous question,
1:02:13 but head to head, who do you think survives longer?
1:02:18 – If you want to get me to the competitive side of it,
1:02:20 I would just say, I’m pretty dang sure
1:02:22 I had more pounds of food.
1:02:24 (both laugh)
1:02:26 But, and I didn’t have the advantage
1:02:27 of knowing when it would end,
1:02:31 which I think would have been a great psychological.
1:02:32 – Oh yeah.
1:02:33 – It would have made it really easy.
1:02:35 Once I got the moose, I could have shot the moose
1:02:36 and just not stressed.
1:02:38 I would have been like a,
1:02:40 and so that was a big difference between the seasons
1:02:44 that I felt like, I mean, I felt like the psychology
1:02:46 of season seven, they kind of messed up
1:02:49 by doing a 100 day cap because for my own experience,
1:02:50 that was the hardest part.
1:02:52 But Roland’s a beast.
1:02:53 – So for people who don’t know,
1:02:54 they put a 100 day cap on.
1:02:59 So it’s whoever can survive 100 days for that season.
1:03:02 It’s interesting to hear that for you,
1:03:05 the uncertainty, not knowing when it ends.
1:03:06 – That was for sure.
1:03:07 – It’s the hardest.
1:03:09 That’s true.
1:03:11 It’s like you wake up every day.
1:03:12 – I didn’t know how to ration my food.
1:03:15 I didn’t know if I was gonna lose after six months.
1:03:17 And then it was all gonna be for naught.
1:03:18 I didn’t know if it, you know,
1:03:20 I just, there’s so many unknowns.
1:03:23 You don’t know, like I said, if I shot a moose
1:03:25 and it was 100 days, done.
1:03:27 If I shot a moose and you don’t know, it’s like,
1:03:29 crap, I could still lose to somebody else.
1:03:31 But it’s gonna be way in the future.
1:03:33 (laughing)
1:03:37 So anyway, that for me was definitely the hard part.
1:03:38 – And when you found out that you won
1:03:41 and your wife was there, it was funny
1:03:43 because you’re really happy.
1:03:47 It was a great sort of moment of you reuniting.
1:03:49 But also there’s a state of shock of like,
1:03:52 (laughing)
1:03:54 you look like you were ready to go much longer.
1:03:56 – That was the most genuine shock I could have.
1:03:59 I hadn’t even like entertained the thought yet.
1:04:02 I didn’t even think it was, you’d hear the helicopters.
1:04:05 And I just assumed there was other people out there.
1:04:08 I just hadn’t, I thought, like, you know,
1:04:11 and for one, the previous person that had gone along
1:04:12 has had gone 89 days.
1:04:15 So I just knew whoever else was out here with me,
1:04:17 somebody’s got that in their crosshairs.
1:04:19 They’re gonna get to 90 and they’re not gonna quit at 90.
1:04:20 They’re gonna go to a hundred.
1:04:23 You know, I just figured we can’t start thinking
1:04:26 about the end until the couple months from when it ended.
1:04:29 So I was just shocked.
1:04:31 And they tricked me pretty good.
1:04:33 They know how to make you think you’re not,
1:04:34 you know, that you’re not.
1:04:35 – So they want you to do the surprise.
1:04:37 – Yeah, they want it to be a surprise.
1:04:38 – You really weren’t.
1:04:40 I mean, you have to do that, I guess, for survival.
1:04:42 Don’t be counting the days.
1:04:43 – No, I think that would be,
1:04:45 then you know, you see that on some of the people do that.
1:04:47 For myself, that would be bad psychology
1:04:49 ’cause then you’re just always disappointing yourself.
1:04:51 You have to be resettled with the fact
1:04:54 that this is gonna go a long time and suck.
1:04:55 Once you come to peace with that,
1:04:57 maybe you’ll be pleasantly surprised,
1:04:59 but you’re not gonna be constantly disappointed.
1:05:01 – So what was your diet like?
1:05:04 Like, what was your eating habits like during that time?
1:05:06 Like how many meals a day?
1:05:07 This is, like, what?
1:05:10 (laughing)
1:05:13 – Oh man, no, I was trying to eat the thing.
1:05:14 I was, like, not trying to,
1:05:16 the more the moose is hanging out there,
1:05:18 the more the critters, every critter in the forest
1:05:22 is trying to peck at it or mice trying to eat it and stuff.
1:05:24 – So one of the ways you can protect the food
1:05:25 is by eating it?
1:05:26 (laughing)
1:05:28 – So I was having three good meals a day
1:05:30 and then I’d, like, cook up some meat and go to sleep
1:05:33 and then wake up in the middle of the night
1:05:35 ’cause they’re long nights and, like,
1:05:37 have some meat at night, eat a bunch at night,
1:05:41 and then, so I’d usually have a fish stew for lunch
1:05:43 and then moose for breakfast and dinner
1:05:47 and then have some for a nighttime snack
1:05:48 ’cause the nights were long,
1:05:52 so you’d be in bed, like, 14 hours and wake up
1:05:54 and eat and dink around and go back to sleep.
1:05:57 – Is it okay that I was pretty low carb situation?
1:05:59 – Yeah, I actually felt really good.
1:06:02 I tried to, I think I would’ve felt better
1:06:05 if I would’ve had a higher percentage of fat
1:06:07 because, you know, it’s still more protein
1:06:11 than if you’re on a keto diet, you want a lot of fat.
1:06:12 And so I didn’t, I didn’t try to mix in, like,
1:06:15 natures, carbs, different, like, reindeer lichen
1:06:18 and things like that, but honestly,
1:06:21 I felt pretty good on that diet, I will say.
1:06:22 – How did you, what’s the secret to, like,
1:06:23 protecting food?
1:06:25 What are the different ways to protect food?
1:06:26 – Yeah, a lot of times, you know,
1:06:28 in a typical situation in the woods hunting,
1:06:31 you’ll raise it up in a tree in a bag,
1:06:33 put it in, like, a game bag so the birds can’t peck at it
1:06:36 and hang it in a tree so that it cools.
1:06:38 You gotta make sure first to cool it
1:06:41 ’cause it’ll spoil so you cool it by whatever means necessary,
1:06:44 hanging it in a cool place, letting the air blow around it.
1:06:50 And then you’ll notice that every forest freeloader
1:06:53 in the woods is gonna come and try to steal your food.
1:06:54 – Yeah.
1:06:57 – And it was just fun, I mean, it was crazy to watch,
1:06:58 you know, it was like, it’s all the Jay,
1:07:01 all the camp Jay’s pecking at it or everything I did,
1:07:05 you know, was, there was something that could get to it.
1:07:07 They’ve put on the ground, the mice get on it
1:07:10 and they poop on it and they kind of mess it up.
1:07:13 So I ultimately kind of just dawned on me,
1:07:14 shoot, I’m gonna have to build one of those
1:07:17 evenky, like, food caches.
1:07:18 So I did and I put it up there
1:07:21 and I thought I kind of solved my problem.
1:07:23 To be honest, the evenky then,
1:07:25 so they would have taken a page out of like,
1:07:27 they would have mixed me in Roland’s solution.
1:07:30 They build this tall stilt shelter
1:07:33 and then put a box on the top that’s enclosed.
1:07:35 And then the bears can’t get to it,
1:07:38 the mice can’t poop on it, the birds, the wolverines,
1:07:39 you know, it’s safe.
1:07:40 And I never finished it.
1:07:42 I mean, in hindsight, I don’t actually know why.
1:07:44 I think I was just, the way it timed,
1:07:46 like I didn’t think something was gonna be up there.
1:07:46 Then it did.
1:07:49 And then, you know, you’re counting calories and stuff
1:07:52 I should have in hindsight just boxed it in right away.
1:07:54 – To get ready for the long, for the long haul.
1:07:56 – Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:07:58 – Is a rabbit starvation a real thing?
1:08:00 – Yeah, so you can’t just live off protein
1:08:02 and rabbits are almost just protein.
1:08:05 You could kill a rabbit, eat the innards
1:08:07 and the brain and the eyes.
1:08:08 And then everything else is just protein.
1:08:13 And so it takes more calories to, you know,
1:08:16 process that protein than you’re getting from it
1:08:17 without the fat.
1:08:19 So you actually lose, I lost,
1:08:20 I had, you know, a lot of rabbits.
1:08:24 In the first 20 days, I had 28 rabbits or something,
1:08:26 but I was losing weight at exactly the same speed
1:08:28 as everybody else that didn’t have anything.
1:08:30 So that’s interesting.
1:08:32 Yeah, and I’d never tried that before.
1:08:34 So I was wondering if I’m catching a ton of rabbits.
1:08:36 I wonder if I can last, what, six months on rabbits.
1:08:39 But no, you just starve as fast as everybody else.
1:08:41 And so I had to kind of learn that on the fly and adjust.
1:08:42 – I wonder what to make of that.
1:08:45 Like, so you need fat to survive?
1:08:46 Like from the mutton?
1:08:47 – Yeah, that’s the, yeah.
1:08:49 And you’ll notice when the wolverine came
1:08:52 or when animals came, they would eat the skin off
1:08:55 of the fish, they would eat the eyes, you know,
1:08:57 they’d steal the moose fat, they’d leave all the meat.
1:09:00 Yeah, like behind the eyes is a bunch of fat.
1:09:03 So yeah, you can kind of observe nature
1:09:06 and see what they’re eating and know where the gold is.
1:09:08 – What do you like eating when you’re like,
1:09:10 when you can eat whatever you want?
1:09:12 What do you feel best eating?
1:09:14 – What do I feel best, I just try to eat clean.
1:09:18 I think I’m not like super strict or anything,
1:09:21 but I think when I eat less carbs, I feel better.
1:09:23 Meat and vegetables.
1:09:26 I like, we eat a lot of, you know, I eat a lot of meat.
1:09:29 – So basically everything you ate on alone,
1:09:31 plus some veggies. – Plus veggies.
1:09:33 Throw in some buckwheat, I like buckwheat.
1:09:34 – Nice.
1:09:38 – Let’s step to the early days of Jordan.
1:09:44 So your Instagram handle is hobojordo.
1:09:49 So early on in your life, you hobo’d around the U.S.
1:09:51 on freight trains.
1:09:53 What’s the story behind that?
1:09:55 – My brother, when he was 17 or so,
1:09:57 he just decided to go hitchhiking
1:10:00 and he hitchhiked down to Reno from Idaho everywhere.
1:10:04 And ended up loving traveling,
1:10:06 but hated being dependent on other people.
1:10:11 So he ended up jumping on a freight train and just did it.
1:10:14 He honestly, he pretty much got on a train
1:10:17 and traveled the country for the next eight years
1:10:19 on trains, lived in the streets and everywhere.
1:10:22 But, you know, he was sober,
1:10:24 so it gives you a different experience than a lot.
1:10:27 But at one point, when I was, I guess, yeah, 18,
1:10:29 he invited me to come along with him.
1:10:31 He’d probably been doing it five or so, four or five years
1:10:34 and more or more.
1:10:38 And I said, sure, so I quit my job and went out with him.
1:10:40 Hobojordo is a bit of an over stuff.
1:10:41 I feel self-conscious about that.
1:10:44 ‘Cause I rode, I rode trains across the country,
1:10:45 up and down the coast, back.
1:10:49 You know, spent the better part of the year
1:10:52 running around, riding trains and all the staying in places
1:10:53 related to that.
1:10:56 All the people, you know, the real hobos,
1:10:58 those guys are out there doing it for years on end.
1:11:02 But it was such a, for me, what it felt like was a,
1:11:04 it felt like a bit of a rite of passage experience,
1:11:07 which is kind of missing, I think, in modern life.
1:11:10 So I did this thing that was a huge unknown.
1:11:12 I’d been, kind of was there with me.
1:11:16 My brother, for most of it, we traveled around,
1:11:18 got pushed my boundaries in every which way,
1:11:21 you know, froze at night and did all the stuff.
1:11:24 And then at the end, I actually wanted to go back
1:11:26 and go back home.
1:11:30 And so I went on my own and went from Minneapolis back,
1:11:32 you know, up to Spokane on my own,
1:11:35 which was my first stint of time by myself for like a week,
1:11:36 which was interesting.
1:11:38 – Along with your own thoughts.
1:11:39 – With your own thoughts, it was my first time
1:11:41 in my life having been like that, you know?
1:11:44 And so it was, it was powerful at the time.
1:11:46 You know what it did too, is it gave me
1:11:48 a whole different view of life.
1:11:51 Cause I had gotten a job when I was 13 and then 14, 15,
1:11:55 16, 17, and then I was just in the normal run of things,
1:11:58 kind of, and then that just threw a whole different path
1:11:59 into my life.
1:12:02 And then I realized some of the things,
1:12:04 while I was traveling that I wouldn’t experience again
1:12:05 until I was living with natives and such.
1:12:07 And that was, you know, when you wake up,
1:12:08 you don’t have a schedule.
1:12:10 You literally just have needs
1:12:12 and you just somehow have to meet your needs.
1:12:17 And so it’s, there’s a really sense of freedom you get
1:12:20 that is hard to replicate elsewhere.
1:12:23 And so that was eye-opening to me.
1:12:25 And I think once I did that, I went back.
1:12:29 So I went back to my old job at the salad dressing plant
1:12:33 and there was this old cross-eyed guy
1:12:36 and he was, “Oh, Hobo Gordo is back.”
1:12:38 And that’s kind of where I got it.
1:12:42 But that freedom always was very important to me,
1:12:43 I think, from that time on.
1:12:45 – What did you learn about the United States
1:12:47 about the people along the way?
1:12:50 ‘Cause I took a road trip across the U.S. also.
1:12:53 And there was a, there’s a romantic element there, too,
1:12:58 of like, of the freedom, of the…
1:13:01 Oh, maybe for me, not knowing what the hell
1:13:03 I’m gonna do with my life,
1:13:05 but also excited by all the possibilities
1:13:09 and then you meet a lot of different people
1:13:11 and a lot of different kinds of stories.
1:13:14 And also like a lot of people that support you
1:13:16 for traveling.
1:13:19 ‘Cause there’s a lot of people kind of dream
1:13:23 of experiencing that freedom, at least the people I’ve met.
1:13:26 And they usually don’t, they usually don’t go outside
1:13:27 of their little town.
1:13:30 They have a thing and they have a family usually
1:13:34 and they don’t explore, they don’t take the leap.
1:13:35 And you can do that when you’re young.
1:13:37 I guess you could do that at any moment.
1:13:39 Just say, “Fuck it.”
1:13:44 And then leap into the abyss of being on the road.
1:13:47 But anyway, what’d you learn about this country,
1:13:49 about the people in this country?
1:13:51 – You’re in an interesting context when you’re on trains
1:13:52 ’cause the trains always end up
1:13:56 in the crappiest part of town, you know?
1:13:59 And you’re always outside interacting.
1:14:00 Oh, the interesting things, you know,
1:14:02 every once in a while you’ll have to hitchhike
1:14:04 to get from one place to another.
1:14:07 One interesting thing is, you notice you always get picked up
1:14:09 by the, you know, the poor people.
1:14:11 You know, they’re the people that empathize with you.
1:14:12 Stop, pick you up.
1:14:16 You go to whatever ghetto you end up in
1:14:19 and people are really, “Oh, what are you guys doing?”
1:14:23 Real friendly and relatable.
1:14:25 It kind of, you know, broaden my horizons for sure
1:14:27 from being just an Idaho kid
1:14:30 and then meeting all these different people
1:14:33 and just seeing the goodness in people and this and that.
1:14:36 It’s also very, you know, a lot of drugs
1:14:39 and a lot of people with mental issues
1:14:42 that you’re friends with, dealing with,
1:14:43 and all that kind of stuff, so.
1:14:45 Any memorable characters?
1:14:47 Well, there’s a few, for sure.
1:14:50 I mean, a lot of them I still know that are still around,
1:14:54 but Rocco was one guy we traveled
1:14:55 that he’s become like a brother.
1:15:00 But he was, he traveled with my brother for years
1:15:02 ’cause they were the two sober guys kind of.
1:15:06 He, rather than traveling ’cause he was hooked on stuff,
1:15:07 did it to escape all that.
1:15:11 And so he was kind of sober and straight edge.
1:15:13 And he was like a 5’7″ Italian guy
1:15:15 that was always getting in fights.
1:15:19 And he has his own sense of ethics
1:15:21 that I think is really interesting
1:15:26 ’cause he’s super honest, but he expects it of others.
1:15:28 And so, as funny in the modern context,
1:15:30 the thing that pops in my head is
1:15:32 when he got a car for the first time,
1:15:33 which wasn’t that long.
1:15:35 You know, he was in his 30s or something.
1:15:37 And he registered it,
1:15:39 which he was mad about that he had to register.
1:15:40 But then the next year,
1:15:42 they told him he had to register again.
1:15:43 And he’s like, “What?
1:15:45 Did you lose my registration?”
1:15:47 Went down there to the DMV, chewed him out,
1:15:49 that he had to re-register
1:15:50 ’cause he already registered.
1:15:51 Where’s the paperwork?
1:15:53 But he just kind of used the world
1:15:55 from a different lens, I thought.
1:15:57 But on everything, he’s the character.
1:15:59 Now he just lives by digging up bottles
1:16:01 and finding treasures in them.
1:16:03 – But he notices the injustices
1:16:04 of what speaks up. – He notices them
1:16:05 in a very interesting, and speaks up.
1:16:06 And he’s always like,
1:16:07 “Why doesn’t everybody else speak up
1:16:09 about their car registration?”
1:16:11 (both laughing)
1:16:12 And then there was like, you know,
1:16:13 Devo comes to mind
1:16:16 ’cause he was such a unique character as far as just,
1:16:18 for one, he would have lived to be 120
1:16:20 ’cause the amount of chemicals
1:16:22 and everything else he put into his body and still,
1:16:25 “Hey man, you know, one of those guys,
1:16:27 you can always get a dime, you know,
1:16:28 always spare dime, spare dime,
1:16:30 and you have bum change.”
1:16:32 And I’d see him sometimes
1:16:34 and I’d be gone and then go to New York
1:16:36 to visit my sister or something.
1:16:37 Sure enough, there’s Devo on the street.
1:16:38 What do you know?
1:16:40 You go visit him in the hospital
1:16:45 ’cause he got bit by 27 hobo spider bites.
1:16:50 He’s just always rough, but charismatic, vital.
1:16:51 Like the vitality of life was in him,
1:16:54 but it was just so permeated with drugs and alcohol too.
1:16:55 It’s kind of interesting.
1:16:56 – ‘Cause I’ve met people like that.
1:16:59 They’re like, they’re just, yeah,
1:17:01 joy permeates the whole way of being.
1:17:03 And they’re like, they’ve been through some shit.
1:17:04 They have scars, they’ve got rough,
1:17:07 but they’ve always got a big smile.
1:17:09 There’s a guy I met in the jungle named Pico.
1:17:14 He lost the leg and he drives a boat
1:17:16 and he just always has a big smile.
1:17:19 Even given that like the hardship he has to get through,
1:17:21 everything requires a huge amount of work,
1:17:24 but he’s just big smile and there’s stories in those eyes.
1:17:27 – Something about, yeah, enduring difficulty
1:17:31 that makes you able to appreciate life and look at it.
1:17:33 And smile.
1:17:35 – Any advice for you to take a road trip again,
1:17:38 or if somebody else is thinking of hopping out
1:17:40 on a freight train or hitchhiking?
1:17:42 – It’s way easier now ’cause we have a map on your phone.
1:17:44 You feel like you’re going, you’re kind of cheating now.
1:17:45 – It’s not about the destiny,
1:17:47 ’cause the map is about the destination.
1:17:50 But here’s like, you know, we’re gonna give a chance.
1:17:51 – Right, trains, where are you going?
1:17:53 You’re not going anywhere.
1:17:54 – Exactly, what do you do?
1:17:56 – I say do it, like go out and do things,
1:17:58 especially when you’re young.
1:18:00 Experiences and stuff help create
1:18:02 the person you will be in the future.
1:18:03 Doing things that you think like,
1:18:07 “Oh, I don’t wanna do that, I’m a little scared of that.”
1:18:08 I mean, that’s what you gotta do.
1:18:10 You just get out of your comfort zone
1:18:12 and you will grow as a person
1:18:14 and you’ll go through a lot of wild experiences
1:18:15 along the way.
1:18:17 Say yes to life in that way.
1:18:18 – Yes, yes to life, yeah.
1:18:20 I love the boredom of it.
1:18:22 – Freight train riding is very boring.
1:18:23 (laughing)
1:18:27 And you’ll wait for hours for a train that never comes
1:18:28 and then you’ll go to the store and come back
1:18:29 and it’ll be gone.
1:18:31 And you’ll be like, “No.”
1:18:34 But I remember we went to jail and we got out and then.
1:18:36 – How’d you end up in jail?
1:18:40 – Oh, you know, it was trespassing on a train.
1:18:44 But we were riding a train and my brother woke up
1:18:46 and they had a dead owl land on his head
1:18:48 and he hit the train and fell on him.
1:18:50 And we woke up and we were laughing on us,
1:18:51 gotta be some kind of bad omen.
1:18:53 (laughing)
1:18:55 And then we were looking out of the train
1:18:57 and we saw a train worker look and saw us.
1:19:00 And he went, like, “Oh, we know that’s a bad omen.”
1:19:01 (laughing)
1:19:03 Anyway, sure enough, the police stopped the train.
1:19:06 Somebody had seen us on it and they searched it,
1:19:07 got us and threw us in jail.
1:19:10 It was not a big deal, we were in jail a couple of days.
1:19:13 And then they, but when we got out,
1:19:13 of course they put us,
1:19:15 we were in some po-dunk town in Indiana
1:19:18 and we didn’t know where to catch out of there.
1:19:20 And so we were at some factory
1:19:22 and we just ran in factory and we were right there
1:19:25 for like four days, no train that was going slow enough
1:19:26 that we could catch.
1:19:29 And then we found this big old roll of aluminum foil.
1:19:31 And now I gotta apologize to this woman
1:19:33 ’cause we were so bored just sitting there,
1:19:34 we built these like hats, you know,
1:19:36 like horns coming out every which way
1:19:38 and loops and just sitting there.
1:19:39 And then it was at night
1:19:41 and some minivan pulled up to this train
1:19:43 that was going by too fast.
1:19:46 We’re like, we’re like circling their cars,
1:19:49 entertaining yourself with whatever you can.
1:19:50 Poor lady was terrified.
1:19:52 – So hitchhiking was tough.
1:19:53 – I didn’t like hitchhiking
1:19:56 just ’cause you’re depending on the other people.
1:19:58 And it is not, I don’t know why,
1:20:00 you just want to be independent.
1:20:02 But you do meet really cool people.
1:20:04 A lot of times there’s really nice people
1:20:06 that pick you up and that’s cool.
1:20:10 But I just personally actually didn’t do it a lot.
1:20:14 And I wasn’t, you know, if you’re on the streets
1:20:17 for 10 years, you’ll end up doing it a lot more
1:20:18 ’cause you need to get from point A, but it won’t be.
1:20:20 But we just tried to avoid it as much as we could
1:20:23 ’cause it didn’t appeal to us as much.
1:20:26 – Well, the one downside of hitchhiking is people talk a lot.
1:20:27 – Oh, they do.
1:20:29 – So it’s both the pro and the con.
1:20:30 – Yeah, yeah.
1:20:32 – ‘Cause they’ll, you know,
1:20:34 sometimes you just want to be sort of alone
1:20:38 with your thoughts or there is a kind of lack of freedom
1:20:42 in having to listen to a person that’s giving you a ride.
1:20:42 – It’s so true.
1:20:44 And then you don’t know how to react to it.
1:20:45 I mean, I was young.
1:20:47 I remember I got picked up this Friday, 19 or something.
1:20:49 And then I was just like, “Hey, how’s it going?”
1:20:51 And she’s like, “I was fine, my husband just died.”
1:20:55 And then all, and I got diagnosed with cancer
1:20:58 and this and that and pretty bitter and all that
1:20:59 and understandably so.
1:21:02 But you’re just like, “I have no idea how to respond here.”
1:21:04 And so then you’re young and you had to be nice.
1:21:08 And I remember that ride being interesting
1:21:10 ’cause I didn’t really know how to respond.
1:21:13 And she was angry and going through some stuff
1:21:14 and dumping it out.
1:21:16 She didn’t have anyone else to dump it out on.
1:21:17 I was like, wow.
1:21:19 – I’m gonna take the freight train next time.
1:21:21 So how’d you end up in Siberia?
1:21:26 – I’ll try to keep it a little bit short on the pow.
1:21:30 But the long story short was I had a brother
1:21:31 that’s adopted.
1:21:34 And when he grew up, he wanted to find his biological mom
1:21:35 and just tell her thanks.
1:21:38 And so he did.
1:21:40 And when he was probably 20 or something,
1:21:43 he found his biological mom, told her thanks.
1:21:46 Turns out he had a brother that was gonna go over to Russia
1:21:48 and help build this orphanage.
1:21:51 And that brother was about my age.
1:21:54 I mean, I remember at that time I read this verse that said,
1:21:58 “If you’re in the darkness and see no light,
1:21:59 just continue following me.”
1:22:02 Basically, I was like, okay, I’m gonna take that
1:22:04 to the bank even though I don’t know if it’s true or not.
1:22:07 And then the only glimpse of like light I got in all that
1:22:09 was when I heard about that orphanage.
1:22:11 You go build that orphanage.
1:22:13 And I prayed about it.
1:22:17 And I felt, and I can’t explain, like it brought me to tears.
1:22:19 I felt so strongly that I should go.
1:22:21 And so I was like, well, that’s a clear call.
1:22:22 I’m just gonna do it.
1:22:26 Yes, I just bought a ticket, got a visa for a year,
1:22:29 and then I went and helped build an orphanage.
1:22:32 And we got that built and I wanted,
1:22:33 but he was an American
1:22:35 and I wanted to live with Russians to learn a language.
1:22:38 And so he sent me to a neighboring village
1:22:42 to live with a couple Russian families that needed a hand,
1:22:44 somebody to watch their kids and cut their hay
1:22:46 and milk the cow and all that.
1:22:50 So I found myself in that little Russian village
1:22:54 just getting to know these two guys and their families.
1:22:57 It was pretty fascinating.
1:22:59 And of course I didn’t know the language yet.
1:23:01 And they were two awesome dudes.
1:23:05 Both of them had been in prison and met each other in prison.
1:23:06 And like we’re really close
1:23:08 ’cause they had found God in prison together
1:23:13 and stayed together, got out and stayed connected.
1:23:17 And so I’d bounce backs between those two families.
1:23:18 And they used to always tell me
1:23:19 about their third buddy they’d been in prison with
1:23:22 who was a native fur trapper now in the north.
1:23:25 And so they’d, “You gotta go meet our buddy up north.”
1:23:30 And one day that guy came through to sell furs in the city
1:23:32 and he like invited me to come live with him.
1:23:34 And my visa was about to expire,
1:23:35 but I was like, “When I come back, I’ll come.”
1:23:39 And so I went back home, earned some more money,
1:23:42 did some construction or whatever, then went back
1:23:47 and headed north to hang out with Yura and Furtrap.
1:23:52 And that started a whole new open,
1:23:54 a whole new world that I didn’t know about.
1:23:56 Before we talk about Yura and Furtrapping,
1:24:00 let’s actually rewind and would you describe that moment
1:24:04 when you were in the darkness as a crisis of faith?
1:24:06 Yeah, yeah, for sure.
1:24:10 It was like, it was darkness.
1:24:13 And then that I didn’t know how to parse,
1:24:16 you know, what is this thing that’s my faith
1:24:20 and what’s the wheat and what’s the chaff
1:24:21 and how do I get through it?
1:24:26 And I basically just clung to keeping it really simple
1:24:32 and oddly enough in my Christian path
1:24:36 that God was actually defined in a certain God is love.
1:24:37 And I was just like,
1:24:40 “That’s the only thing I’m gonna cling to.”
1:24:42 You know, and I’m gonna try to express that in my life
1:24:47 in whichever way I can and just trust that if I do that,
1:24:50 if I act like I, you know, I’ve heard this lately,
1:24:53 but if you just act like you believe,
1:24:56 over time, that world kind of opens to you.
1:24:59 When I said I would go to Russia, I prayed and I was like,
1:25:03 “Lord, I don’t see you, I don’t know, but I got this.”
1:25:05 But I felt like it was a clear call.
1:25:07 I have only one request
1:25:09 and that is that you would give me the faith to match.
1:25:14 My action, you know, I’m choosing to believe.
1:25:17 Like I could choose not to because, you know, whatever,
1:25:20 but I’m gonna choose to act
1:25:22 and I just asked to have faith someday.
1:25:26 And then, honestly, the whole first year I went through,
1:25:29 and that was a very crazy time for me,
1:25:31 learning the language, being isolated,
1:25:35 being misunderstood, but then trying to approach all that
1:25:37 with a loving, open heart.
1:25:40 And then I came back and I realized
1:25:41 that that prayer had kind of been answered.
1:25:44 That wasn’t the end of my journey, but it was,
1:25:47 I was like, “Whoa, that was like my deepest request
1:25:48 that I could come up with.”
1:25:50 And somehow that had been answered.
1:25:53 – So through that year, you were just like,
1:25:55 first of all, you couldn’t speak the language.
1:25:55 That’s really tough.
1:25:56 That’s really tough. – It’s tough
1:25:59 because it’s unlike on a loan where,
1:26:02 because not only can you not speak and you feel isolated,
1:26:04 but you’re also misunderstood all the times.
1:26:07 You seem like an idiot and all that.
1:26:08 And so that was tough.
1:26:13 I felt very alone at certain times in that journey.
1:26:16 – But you were sort of radiating,
1:26:17 like you said, lead with love.
1:26:20 So you were radiating this kind of camaraderie,
1:26:22 this compassion for him. – I was really intentional
1:26:26 about trying to, I don’t know why I’m here.
1:26:31 I just know that that’s my call is to love one another.
1:26:32 And so I would just try to like,
1:26:34 and then it meant digging people’s wells.
1:26:35 It might meant just going and visiting
1:26:39 that old laid babushka at the house that’s lonely.
1:26:40 And that was really cool.
1:26:43 I got to talk to some fascinating ladies and stuff
1:26:46 and then go to that village, hope those families.
1:26:47 I’m gonna be like, cut the hay,
1:26:50 be the most the hardest worker I can be
1:26:52 because that’s my goal here.
1:26:54 I didn’t have any other agenda
1:26:58 or except to try to live a life of love.
1:26:59 And I couldn’t define it beyond that.
1:27:02 – What was it like learning the Russian language?
1:27:03 – It was super interesting.
1:27:07 I think I had the thought while I was learning it,
1:27:09 one that it was way too hard.
1:27:11 Like if I would have just learned Spanish or German,
1:27:12 I would be so much farther.
1:27:15 But here I am a year in and I’m like,
1:27:17 how do you say I want cheese properly?
1:27:18 (laughing)
1:27:22 And then, but at the same time,
1:27:23 it was really cool to learn a language
1:27:27 that I thought in a lot of ways was richer than English.
1:27:29 It’s a very rich language.
1:27:32 I remember there was a comedy act in Russian,
1:27:37 but he was saying one word you can’t have in English
1:27:38 is (speaking in foreign language)
1:27:42 meaning like, I didn’t drink enough to get drunk
1:27:44 to that type thing.
1:27:46 But it’s just that you can make up these words
1:27:50 using different prefixes and suffixes
1:27:53 and blend them in a way that is quite unique and interesting.
1:27:55 And honestly, it would be really good for poetry
1:27:57 ’cause it also doesn’t have sentence structure.
1:27:59 And the same way English does,
1:28:01 the words can be jumbled in a way.
1:28:03 And somehow in the process of jumbling
1:28:07 some humor, some musicality comes out.
1:28:08 It’s interesting.
1:28:10 Like you can be witty in Russian
1:28:11 much easier than you can in English.
1:28:15 Like witty and funny and also with poetry,
1:28:19 you can say profound things by messing with words
1:28:22 in the order of words, which is hilarious
1:28:26 because you had a great conversation with Joe Rogan.
1:28:29 And on that program, you talked about,
1:28:33 how to say, I love you in Russian, which is hilarious.
1:28:37 And it was, for me, the first time, I don’t know why.
1:28:41 You’re a great person to articulate
1:28:43 the flexibility and the power of the Russian language.
1:28:44 That’s really interesting.
1:28:49 ‘Cause you were saying like (speaking in foreign language)
1:28:55 You can say every single order,
1:28:59 every single combination of ordering of those words
1:29:05 has the same meaning, but slightly different.
1:29:06 – You could, like, it would change the meaning
1:29:09 if you took ya out and just said lublu tibia.
1:29:11 There’s like a different emphasis
1:29:14 or maybe or ya tibia lublu or something like that.
1:29:15 It’s all these different–
1:29:16 – Or just tibia lublu also.
1:29:18 – Right, exactly.
1:29:20 And so it is rich and it was interesting
1:29:23 coming from an English context and getting a glimpse of that.
1:29:26 And then wondering about all those Russian authors
1:29:28 that we all appreciate that,
1:29:31 oh, we actually aren’t getting the full deal here.
1:29:33 – Oh yeah, definitely.
1:29:35 I’ve recently become a fan, actually,
1:29:37 of Larissa Volkonskin, Richard Previer.
1:29:42 They’re these world-famous translators of Russian literature.
1:29:47 Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekov Pushkin, Bogakov, Pasternak.
1:29:49 They’ve helped me understand
1:29:52 just how much of an art form translation really is.
1:29:55 Some authors do that art more translatable than others.
1:29:57 Like Dostoevsky is more translatable.
1:30:00 But then you can still spend a week on one sentence.
1:30:01 – Oh yeah.
1:30:03 – Like just how do I exactly capture
1:30:05 this very important sentence?
1:30:07 But I think what’s more powerful
1:30:12 is not like literature, but conversation.
1:30:17 Which is one of the reasons I’ve been carrying
1:30:21 and feeling the responsibility of having conversations
1:30:23 with Russian speakers.
1:30:26 Because I can still see the music of it.
1:30:28 I can still see the wit of it.
1:30:29 And in conversation comes out
1:30:33 like really interesting kinds of wisdom.
1:30:36 You like, when I listen to like world leaders
1:30:38 that speak Russian, speak.
1:30:43 And I see the translation and it loses.
1:30:44 It loses the irony.
1:30:49 The, like in between the words,
1:30:51 if you translate them literally,
1:30:55 you lose the reference in there
1:30:59 to the history of the peoples.
1:31:00 – Yeah, for sure.
1:31:02 And I’ve definitely seen that on,
1:31:04 like I, you know, and if you listen to,
1:31:06 I think it probably was a Putin speech or something.
1:31:07 And you just see that, oh wow,
1:31:10 something major is being lost in translation.
1:31:12 You can actually see it happen.
1:31:14 I wouldn’t be surprised if that wasn’t the case
1:31:17 with the, you know, that whole greatest tragedy
1:31:18 as the fall of the Soviet Union.
1:31:20 I hear him being quoted as saying all the time,
1:31:22 I bet you there’s something in there
1:31:25 that’s being lost in translation that is interesting.
1:31:29 – I think the thing I see the most lost in translation
1:31:30 is the humor.
1:31:31 – Mm-hmm.
1:31:32 I’ll just say that that was the hardest,
1:31:34 that was the tangibly the hardest part
1:31:37 about learning the language is that humor comes last.
1:31:38 And you have to like wait,
1:31:40 you have to wait that whole year to, you know,
1:31:42 or however long it takes you to learn the language
1:31:44 to be able to start getting the humor.
1:31:45 You know, some of it comes through,
1:31:48 but you miss so much nuance and it,
1:31:51 and that was really difficult in interaction with people
1:31:53 to like just be the guys, you know,
1:31:54 when there’s humor going on
1:31:56 and you’re totally oblivious to it.
1:31:57 – Yeah, everybody’s laughing and you’re like.
1:31:58 – Yeah.
1:31:59 (both laughing)
1:32:02 – Trying to laugh along.
1:32:04 What do they make of you?
1:32:06 – To be honest.
1:32:08 – This person that came from no, descended upon us.
1:32:10 – Totally.
1:32:11 – All full of love.
1:32:14 – I’ve had a nickel for every time I heard like,
1:32:16 oh, Americans suck, but you’re a good American.
1:32:18 You’re like the only good American I’ve ever met.
1:32:19 But then, of course, they never met.
1:32:22 – Yeah, exactly, you’re the only one.
1:32:25 – But, you know, I think because I was just,
1:32:29 tried to work hard, tried to be more useful
1:32:32 than I was a drain, all that, they all,
1:32:35 I think it was pretty appreciated me out there.
1:32:39 I definitely heard that a lot, and so that’s nice.
1:32:41 – Can you talk about their way of life?
1:32:44 So like when you’re doing fur trapping.
1:32:47 – As a fur trapping was an interesting,
1:32:52 experience, basically what you do in October
1:32:55 or something, you’ll go out to your hunting cabin.
1:32:57 And you’ll have like three hunting cabins.
1:33:00 You’ll go stock them with noodles or whatever it is.
1:33:03 And then for the next couple months or however long,
1:33:04 you’ll go from one cabin.
1:33:06 Usually the guys are just out there doing this on their own.
1:33:09 So they’ll go out and they’ll go from one cabin
1:33:12 and each cabin will have five or six trap lines
1:33:13 going out of it.
1:33:15 Every day it’ll take a half a day to walk to the end
1:33:17 of your trap line, open all the traps
1:33:18 and a half a day to get back.
1:33:19 And they’ll do that.
1:33:21 They’ll spend a week at a cabin, open up all the traps
1:33:24 and then it’ll take a day to hike over to the other cabin,
1:33:26 go to that one, open up all those traps
1:33:28 and then there and then like three weeks later.
1:33:31 So they’ll end up back at the first cabin
1:33:32 and then check all the traps.
1:33:33 And so it’s kind of that rhythm
1:33:37 and they’ll do that for a couple of few months
1:33:41 during the winter and you’re trapping Sable.
1:33:42 They’re called Sable like Pine Martin
1:33:45 is what we would have the equivalent of over here.
1:33:49 And it’s like a weasel, a furry little weasel
1:33:51 and they make coats out of it.
1:33:54 And so when I went, he showed me how to open a trap,
1:33:58 showed me the ropes, gave me a topographical map.
1:33:59 There’s one cabin, there’s the other.
1:34:01 And we parted ways for like five weeks.
1:34:04 We did run into each other once in the middle there
1:34:06 at a cabin.
1:34:09 But other than that, you’re just off by yourself
1:34:11 hoping to shoot a grouse or something to add
1:34:14 to your noodles and make your meal better,
1:34:17 catch a fish and then working really hard
1:34:18 trying not to get lost and stuff.
1:34:21 – How do you get from one trap in location to the next?
1:34:24 – That’s funny ’cause like it was both
1:34:26 and basically by landmarks and feel.
1:34:28 Like I didn’t have a compass and things like that.
1:34:30 – By feel.
1:34:31 – Okay.
1:34:32 – I got myself into trouble the once
1:34:34 and the first time I went to one cabin
1:34:36 I got myself into trouble.
1:34:39 First time I went to the other cabin, I nailed it.
1:34:42 And so I had two different experiences on my first trip.
1:34:45 But the one that I nailed that I remember I had to go
1:34:47 and it’s like a day hike.
1:34:49 I was like, well, I know the cabin’s south.
1:34:52 And so if I just walk south, you know, the left,
1:34:54 the sun should be on the left in the morning
1:34:56 and right in front of me in the middle of the day.
1:34:59 And by evening it should like end up at my right
1:35:00 and just kind of guess what time it is
1:35:05 and follow along and it takes all day.
1:35:08 And a kiddie and I ended up like a hundred yards
1:35:11 from the cabin and I was like, whoa, this is the trail.
1:35:13 And that’s the cabin like, oh, amazing.
1:35:15 And then the other time I went out
1:35:20 and heading over the mountains and I thought, you know,
1:35:23 hours had passed, I probably had gotten slightly lost.
1:35:25 And then I thought I was halfway there.
1:35:27 So I thought, okay, I’m gonna sit down
1:35:30 and cook some food, get a drink, I’m thirsty.
1:35:33 So I sat down and went to start a fire
1:35:35 and my matches had gotten all wet
1:35:36 ’cause the snow had fallen on me and soaked me
1:35:38 and I didn’t have them wrapped in plastic.
1:35:40 I was like, oh no, I can’t drink water.
1:35:42 You know, so I was like, well,
1:35:44 I’m just gonna power through, I’m halfway there.
1:35:47 Well, I kept hiking and then I realized it was getting night
1:35:50 and then I realized I was at the halfway point
1:35:52 ’cause I saw this rock that I was like,
1:35:54 oh no, that’s the halfway point.
1:35:55 I was like, I can’t do this.
1:35:57 And so I need to go get water.
1:35:59 I ended up having to divert down the mountain
1:36:00 and head to the water.
1:36:03 I ended up, you know, there’s a whole ordeal.
1:36:04 I had to take my skis off
1:36:06 ’cause I was going through an old forest fire burn.
1:36:07 So they were all really close trees,
1:36:09 but then the snow was like this deep.
1:36:11 So I was just trudging through
1:36:14 and just wishing a bear would eat me (laughs)
1:36:15 get it over with.
1:36:17 But I finally made it down to the water,
1:36:20 chopped a hole through the ice, was able to take a sip.
1:36:22 – So you were severely dehydrated?
1:36:23 – I was severely dehydrated.
1:36:25 – Exhausted. – Exhausted.
1:36:28 Cold, like, you know, you feel sort of nervous
1:36:29 here then over your head.
1:36:31 And then I got down to the river, chopped a hole
1:36:33 and I just drank it, hiked up the river
1:36:35 and eventually got to the other cabin.
1:36:36 It was probably three in the morning or something.
1:36:40 – So you actually chopped a hole in the ice to drink?
1:36:41 – To get some water.
1:36:42 Yeah, I was like.
1:36:46 – Was this gotta be like one of the worst days of your life?
1:36:48 – You know, it was a bad day for sure.
1:36:51 I have had a few, but it was a bad day.
1:36:54 And here’s what was funny is I got to the cabin
1:36:55 at like three in the morning
1:36:57 and I should have brushed over a lot of the misery
1:37:01 that I felt and I laid down.
1:37:02 I was about to go to sleep
1:37:04 and then Europe charges in from there.
1:37:06 I was like, whoa, dude, Europe.
1:37:07 What are you doing?
1:37:09 And I was like, how’s it going?
1:37:10 He’s like, oh, it sucks.
1:37:12 And you laid down and just fell asleep.
1:37:13 I fell asleep and I was like, oh, that’s funny.
1:37:16 The last few weeks that we’ve been apart,
1:37:17 who knows what he went through.
1:37:20 Who knows why he was there at that time at night.
1:37:22 All just summarized and it sucked.
1:37:24 And we went to sleep and the next morning we parted ways
1:37:25 and who knows what.
1:37:26 – And you didn’t really tell him.
1:37:29 – Never knew neither of us said what happened.
1:37:32 It’s just like, oh, that’s interesting.
1:37:35 – Yeah, and he probably was through similar kinds of things.
1:37:35 – Who knows, yeah.
1:37:39 Like what gave you strength in those hours
1:37:44 when you’re just going to waste high snow, all of that.
1:37:50 You’re laughing, but like that’s hard.
1:37:51 – Yeah.
1:37:55 You know that Russian phrase in (speaks in foreign language)
1:37:58 – Eyes are afraid hands do.
1:38:00 I’m sure there’s a poetic way to translate that.
1:38:01 – Right.
1:38:01 It’s kind of like, you know,
1:38:02 just put one foot in front of the other.
1:38:04 You know, when you think about what you have to do,
1:38:05 it’s really intimidating.
1:38:09 But you just know, if I just do it, if I just do it,
1:38:12 if I just keep trudging, eventually I’ll get there.
1:38:13 And pretty soon you realize
1:38:16 I’ll have covered a couple kilometers, all right?
1:38:18 And so when you’re really in it in those moments,
1:38:20 I guess you’re just putting your head down
1:38:21 and getting through.
1:38:22 – I’ve had similar moments.
1:38:24 There’s wisdom to that.
1:38:27 Like once, just take it one step at a time.
1:38:27 – One step at a time.
1:38:28 I think that a lot.
1:38:29 Honestly, I tell myself that a lot
1:38:31 when I’m about to do something really hard.
1:38:32 Just, you know, I’m going to say bye.
1:38:33 So who could do it?
1:38:34 One step at a time.
1:38:37 You’re just going to get, don’t like sit there and think,
1:38:39 oh, that’s a long ways.
1:38:40 Just go.
1:38:41 And then you’ll look back
1:38:42 and you’ve covered a bunch of ground.
1:38:45 – One of the things I realized was helpful in the jungle.
1:38:48 That was one of the biggest realizations for me.
1:38:51 Is like, it really sucks right now.
1:38:56 But when I look back at the end of the day,
1:39:02 I won’t really remember exactly how much it sucked.
1:39:04 I have a vague notion of it sucking
1:39:05 and I’ll remember the good thing.
1:39:10 So being dehydrated, I’ll remember drinking water.
1:39:13 And I won’t really remember the hours
1:39:14 of feeling like shit.
1:39:15 – That’s absolutely true.
1:39:18 Like I don’t know, it’s so funny how like just awareness
1:39:21 of that, having been through it and then being aware of it
1:39:23 means next time you face it, you’re like, you know what?
1:39:25 Once this is over, I’m going to look back on it.
1:39:26 And it’s going to be like that and nothing.
1:39:29 And I’ll actually laugh about it and think it was,
1:39:30 it’s the thing I’ll remember.
1:39:33 You know, I remember that story of that miserable day
1:39:35 going down to the ice and I can smile about it now.
1:39:38 And now that I know that I can be in a miserable position
1:39:40 and realize that that’s what the outcome will be
1:39:42 once it’s over. – It’s just going to be a story.
1:39:43 It’s just going to be a story.
1:39:44 – If you survive though.
1:39:45 – If you survive and that can be.
1:39:50 – So you mentioned you’ve learned about hunger
1:39:51 during these times.
1:39:54 Like, what was like the hungriest you’ve gotten?
1:39:55 – It was the first time.
1:39:58 So to continue the story slightly,
1:40:00 I went for trapping with that guy
1:40:02 and then it turned out all his cousins
1:40:05 were these native nomadic reindeer herders.
1:40:08 And after I like earned his trust and he liked me a lot
1:40:11 and he took me out to his cousins who were all these,
1:40:13 you know, nomads living in tepees.
1:40:14 I was like, this is awesome.
1:40:16 I didn’t even know people still lived like this.
1:40:18 And they were really open and welcoming
1:40:20 ’cause their cousin just brought it me out there
1:40:22 and vouched for me.
1:40:25 But it was during fencing season
1:40:27 and fencing in Siberia for those reindeers.
1:40:28 Like an incredible thing.
1:40:30 You take an axe, you go out
1:40:34 and you just build these 30 kilometer loop fences
1:40:36 with just logs interlocking.
1:40:38 It’s tons of work.
1:40:40 And all these guys are more efficient bodies.
1:40:42 They’re better at it.
1:40:45 And I’m just like working less efficiently
1:40:47 and also a lot bigger dude,
1:40:50 but we’re all just on the same rations kind of.
1:40:53 And I got down, that was like 155 pounds.
1:40:55 You know, getting down pretty dang skinny
1:40:58 for my six, three frame and just working really hard.
1:41:00 And then since the spring in Siberia,
1:41:02 there’s no like, there’s not much to forage.
1:41:03 You know, in the fall,
1:41:04 you can have pine nuts and this and that,
1:41:06 but in the spring, you’re just stuck
1:41:08 with whatever random food you’ve got.
1:41:12 And so that’s where I lost the most weight
1:41:13 and felt the most hungry.
1:41:15 And it had a lot of other issues.
1:41:18 You know, I was new to that type of work.
1:41:20 And so working as hard as I could,
1:41:21 but also making mistakes,
1:41:26 chopping myself with the ax and getting injured,
1:41:27 all kinds of stuff, you know?
1:41:31 – So injuries plus very low calorie intake.
1:41:32 – Low, yep.
1:41:33 – And exhausted.
1:41:35 – I remember if you got your this poor son of a gun
1:41:37 to get stuck slicing the bread, you know,
1:41:38 like you’re here cutting the bread
1:41:39 and somebody throws all the spoons
1:41:42 and drops the pot of soup there.
1:41:44 And it’s like, before you can even slice in your slice,
1:41:46 all the meats like gone from the bowl.
1:41:48 Everybody else has grabbed the spoon in midair
1:41:52 and you’re just like, ah, hoping this one little noodles
1:41:54 is going to give me a lot of nourishment.
1:41:57 – Wow.
1:42:00 So everybody gets, I mean, yeah, first come, first serve,
1:42:01 I guess.
1:42:02 – ‘Cause it’s like all the dudes out there
1:42:03 working on the fence.
1:42:07 – So you mentioned the ax and you gave me a present.
1:42:08 – Yeah.
1:42:12 – This is probably the most badass present I’ve ever gotten.
1:42:15 So tell me the story of this ax.
1:42:17 – So the natives, when I got there,
1:42:20 I grew up on a farm, I thought I was pretty good with an ax,
1:42:23 but they do tons of work with those things.
1:42:27 And I really grew to love their type of ax,
1:42:29 their style of ax, and just an ax in general.
1:42:31 They’d always say it’s the one tool you need
1:42:34 to survive in the wilderness, and I agree.
1:42:38 And this one has certain, yeah, design features
1:42:41 that the natives, that was unique to the Evenky,
1:42:42 to the natives I was with.
1:42:46 One is with these Russian heads or the Soviet heads,
1:42:49 whatever they had, they’re a little wider on top here,
1:42:52 meaning you can put the handle through from the top,
1:42:53 like a tomahawk.
1:42:56 And that means you’re not dealing with a wedge,
1:42:58 and if it ever loosens and you’re swinging,
1:43:01 it only gets tighter, it doesn’t fly off.
1:43:03 And so that’s something that’s kind of cool.
1:43:10 Then they have, what they do that’s unique is,
1:43:13 so you can see, this is the Wolverine ax,
1:43:15 so it’s got the little Wolverine head in honor
1:43:17 of the Wolverine I fought on the show.
1:43:20 – So you have actually two axes as one of the smaller.
1:43:21 – This is a little smaller.
1:43:22 I didn’t want to make it too small,
1:43:24 ’cause you need something to actually work out there.
1:43:26 You need something kind of serious.
1:43:29 But then they sharpen it from one side.
1:43:30 So if you’re right-handed,
1:43:32 you sharpen it from the right side.
1:43:34 That means when you’re in the woods and living,
1:43:36 there’s a lot of times where you’re,
1:43:38 whether you’re making a table or a slay or an ax handle,
1:43:39 or whatever you’re doing,
1:43:42 that you’re holding the wood and doing this work.
1:43:44 And it makes it really good for that planing.
1:43:47 The other thing it is, especially in northern woods,
1:43:49 all the trees are like this big.
1:43:51 You’re never cutting down a big, giant tree.
1:43:55 And so when you swing with a single-sided ax
1:43:57 like this, sharpen from the one side,
1:43:59 it really, with your right-hand swing like this,
1:44:01 it really bites into the wood
1:44:04 and gives you a, because with that, if you can picture it,
1:44:07 that angle’s gonna cause deflection.
1:44:09 And without that angle on your right-handed swing,
1:44:11 it just like bites in there like crazy.
1:44:16 And so that, there’s another little,
1:44:19 the handle was made by some Amish guys in Canada.
1:44:22 This is all handforged by–
1:44:23 – Oh, it’s handforged.
1:44:24 – Yeah.
1:44:24 – I mean, yeah, it looks–
1:44:26 – And so it’s a pretty sweet little.
1:44:27 – Yeah, it’s amazing.
1:44:28 – There’s other thing, you know,
1:44:31 like I slightly rounded this pole here.
1:44:32 It’s just a little nuance,
1:44:34 ’cause when you pound a stake in,
1:44:38 if you picture it, if it’s convex,
1:44:38 when you’re pounding it,
1:44:40 it’s gonna blow the fibers apart.
1:44:42 If it has just a slight concave,
1:44:44 it helps hold the fibers together.
1:44:47 And so it’s a little nuance, not too flat,
1:44:49 ’cause you wanna still be able to use the back as you would.
1:44:51 – What kind of stuff are you using the axe for?
1:44:54 – Oh, so the axe is super important
1:44:56 to chop through ice in a winter situation,
1:44:58 which you probably hopefully won’t need.
1:45:01 But what I use an axe all the time for
1:45:06 is when it’s wet and rainy and you need to start a fire.
1:45:10 It’s hard to get to the middle of dry wood
1:45:12 if just a knife or a saw.
1:45:16 And so I can go out there, find a dead tall tree,
1:45:17 you know, dead standing tree,
1:45:20 chop it down, split it apart, split it open,
1:45:22 get to the dry wood on the inside,
1:45:26 shave it some little curls and have a fire going pretty fast.
1:45:28 And so if I have an axe, I feel always confident
1:45:31 that I can get a quick fire in whatever weather.
1:45:35 And I wouldn’t feel the same without it in that regard.
1:45:36 So that’s the main thing.
1:45:38 Of course, you can use it.
1:45:41 I use it if you’re taking an animal apart
1:45:44 or if you’re, you know, all kinds of,
1:45:48 what else, building a shelter,
1:45:51 teeth, skin and teepee poles or whatever you’re doing.
1:45:52 – What’s the use of a saw versus an axe?
1:45:55 – I greatly prefer an axe.
1:45:59 A saw though has, its value goes up quite a bit
1:46:00 when you’re in hardwoods.
1:46:03 Like when you’re in a hardwood oaks and hickory
1:46:06 and things like that, it’s, they’re a lot harder to chop.
1:46:09 So a saw is pretty nice in those situations, I’d say.
1:46:14 In those situations, I’d like to have both in the Northwoods
1:46:16 and in like more coniferous forests.
1:46:18 I don’t think there’s enough advantages
1:46:20 that a saw incurs with a good axe.
1:46:23 Now you’ll see people with little like camp axes and stuff
1:46:25 and they just don’t think they like axes.
1:46:27 It’s like, well, you haven’t actually tried to
1:46:29 try a good one first and get good with it.
1:46:31 The one thing about an axe, they’re dangerous.
1:46:33 So you need to like practice,
1:46:34 always control it with two hands.
1:46:36 Make sure you’re not, you know where it’s going to go.
1:46:39 It doesn’t hit you or when you’re chopping,
1:46:40 like say you’re creating something,
1:46:42 that you’re not doing it on rocks and stuff.
1:46:44 So that it’s, you’re doing it on top of wood
1:46:46 so that when you’re hitting the ground,
1:46:47 you’re not dulling your axe.
1:46:48 You know, there’s, you got to be a little bit thoughtful
1:46:49 about it.
1:46:50 – Have you ever injured yourself on the axe
1:46:51 in the early days?
1:46:52 – Oh yeah.
1:46:53 (laughs)
1:46:56 That first, so I’d gotten a knee surgery
1:46:59 and then about three months later, I had torn my ACL
1:47:00 and I went over to Russia and I was like,
1:47:02 well, I got a good knee, it’s okay.
1:47:04 And then that’s when I was building that fence
1:47:05 that first time.
1:47:10 And at one point I chopped my rubber boot with my axe
1:47:12 ’cause it reflected off and I was new to ’em
1:47:16 and I was really frustrated ’cause I’d done it before
1:47:19 and the native guy was like, oh, you know,
1:47:22 I think there’s a boot we left, you know,
1:47:25 a few years ago we left a boot like four kilometers that way.
1:47:27 So we got the reindeer, took ’em, rode ’em over.
1:47:30 Sure enough, there’s a stump with a boot upside down.
1:47:31 Pull it up, put it on.
1:47:33 I was like, sweet and back in business.
1:47:36 Went back a couple days later, chump chopped it,
1:47:38 cut your foot, cut my rubber boot.
1:47:39 And I was just like, dang it.
1:47:42 And I was mad enough that I just grabbed the axe
1:47:44 and swung it at the tree and it just one handed
1:47:46 and like deflected it off and bam right into my knee.
1:47:48 – Oh no.
1:47:50 – And I was like, oh, I fell down.
1:47:52 I was like, oh my gosh, ’cause you get your axe
1:47:56 really like razor sharp and then just swung it into my knee.
1:47:57 I didn’t even wanna look.
1:47:59 I was like, oh no, I looked and it wasn’t a huge wound
1:48:02 because it had hit right on the bone of my knee
1:48:05 but it split the bone, cut a tendon there.
1:48:06 And I was out in the middle of the woods.
1:48:08 So I literally like, I knew I was in shock
1:48:10 ’cause I’m just gonna go back to teepee right now.
1:48:12 So I like ran back to teepee, laid down.
1:48:14 And honestly, I was stuck there for a few days.
1:48:18 I was in so much pain and my other knee was bad.
1:48:19 It was like rough.
1:48:20 I had to, I couldn’t even,
1:48:23 I literally couldn’t even walk at all or move.
1:48:25 I had to, like, there was a plastic bag.
1:48:28 I had to like poop in it and like roll to the edge of the teepee,
1:48:30 like shove it under the moss.
1:48:32 I was like, it was just totally immobilized.
1:48:35 – I guess that should teach you to not act
1:48:38 when you’re in a state of frustration or anger.
1:48:39 – There you go.
1:48:40 I mean, it’s such a lesson too.
1:48:43 There were so many of those and it was always,
1:48:45 I was always in a little bit over my head
1:48:46 but like I said, you kind of do that enough
1:48:50 and you make a lot of mistakes but every time you learn,
1:48:52 I mean, now it’s like an extension of my arm.
1:48:53 That’s not gonna happen
1:48:56 because I just know how it works now.
1:48:58 – You mentioned wet wood.
1:49:02 How do you start a fire when everything’s around you is wet?
1:49:04 – I mean, it depends on your environment
1:49:05 but I will say in most of the forests
1:49:08 that I spend a lot of time in, in all the Northwoods,
1:49:12 the best thing you can do is find a dead standing tree.
1:49:14 So it can be down pouring rain
1:49:16 and you chop that tree down
1:49:19 and then when you split it open,
1:49:20 no matter how much it’s been raining,
1:49:22 it’ll be dry on the inside.
1:49:24 So you chop that tree down, chop a piece,
1:49:26 you know, a foot long piece out
1:49:30 and then split that thing open and then split it again
1:49:33 and then you get to that inner dry wood
1:49:36 and then you try to do this maybe under a spruce tree
1:49:38 or under your own body so that it’s not getting rained on
1:49:39 while you’re doing it.
1:49:43 Make a bunch of little curls that’ll catch a flame or light
1:49:46 and then you make a lot more kindling
1:49:48 and little pieces of dry wood than you think
1:49:49 ’cause it’ll happen, you’ll light it
1:49:51 and it’ll burn through and it’s like, dang it.
1:49:54 So just be patient, you’re gonna be fine.
1:49:58 You know, like make a nice pile of curls
1:50:00 that you can light or spark
1:50:03 and then get a lot of good dry kindling
1:50:05 and then don’t be afraid to just boom, boom, boom,
1:50:07 pile a bunch of wood on and make a big old fire,
1:50:09 get warm as fast as you can.
1:50:11 It’s amazing how much of a recharge it is
1:50:13 when you’re cold and wet.
1:50:15 – You can throw relatively wet wood on top of that.
1:50:18 – Once you get that going, yeah, then it’ll dry as it goes
1:50:20 but you need to be able to split open
1:50:23 and get all that nice dry wood on the inside.
1:50:27 – I saw that you mentioned that you look for fat wood.
1:50:28 What’s fat wood?
1:50:30 – So on a lot of pine trees,
1:50:33 a place where the tree was injured when it was alive,
1:50:35 it like pumps sap to it.
1:50:37 And then this is a good point because I use this a lot.
1:50:40 It pumps that tree full of sap
1:50:44 and then years later the tree dies, dries out, rots away
1:50:47 but that sap infused wood,
1:50:51 it’s like turpentine in there.
1:50:55 It’s oily and so if it gets wet, you can still light it.
1:50:57 It repulses water.
1:51:00 And so if you can find that in a rainstorm,
1:51:02 you can just make a little pile of those shavings,
1:51:04 get the crappiest spark or quickest light
1:51:09 and it’ll just sit there and burn like a factory fire starter.
1:51:13 It’s really nice, that’s good to spot.
1:51:15 It’s a good thing to keep your eye out for.
1:51:16 – Yeah, it’s really fascinating.
1:51:18 And then you make this thing.
1:51:20 – That’s just to get the sauna going fast.
1:51:23 It’s just, that was just doing that.
1:51:24 – What was that, that was oil?
1:51:25 – Oh, it was used motor oil.
1:51:28 I had if you mix it with some sawdust
1:51:33 and then now the sauna’s going just like home made fatwood.
1:51:37 – I don’t know how many times I’ve watched Happy People
1:51:40 a year in the tie go by Warner Herzog.
1:51:42 You’ve talked about this movie.
1:51:46 Where is that located relative to where you were?
1:51:49 – So there’s this big river called the Yenisei
1:51:51 that feeds through the middle of Russia.
1:51:53 And there’s a bunch of tributaries off of it.
1:51:56 And one of the tributaries is called the Pod Kamen,
1:51:57 the Atunguska.
1:51:59 And I was up that river and just a little ways north
1:52:01 is another river called the Bahta.
1:52:03 And that’s where that village is,
1:52:04 where they filmed Happy People.
1:52:07 So in Siberian terms, we’re neighbors.
1:52:08 (laughs)
1:52:09 – Nice.
1:52:12 – Similar environment, similar place.
1:52:16 That fur trapper that I was with knew the guy in the films.
1:52:18 – What would you say about their way of life?
1:52:20 Maybe in the way you’ve experienced
1:52:23 and the way you saw in Happy People?
1:52:27 – There’s something really, really powerful
1:52:32 about spending that much time being independent,
1:52:36 you know, depending on what we talked about a little early,
1:52:37 but you’re putting yourself in these situations
1:52:39 all the time where you’re uncomfortable,
1:52:41 where it’s hard, but then you’re rising to the occasion.
1:52:42 You’re making it happen.
1:52:45 There’s nobody, when you’re fur trapping by yourself,
1:52:47 there’s nobody else to look at, to blame
1:52:49 for anything that goes wrong.
1:52:51 It’s just yourself that you’re reliant on.
1:52:56 And there’s something about the natural rhythms
1:53:01 that you are in when you’re that connected
1:53:03 to the natural world that really is,
1:53:05 does feel like that’s what we’re designed for.
1:53:07 And so there’s a psychological benefit you gain
1:53:10 from spending that much time in that realm.
1:53:13 And for that reason, I think that, you know,
1:53:15 people that are connected to those ways
1:53:18 are able to tap into a particular,
1:53:20 I noticed it a lot with the natives.
1:53:23 So if I met the natives in the village,
1:53:26 I would think of them as like unhappy people.
1:53:28 Like they drink a lot.
1:53:33 They always fight and the murder rate is through the roof,
1:53:34 the suicide rates through the roof.
1:53:37 But when you meet those same people out in the woods,
1:53:38 living that way of life,
1:53:40 I thought these are happy people.
1:53:43 And it’s kind of an interesting juxtaposition.
1:53:44 It’d be the same person.
1:53:47 But then I lived in a native village
1:53:50 that had the reindeer herding going on around it
1:53:52 and everybody kind of benefited because of that.
1:53:53 I also went to a native village
1:53:56 that they didn’t hold those ways anymore.
1:53:58 And so everybody was just in the village life.
1:54:00 And it just felt like a dark place.
1:54:01 Whereas the other native village,
1:54:03 it was rough in the village
1:54:04 because everybody drank all the time.
1:54:07 But it had that escape and it had that escape valve.
1:54:08 And then once you’re out there,
1:54:10 it’s just a whole different world.
1:54:13 And it was such an odd juxtaposition.
1:54:18 It’s funny that the people that go trapping
1:54:23 experience that happiness and still don’t have
1:54:27 a self-awareness to stop themselves from then drinking
1:54:30 and doing all the dark stuff when they go to the village.
1:54:33 It’s strange that you’re not able to, you’re in it,
1:54:36 you’re happy, but you’re not able to sort of reflect
1:54:38 on the nature of that happiness.
1:54:39 – It’s really weird.
1:54:42 I’ve thought about that a lot and I don’t know the answer.
1:54:44 It’s like, there’s a huge draw to comfort.
1:54:47 There’s a huge, and it’s all multifaceted
1:54:49 and somewhat complex because you can be out in the woods
1:54:50 and have this really cool life.
1:54:53 I will say it’s a little bit different for men than women
1:54:56 because the men are living the dream
1:54:58 as far as what I would like.
1:55:02 So you’re hunting and fishing and managing reindeer
1:55:04 and you got all these adventures.
1:55:06 So what ends up happening is that a lot more guys
1:55:08 than young men out there in the woods.
1:55:10 And so there’s a draw also I think to go to the village
1:55:13 probably to find a woman.
1:55:16 And then there’s a draw of technology and the new things.
1:55:19 And I think it, but then once they’re there, honestly,
1:55:21 alcohol becomes so overwhelming
1:55:24 that everything else kind of just fiddles away.
1:55:28 – But it’s funny that the comfort you find,
1:55:32 there’s a draw to comfort, but once you get to the comfort,
1:55:35 once you find the comfort, within that comfort,
1:55:38 you become the lesser version of yourself.
1:55:39 – Yeah, I have for sure.
1:55:40 That’s weird.
1:55:42 – What a lesson for us.
1:55:44 – Like we need to keep struggling.
1:55:47 – Yeah, a lot of times you have to force yourself in that.
1:55:49 So like if we took them as an example,
1:55:51 I mean, a lot of times you drag this drunk guy
1:55:55 into the woods, literally just drag him into the woods.
1:55:56 And then he’d sober up.
1:55:59 And then he was like a month blackout drunk.
1:56:01 And now he’s sobered up and now boom, back into life,
1:56:05 back into being an knowledgeable, capable person.
1:56:07 And because comfort’s so available to us all,
1:56:10 you almost have to force yourself into that situation.
1:56:11 Plan it out.
1:56:14 Okay, I’m gonna go do that.
1:56:14 – Do the hard thing.
1:56:16 – I’m gonna do that hard thing
1:56:18 and then deal with the consequences when I’m there.
1:56:22 – What do you learn from that on the nature of happiness?
1:56:23 What does it take to be happy?
1:56:26 – Happiness is interesting because it’s like,
1:56:29 it’s complex and multifaceted.
1:56:31 It includes a lot of things that are out of your control
1:56:33 and a lot of things that are in your control.
1:56:38 And it makes, it’s quite the moving target in life.
1:56:39 You know what I mean?
1:56:43 So I, one of the things that really impacted me
1:56:46 when I was a young man and I read the Gulag Archipelago
1:56:49 was don’t pursue happiness because the ingredients
1:56:52 to happiness can be taken from you outside of your control,
1:56:57 your health, but pursue like a spiritual fullness pursue.
1:57:02 Pursue, I think he words it duty.
1:57:05 And then happiness may come alongside or it may not.
1:57:08 But so he gave the example that I thought was really interesting
1:57:12 of in the prison camps, everybody’s trying to survive.
1:57:13 And they’ve made that their ultimate goal.
1:57:15 I will get through this.
1:57:18 And then, and they’ve all basically turned into animals
1:57:22 in pursuit of that goal and like lying and cheating and stealing.
1:57:22 And then he was like,
1:57:26 somehow the corrupt Orthodox church produced these little
1:57:29 babushkas who were like candles in the middle
1:57:32 of all this darkness because they did not allow
1:57:33 their soul to get corrupted.
1:57:35 And he’s like, what they did do is they died.
1:57:39 They all died, but they were lights while they were alive
1:57:42 and lost their lives, but they didn’t lose their souls.
1:57:44 So for myself, that was really powerful to read
1:57:46 and realize that the pursuit of happiness
1:57:49 wasn’t exactly what I wanted to aim at.
1:57:53 I wanted to aim at living out my life according to love.
1:57:54 Like we talked about earlier.
1:57:55 – Trying to be that candle.
1:57:57 – Trying to be that candle.
1:57:58 Yeah, make that your ideal.
1:58:01 And then in doing so is interesting.
1:58:04 So for me personally, my personal experience of that
1:58:06 is I thought when I went to Russia that I kind of gave up.
1:58:08 I was like, I’m like in my 20s.
1:58:11 I spent my whole 20s living in teepees
1:58:12 and doing all this stuff that I thought,
1:58:13 I should give you getting a job.
1:58:15 I should be pursuing a career.
1:58:17 I should get an education of some sort.
1:58:19 Like, what am I doing for my future?
1:58:21 But I felt I knew where my purpose was.
1:58:22 I knew what my calling was.
1:58:23 I’m just gonna do it.
1:58:25 And it, it sounds glamorous now when I talk about it,
1:58:27 but it sucked a lot of the times.
1:58:30 And there was a lot of, a lot of loneliness,
1:58:32 a lot of like giving up what I wanted,
1:58:35 a lot of watching people I cared about.
1:58:36 You know, you put all this effort in
1:58:37 and you just see the people that you,
1:58:39 you put all this effort and just die and this and that.
1:58:42 And then it, it was that happened all the time.
1:58:43 And then the other thing I thought I gave up
1:58:44 was like a relationship.
1:58:48 Cause you couldn’t, you know,
1:58:50 I wasn’t gonna find a partner over there.
1:58:53 And so interestingly enough,
1:58:55 now in life I can look back and be like,
1:58:58 whoa, weird, those two things I thought I gave up
1:59:00 is where I’ve been like almost provided
1:59:01 for the most in life.
1:59:04 Now I have this career guiding people
1:59:05 in the wilderness that I love.
1:59:06 Like I genuinely love it.
1:59:07 I find purpose in it.
1:59:10 I know it’s healthy and good for people.
1:59:13 And then I have an amazing wife and an amazing family.
1:59:14 Like how did that happen?
1:59:16 But I didn’t exactly aim at it.
1:59:20 I consciously, in a way,
1:59:22 I mean, I hoped it was tangential,
1:59:23 but I aimed at something else,
1:59:25 which was those lessons I kind of got
1:59:26 from the Gulag Archipelago.
1:59:31 So you have, just cause you mentioned Gulag Archipelago,
1:59:33 I gotta go there.
1:59:36 You have some suffering in your family history,
1:59:41 whether it’s the Armenian, Assyrian genocide
1:59:43 or the Nazi occupation of France.
1:59:48 Maybe you could tell the story of that.
1:59:53 What this, the survival thing it runs in your blood,
1:59:55 it seems.
1:59:56 I love history.
1:59:58 Like I find so much richness in knowing
2:00:00 what other people went through
2:00:01 and find so much perspective
2:00:03 in my own place in the world.
2:00:06 I have the advantage of, in my direct family,
2:00:07 my grandparents, yeah,
2:00:10 they went through the Armenian genocide.
2:00:13 They were Assyrians, which was like a Christian minority
2:00:16 indigenous people in the Middle East.
2:00:18 They lived in Northwestern Iran.
2:00:21 And during the chaos of World War I,
2:00:26 the Ottoman Empire was collapsing
2:00:28 and it had all kinds of issues.
2:00:31 And it, one of its issues was it had a big minority group
2:00:33 and it thought it would be a good time to get rid of it.
2:00:38 And, you know, they can justify it in all the ways you can.
2:00:41 Like there were some people that were rebelling
2:00:41 or this or that,
2:00:45 but ultimately it was just a big collective guilt
2:00:49 and extermination policy against the Armenians
2:00:52 and the Assyrians and the, my grandparents,
2:00:57 my grandma was 13 at the time and my grandpa was 17,
2:00:59 which is interesting ’cause it happened almost 100 years ago,
2:01:03 but our, just my dad was born when my grandma was pretty old.
2:01:08 So, but my grandmother, her dad was taken out to be shot.
2:01:12 You know, the Turks were coming in
2:01:16 and rounding up all the men and they took them out to be shot.
2:01:19 And then they took my grandma and her,
2:01:22 she had seven brothers and sisters and her mom
2:01:24 and they like drove her out into the desert.
2:01:29 Basically she, her dad got taken out to be shot.
2:01:33 So his name was Shalman Umar or whatever, took him out.
2:01:35 They were all tied up, all shot.
2:01:37 He’d say to quick prayer before they shot him,
2:01:41 but he fell down and he found he wasn’t hit.
2:01:44 And usually of course they’d come up and stab everybody
2:01:47 or finish them off, but there was some kind of an alarm
2:01:49 and all the soldiers rushed off
2:01:50 and he found himself in the bodies
2:01:52 and was able to untie himself.
2:01:55 They were naked and, you know, hungry and all that.
2:01:59 And he ran out of there, escaped, went into a building
2:02:02 and found the loaf of bread wrapped in a shirt
2:02:05 and was able to escape, fled.
2:02:08 He never saw his family for, so to continue the story.
2:02:12 My grandma got taken with her, with her mother
2:02:14 and brothers and sisters and all just,
2:02:15 they just drove him into the desert
2:02:18 until they died basically and run him around in circles
2:02:20 and this and that and then all the raping
2:02:21 and pillaging that accompanies it.
2:02:26 And at one point her mom had the baby
2:02:31 and the baby died and her mom just collapsed
2:02:32 and said, I just can’t go any further.
2:02:37 And my grandma and her sister like picked her up to tea.
2:02:39 We got to keep going and like picked her up.
2:02:41 They left the baby along with the other.
2:02:42 Everybody else had died.
2:02:44 There was just the three of them left.
2:02:48 And somehow they bumbled across this British military camp
2:02:49 and were rescued.
2:02:53 Neither the sister nor my great-grandmother
2:02:56 ever really recovered from what I understand.
2:03:01 But my grandma did at the same time in another village
2:03:05 in North, in Iran there, the Turks came in
2:03:08 and were burning down my grandpa’s village
2:03:11 and they caught, and my grandpa’s dad was in a wheelchair
2:03:13 and he had like some money belt
2:03:15 and he stuffed all his money in it
2:03:17 and gave it to grandpa and just told him to run
2:03:18 and don’t turn back.
2:03:20 And they came in the front door
2:03:21 as he was running out the back
2:03:24 and he never saw his dad again.
2:03:28 But he said he turned around and saw the house on fire.
2:03:30 Never knew what happened to his sister then.
2:03:32 So he was just alone.
2:03:36 He ran, at some point he, I can’t remember,
2:03:38 he like lost his money belt
2:03:40 and like he took his jacket off, forgot it was in it.
2:03:41 Something happened.
2:03:44 Anyway, so he got, he was in a refugee camp.
2:03:46 He ended up getting taken in by some Jesuit missionary.
2:03:50 So anyway, both of them had lost basically everything.
2:03:53 And then at some point they met and bagged dad,
2:03:56 started a family, immigrated to France
2:03:59 and then it just so happened to be right before World War II.
2:04:03 And so then the Nazis invaded my aunt, she’s still alive
2:04:08 but she actually met a resistance fighter for the French
2:04:14 and under a bridge somewhere and they fell in love.
2:04:16 And she got married so she had kind of an in
2:04:19 on the French resistance at one point.
2:04:21 And of course they were all hungry.
2:04:22 They’d recently immigrated
2:04:26 but also had this Nazi occupation and all that.
2:04:30 And so the uncle Joe, the resistance fighter guy told him
2:04:33 like, “Hey, we’re gonna storm this noodle factory.”
2:04:33 Like, “Come.”
2:04:35 And so they stormed the noodle factory
2:04:36 and all my aunts around in there
2:04:39 and were like throwing out noodles into wheelbarrows
2:04:41 and everybody was running.
2:04:44 Then the Nazis came back and took it back over
2:04:46 and like shot a bunch of people and everything.
2:04:49 And grandpa, ’cause he had already come
2:04:51 from where he came from was paranoid.
2:04:53 So he buried all the noodles out in the garden.
2:04:57 And then my two aunts got stuck in that factory overnight
2:04:59 with all the Nazi guards or whatever.
2:05:01 And then the Nazi guards went all from house to house
2:05:05 to find everybody that had had noodles and punish them.
2:05:07 But they didn’t find my grandpa’s.
2:05:10 Fortunately, they searched his house but not the garden.
2:05:13 And then so they had noodles
2:05:15 and somehow it must have been in the same factory or something
2:05:17 but olive oil and they just lived off of that
2:05:19 for all the whole war years.
2:05:21 My aunts ended up getting out of that.
2:05:23 They hid behind boxes and crates overnight and stuff
2:05:26 and the resistance stormed again in the morning
2:05:28 and they got away and stuff.
2:05:29 But anyway, chaos.
2:05:30 So when they moved to America,
2:05:33 I will say the most patriotic family everywhere ever.
2:05:37 They loved it, it was like paradise here.
2:05:42 I mean, that’s a lot to go through.
2:05:45 What lessons do you draw from that on perseverance?
2:05:49 Look, I’m just one generation away from all that suffering.
2:05:52 Like my aunts and uncles and dad and stuff
2:05:54 were the kids of these people.
2:05:57 And somehow I don’t have that.
2:05:58 Like what happened to all that trauma?
2:06:02 Like it’s like somehow my grandparents bore it
2:06:05 and then they were able to build a family
2:06:07 but not just a family but a happy family.
2:06:09 Like I knew all my aunts and uncles
2:06:10 and I didn’t know them, they died before me
2:06:14 but they were, it was so much joy.
2:06:17 The family reunions were the best thing ever at the Jonas’s
2:06:20 and it’s just like how in one generation
2:06:22 did you go from that to that?
2:06:27 And it must have been a great sacrifice of some sort
2:06:31 to not pass that much like resentment
2:06:35 or like what did they do to break that chain
2:06:36 in one generation?
2:06:37 Do you think it works the other way?
2:06:41 Like where their ability to escape genocide,
2:06:46 to escape Nazi occupation gave them a gratitude for life?
2:06:49 Oh yeah.
2:06:51 It’s not a trauma in the sense like
2:06:53 you’re forever bearing it.
2:06:56 The flip side of that is just gratitude to be alive
2:06:58 when you know so many people did not survive.
2:07:00 Yeah, it must be because the only footage
2:07:03 I saw of my grandma was like they were all had the kids
2:07:06 and stuff and they were cooking up a rabbit
2:07:07 that they were raising or whatever.
2:07:11 And they got a joyful woman, you could see it in her
2:07:16 and she must have been so, she must have understood
2:07:18 how fortunate she was and been so grateful for it
2:07:22 and so thankful for every one of those 11 kids she had.
2:07:24 So I recognize it again in my dad
2:07:27 ’cause my dad went through a really slow kind of painful
2:07:31 decline in his health and he had diabetes,
2:07:34 ended up losing one leg and so he lost his job.
2:07:38 He had to watch his mom or my mom go to school.
2:07:41 He had long, all he wanted to do was be a provider
2:07:42 and be like a family man.
2:07:44 I bet the best time in his life was when his kids
2:07:45 ran to him and gave him a hug.
2:07:48 But then all of a sudden he found himself in a position
2:07:50 where he couldn’t work and he had to watch his wife
2:07:52 go to school, which was really hard for her
2:07:56 and become the breadwinner for the family.
2:07:57 And he just felt like a failure
2:07:59 and I watched him go through that.
2:08:01 After all these years of letting that foot heal,
2:08:04 we went out first day and we were splitting firewood
2:08:06 with the splitter and he was just so good
2:08:07 to be back out Jordan at seven.
2:08:09 And he crushed his foot in the log splitter
2:08:11 and you’re just like, no.
2:08:13 And so then they just amputated it.
2:08:16 We’ve got both legs amputated and then his health
2:08:17 continued to decline.
2:08:18 He lost his movement in his hands.
2:08:21 So he was like incapacitated to a degree
2:08:22 and in a lot of pain.
2:08:24 I would hear him at night in pain all the time.
2:08:28 And I just delayed a trip back to Russia
2:08:30 and just stayed with my dad for those last six months.
2:08:34 And it was so interesting having had lost everything.
2:08:37 I’ve watched him wrestle with it through the years.
2:08:39 But then he found his joy and his purpose
2:08:43 just in being almost, I mean, a vegetable.
2:08:45 I’d have to help him pee, help roll him onto the cot,
2:08:49 take him to dialysis and, but we would laugh.
2:08:51 He would like, I’d hear him at night crying
2:08:54 or like in pain, like, and then in the morning
2:08:56 he’d have like encouraging words to say.
2:08:58 And, and that’s added and I was like, wow,
2:09:01 that’s how you face loss and suffering.
2:09:04 And, and he must have gotten that from him somehow
2:09:05 from his parents.
2:09:07 And then, you know, I find myself on this show
2:09:10 and I had a thought like, why is this easy to me in a way?
2:09:13 Like, you know, why is this thing that’s, and I was like,
2:09:16 and it just felt like this gift that it kind of handed down.
2:09:19 And now it would be my duty to hand down, you know,
2:09:22 like, but it’s kind of an interesting.
2:09:23 And be the beacon of that,
2:09:25 represent that kind of perseverance in the,
2:09:30 in the simpler way that something like survival
2:09:31 in the wilderness shows.
2:09:33 – Yeah. – It’s the same.
2:09:34 It, it, it rhymes.
2:09:36 – It rhymes and it’s so simple.
2:09:38 Like the lessons are simple.
2:09:40 And so we can take them and apply them.
2:09:42 – So that’s on the survivor side.
2:09:45 What about on the people committing the atrocities?
2:09:47 What do you make of the Ottomans?
2:09:50 What they did to Armenians or the Nazis?
2:09:53 What they did to the Jews, the Slavs and basically everyone.
2:09:58 What do you, why do you think people do evil in this world?
2:10:05 – It’s interesting that it’s really easy, right?
2:10:06 It’s really easy.
2:10:10 You can almost see it, sense it in yourself to justify,
2:10:14 to justify a little bit of evil
2:10:16 or you see yourself cheer a little bit
2:10:20 when the enemy gets knocked back in some way.
2:10:23 It’s really, in the way it’s just perfectly naturalist
2:10:27 for us to feed that hate and feed that tribalism
2:10:28 in group out group.
2:10:29 We’re on this team.
2:10:32 And I think that can happen.
2:10:36 I think it just happens slowly,
2:10:38 like one justification at a time, one step at a time.
2:10:43 You, you hear something and it makes,
2:10:45 it makes you think then that you are in the right
2:10:49 to perform some kind of, you know,
2:10:51 you’re justified and create, you know,
2:10:53 break a couple of eggs to make an omelet type thing.
2:10:56 And then, but all of a sudden that takes you down
2:10:58 this whole train to where pretty soon
2:11:03 you’re justifying what’s completely unjustifiable.
2:11:09 – This is gradual, gradual process of a little bit at a time.
2:11:13 – I think that’s why like for me, like having a path of faith
2:11:15 is like, works as like a mooring
2:11:17 because it can help me shine that light on myself.
2:11:18 You know, it’s like something else.
2:11:19 Cause if you’re just looking at yourself
2:11:22 and looking within yourself for,
2:11:24 for your compass in life,
2:11:27 it’s really easy to get that thing out of whack,
2:11:30 but you kind of need a perspective
2:11:32 from what you can step out of yourself
2:11:35 and look into yourself and judge yourself accordingly.
2:11:38 And in my walking in line with that ideal, you know,
2:11:42 and then, and I think without that check with your,
2:11:45 your subject, you know, it’s easy to ignore the fact
2:11:47 that you might be able to commit those things.
2:11:51 But we live in a pretty easy, comfortable society.
2:11:54 Like what if, you know, what if we pictured yourself
2:11:57 in the position of my grandparents
2:11:59 and then all of a sudden you got the upper hand
2:12:01 in some kind of a fight, what are you going to do?
2:12:04 You know, you could, you’d definitely picture
2:12:08 becoming evil in that situation.
2:12:13 – I think one thing faith in God can do
2:12:19 is humble you before these kinds of complexities of the world.
2:12:23 And humility is a way to avoid
2:12:26 the slippery slope towards evil, I think.
2:12:28 Humility that you don’t know
2:12:31 who the good guys and the bad guys are.
2:12:35 And you defer that to sort of bigger powers
2:12:36 to try to understand that.
2:12:37 – Yeah.
2:12:39 – I think there’s a kind of,
2:12:41 I mean, a lot of the atrocities were committed
2:12:46 by people who are very sure of themselves being good.
2:12:48 – Yeah, that’s so true.
2:12:51 – It is sad that religion is,
2:12:56 at times used as a way to kind of just,
2:12:59 as yet another tool for justification.
2:13:00 – Exactly, yeah.
2:13:05 – Which is a sad application of religion.
2:13:05 – It really is.
2:13:10 It’s so inherent and so natural in us to justify ourselves.
2:13:14 It’s really, it’s really, I mean, I think it’s almost,
2:13:18 I mean, just understanding history, read history.
2:13:23 It blows my mind that, and I’m super thankful that somehow,
2:13:26 and this has been misused so much,
2:13:30 but somehow this ideology arose that love your enemies,
2:13:34 forgive those that persecute you,
2:13:38 and just on down the line,
2:13:40 that something like that rose in the world
2:13:44 into a position where we all kind of accept those ideals,
2:13:49 I think is really remarkable and worth appreciating.
2:13:54 That said, a lot of that gets wrapped up in what you’re,
2:13:55 you know, what is so natural,
2:13:58 just becomes another instrument for tribalism
2:14:01 or another justification for wrong.
2:14:03 And so I, even myself, in self-conscious,
2:14:05 sometimes talking about matters of faith,
2:14:06 because I know when I’m talking about it,
2:14:08 I’m talking about something else,
2:14:10 rather than, you know,
2:14:12 everybody within what someone else might think of
2:14:14 when they hear me talking about it.
2:14:15 So it’s interesting.
2:14:19 – Yeah, I’ve been listening to Jordan Peterson talk about this.
2:14:21 He has a way of articulating things,
2:14:23 which are sometimes hard to understand in the moment,
2:14:26 but when I like read it carefully afterwards,
2:14:27 it starts to make more sense.
2:14:30 I’ve heard him talk about religion and God
2:14:32 as a kind of base layer,
2:14:37 like a metaphorical substrate from which morality
2:14:40 of our sense of what is right and wrong comes from.
2:14:43 And just our conceptions of what is beautiful in life,
2:14:46 all these kinds of higher things,
2:14:49 they’re like fuzzy to understand
2:14:52 that their religion helps create this substrate
2:14:54 for which we as a species,
2:14:57 like as a civilization can come up with these notions.
2:15:01 And without it, you are lost at sea.
2:15:05 I guess for him, morality requires that substrate.
2:15:06 – Like you said, it’s kind of fuzzy.
2:15:10 So I’ve only been able to get clear vision of it
2:15:11 when I live it.
2:15:14 It’s not something you profess or anything like that.
2:15:17 It’s something that you take seriously
2:15:19 and apply in your life.
2:15:22 And when you live it, then there’s some clarity there,
2:15:25 but that it has to be kind of defined.
2:15:27 Like it’s like, and that’s where you come in
2:15:29 with the religion and the stories,
2:15:32 because if you leave it completely undefined,
2:15:35 I don’t really know where you go from there.
2:15:39 I actually, isn’t it funny to speak to that.
2:15:41 I did mushroom, have you ever done those before?
2:15:43 – Mushroom, yeah.
2:15:44 – I’ve done them a couple of times,
2:15:46 but one time was, didn’t do that many,
2:15:47 the other time more.
2:15:51 And I had a really profound experience
2:15:56 in helping couch all this in a proper context for myself.
2:15:59 So when I did it, I remember I was sitting on a swing
2:16:02 and I could see my, everything was so blissful,
2:16:05 except I could see my black hands like on these chains,
2:16:08 like on the swing, but everything else was blissful
2:16:10 and kind of amorphous.
2:16:13 And I could see the outline of my kids
2:16:15 and I could just feel the love for them.
2:16:17 And I was just like, man, I just feel the love.
2:16:18 It’s so wonderful.
2:16:21 Like, you know, but then I would, you know,
2:16:22 at times I would try to picture him
2:16:23 and I couldn’t quite picture the kids,
2:16:24 but I could feel the love.
2:16:27 And then, and then I started asking
2:16:30 all the deepest existential questions I could, you know,
2:16:31 and it felt like I just one answer,
2:16:32 another answer, another answer.
2:16:34 Everything was being answered.
2:16:36 And I felt like I was communing with God,
2:16:37 whatever you want to say.
2:16:40 And, but I was very aware of the fact
2:16:42 that that communing was just peeling back
2:16:44 the tiniest corner of the infinite.
2:16:47 And it just dumped me with every answer
2:16:48 I felt like I could have.
2:16:52 And it kind of blew me away.
2:16:55 So then I asked it, well, if you’re the infinite,
2:16:56 like why did you reveal to me yourself?
2:16:58 Why did you use like the story of Jesus
2:17:00 to reveal yourself?
2:17:05 And, and then that infinite amorphous thing
2:17:09 had to somehow take form for us to like,
2:17:11 for us to be able to relate to it.
2:17:13 It had to have some kind of a form.
2:17:17 And, but whenever you create a form out of something,
2:17:18 you’re like boxing it in
2:17:22 and subjugating it to boundaries and stuff like that.
2:17:23 And then that subject to pain
2:17:25 and subject to the brokenness and all that.
2:17:26 And I was like, oh, wow.
2:17:27 And then, but when I had that thought,
2:17:30 then all of a sudden I could relate my like
2:17:33 dark hands on the chains to the rest of the experience.
2:17:36 And then all of a sudden I could picture my children
2:17:38 as the children rather than this
2:17:40 amorphous feeling of love.
2:17:43 It was like, oh, there’s a lot on all times.
2:17:46 And, but, but then they were bounded.
2:17:48 And then once they’re bounded your subject to the death
2:17:51 and to the misunderstanding and to the, all that.
2:17:54 Like, you know, I picture the amoeba or the cell.
2:17:58 And then when it dies, it turns into a unformed thing.
2:18:02 And so we need some kind of form to relate to.
2:18:04 So instead of always just talking about
2:18:06 God completely intangibly,
2:18:09 it kind of gave me a way to relate to it.
2:18:10 And I was like, oh, wow, that’s,
2:18:11 that was really powerful to me.
2:18:16 And, and putting it in a context that was applicable.
2:18:22 – But ultimately God is sort of the thing that’s formless.
2:18:28 That it’s unbounded, but we humans need,
2:18:32 I mean, that’s the purpose of stories.
2:18:34 They resonate with something in us.
2:18:37 But when you need the sort of the bounded nature,
2:18:40 the constraints of those stories,
2:18:41 otherwise we wouldn’t be able to like-
2:18:42 – Can’t relate to it.
2:18:43 – Can’t relate to it.
2:18:47 And then when you look at the stories,
2:18:50 literally where you just look at them just as they are,
2:18:55 that seems silly, just too simplistic.
2:18:57 – Right, right.
2:19:00 And then that was always, a lot of my family
2:19:03 and loved ones and friends have completely left the faith.
2:19:06 And I totally, in the way I get it, I understand,
2:19:09 but I also really see the baby
2:19:10 that’s being thrown out with the bathwater.
2:19:14 And I want to cherish that in a way, I guess.
2:19:16 – And it’s interesting that you say that
2:19:19 the way to know what’s right and wrong
2:19:21 is you have to live it.
2:19:24 Sometimes it’s probably very difficult to articulate,
2:19:29 but in the living of it, do you realize it?
2:19:31 – Yeah, and I’m glad you say that,
2:19:33 because I found a lot of comfort in that,
2:19:36 because I feel somewhat inarticulate a lot of the times.
2:19:38 I’m unable to articulate my thoughts,
2:19:40 especially on these matters.
2:19:42 And then you just think, I just have to,
2:19:44 but I do have to, I can live it.
2:19:45 I can try to live it.
2:19:47 And then what I also am struck with right away
2:19:50 is I can’t, ’cause you can’t love everybody.
2:19:51 You can’t love your enemies.
2:19:55 And you can’t, but as placing that in front of you,
2:19:59 as the ideal is so important to put a check
2:20:01 on your human instincts, on your tribalism,
2:20:05 on your, I mean, you can very quickly,
2:20:08 like we’re talking about with evil,
2:20:11 it can really quickly take its place in your life.
2:20:15 I almost, you almost want to observe it happening,
2:20:20 but and so I so much appreciate all the me striving.
2:20:23 And that’s where, I grew up in a Christian family.
2:20:25 So I had these like cliches
2:20:27 that I didn’t really understand,
2:20:28 like a relationship with God.
2:20:30 Like, what does that mean?
2:20:33 But then I realized when I struggled with trying,
2:20:36 with taking, I actually did try to take it seriously
2:20:37 and struggle with what does it mean
2:20:40 to live out a life of love in the world?
2:20:42 But that’s like a wrestling match,
2:20:43 ’cause it’s not that simple.
2:20:44 It doesn’t sound, it sounds good,
2:20:47 but it’s really hard to do.
2:20:49 And then you realize you can’t do it perfectly,
2:20:53 but in that struggle, in that wrestling match
2:20:55 is where I actually sense that relationship.
2:20:59 And then it’s, and that’s where it kind of gains life
2:21:02 and how that, and I’m sure that relates
2:21:07 to what Jordan Peterson is getting at in his metaphor.
2:21:12 – Yeah, in the striving of the ideal,
2:21:15 in the striving towards the ideal
2:21:19 that you discover the, how to be a better person.
2:21:22 – One thing I noticed really tangibly on a loan
2:21:24 was that because I had so many people that were close to me,
2:21:26 kind of just leave it all together,
2:21:28 I was like, I could do that.
2:21:32 I actually understand why they do, or I could not.
2:21:33 You know, I do have a choice.
2:21:36 And so I had to choose at that point too,
2:21:39 to maintain that ideal.
2:21:42 And ’cause I could add enough time on a loan,
2:21:43 one nice thing is you don’t have any distractions.
2:21:45 You have all the time in the world to go into your head.
2:21:49 And I could play those pads out in my life,
2:21:51 and not only in my life, but I feel like societally
2:21:53 and for, and generationally,
2:21:57 like I throw it all away and everybody start from square one,
2:22:02 or we can try to redeem what’s valuable in this
2:22:05 and wrestle with it and struggle.
2:22:09 And so I just, I chose that path.
2:22:12 – Well, I do think it’s a kind of wrestling match,
2:22:15 ’cause you mentioned Gulag Archipelago.
2:22:18 I’m very much a believer that we all have the capacity
2:22:19 for good and evil.
2:22:23 And striving for the ideal to be a good human being
2:22:26 is not a trivial one.
2:22:29 You have to find the right tools for yourself
2:22:32 to be able to be the candle, as you mentioned before.
2:22:33 – I like that.
2:22:37 – And for that, religion and faith can help.
2:22:40 I’m sure there’s other ways, but I think it’s grounded
2:22:44 in understanding that each human is able to be
2:22:48 a really bad person and a really good person.
2:22:50 And that’s like a choice.
2:22:52 It’s a deliberate choice.
2:22:54 And it’s a choice that’s taken every moment
2:22:55 and builds up over time.
2:23:01 And the hard part about it is you don’t know.
2:23:05 You don’t always have the clarity using reason
2:23:08 to understand what is good and what is right
2:23:09 and what is wrong.
2:23:12 You have to kind of live it with humility
2:23:14 and constantly struggle.
2:23:17 ‘Cause then, yeah, you might wake up in a society
2:23:21 where you’re committing genocides
2:23:25 and you think you’re the good guys
2:23:28 and you have to have the courage to realize you’re not.
2:23:31 It’s not always obvious.
2:23:32 – It isn’t, man.
2:23:36 And only history has the clarity to show
2:23:39 who are the good guys and who are the bad guys.
2:23:40 – Right, you gotta wrestle with it.
2:23:43 It’s like that quote, you know,
2:23:45 the line between good and evil goes through the heart
2:23:49 of every man and we push it this way and that.
2:23:53 And our job is to work on that within ourselves.
2:23:56 – Yeah, that’s the part that’s,
2:24:01 what I like sort of the full quote talks about the fact
2:24:06 that it moves, the line moves moment by moment,
2:24:07 day by day.
2:24:12 We have the freedom to move that line.
2:24:16 So it’s like a very deliberate thing.
2:24:19 It’s not like you’re born this way and that’s it.
2:24:20 – Yeah, I agree.
2:24:25 – And especially in conditions that are like war and peace
2:24:32 in the case of the camps, you know,
2:24:36 absurd levels of injustice in the face of all that,
2:24:37 when everything is taken away from you,
2:24:40 you still have the choice to be the candle,
2:24:41 like the grandma’s.
2:24:46 By the way, the grandma’s in like all parts of the world
2:24:47 are like the strongest ones.
2:24:50 – Down out the grandma’s, seriously.
2:24:52 – It’s like, I don’t know what it is.
2:24:53 I don’t know.
2:24:58 They have this like wisdom that comes from patients
2:24:59 and they’ve seen it all.
2:25:01 They’ve seen all the bullshit of the people
2:25:05 that come and gone, all the abuses of power, all of this.
2:25:07 I don’t know what it is.
2:25:08 And they just keep going.
2:25:09 – Right, right.
2:25:13 Yeah, that’s so true.
2:25:18 – What do you think of as we’ve gotten a bit philosophical,
2:25:22 what do you think of Warner Herzog’s style of narration?
2:25:24 I kind of wish he narrated my life.
2:25:27 – Yeah, it’s amazing to listen to.
2:25:31 ‘Cause that documentary’s actually in Russian.
2:25:36 I think he took a longer series, yeah.
2:25:39 And then put narration over it.
2:25:43 And then narration can transform like a story.
2:25:45 – Yeah, he does an incredible job with it.
2:25:49 I was, have you seen the full version?
2:25:51 Have you watched the four part full version?
2:25:52 You should, like it’s in Russian.
2:25:54 And so you’ll get the fullness of that.
2:25:58 And it’s, he had to fit it into a two hour format.
2:26:01 And so I think what you lose in those extra couple hours
2:26:02 is worth watching.
2:26:04 I think you’ll like it.
2:26:05 So.
2:26:08 – Yeah, they always go, they always go pretty dark.
2:26:09 – Do they?
2:26:12 – He has a very dark sense about nature
2:26:15 that is violence and it’s murder.
2:26:17 – I think that’s important to recognize
2:26:19 because it’s really easy.
2:26:22 I mean, especially with what I do and what I talk about.
2:26:25 And I see so much of the value in nature.
2:26:29 Gosh, you know, I also see like a beautiful moose
2:26:31 and a calf running around.
2:26:34 And then next week I see the calf rip the shreds by wolves
2:26:35 and you’re just like, oh.
2:26:40 And it’s not as, it’s not as Russoian
2:26:44 as we’d like to think, you know.
2:26:49 It is, you know, things must die for things to live,
2:26:50 like you said.
2:26:52 And that’s just played out all the time.
2:26:53 It’s indifferent to you.
2:26:56 Doesn’t care if you live or die.
2:26:58 And doesn’t care how you die
2:27:00 or how much pain you go through while you, you know,
2:27:02 it’s like, it’s pretty brutal.
2:27:05 So that it’s interesting that he taps into that.
2:27:07 And I think I think it’s valuable
2:27:10 because it’s easy to idealize in a way, but.
2:27:12 – Yeah, the indifference is,
2:27:15 I don’t know what to make of it.
2:27:17 There is an indifference.
2:27:18 It’s a bit scary.
2:27:19 It’s a bit lonely.
2:27:24 You’re just a cog in the machine of nature.
2:27:27 That doesn’t really care for you.
2:27:27 – Totally.
2:27:30 I think that’s something I sat with a lot on that show.
2:27:32 It was another part of the depth
2:27:33 that your psychology delve into.
2:27:36 But it, and that’s when I thought like,
2:27:39 I could, I understand that deeply,
2:27:42 but I could also choose to believe
2:27:43 that for some reason it matters.
2:27:46 And then I could live like it matters.
2:27:47 And then I could see the trajectories.
2:27:49 And then kind of that was another fork
2:27:51 in the road of my path, I guess.
2:27:53 – What do you think about the connection to the animals?
2:27:56 So in that, in that movie, it’s with the dogs.
2:28:00 And with you, it’s the other domesticated, the reindeer.
2:28:05 What do you think about that human animal connection?
2:28:06 – In the context of that indifference,
2:28:10 it’s interesting that we assign so much value and love
2:28:12 and appreciation for these animals.
2:28:15 And in some degree, we get that back in a recipient.
2:28:17 I think right now you just said the reindeer.
2:28:19 I think of the one they gave me
2:28:21 ’cause he was long and tall, so they named him Dlinni.
2:28:25 And I just remember Dlinni and just watching him eat
2:28:27 the leaves and go with me through the woods
2:28:30 and trust him to take me through rivers and stuff.
2:28:34 And it really is special.
2:28:38 It’s really enriching to have that relationship
2:28:39 with an animal.
2:28:42 And I think it also puts you in a proper context.
2:28:43 One thing I noticed about the natives
2:28:45 who live with those animals all the time
2:28:49 is they relate to life and death a little more naturally.
2:28:51 It feels, you know, we feel really removed from it.
2:28:53 And it’s particularly in urban settings.
2:28:57 And I think when you interact with animals
2:29:00 and you have to confront the life and the death of them
2:29:04 and the responsibility of in a symbiotic relationship
2:29:08 you have, I think it opens a little bit of awareness
2:29:11 to your place in the puzzle
2:29:16 and puts you in it rather than above it.
2:29:19 – Have you been able to accept your own death?
2:29:22 – I wonder, you know, you wonder when it actually comes
2:29:23 what you’re gonna think.
2:29:26 But I did have, you know,
2:29:30 I did have my dad to watch up confronted
2:29:32 in as positive a manner as you could.
2:29:35 And that’s a big advantage.
2:29:40 And so I think when the time comes that I will be ready
2:29:44 but I think that’s easy to say when the time feels far off.
2:29:46 You know, it’ll be interesting
2:29:48 if you got a cancer diagnosis tomorrow in stage four.
2:29:51 It’s like, be heavy.
2:29:54 – Did you ever confront death while in survival situations?
2:29:56 I mean, when you’re, I mean, you’re in–
2:30:00 – I did have a time, I had a time where I thought I might,
2:30:01 I was gonna die.
2:30:03 I had a lot of situations that could have gone either way
2:30:06 and a lot of injuries, broken ribs and this and that.
2:30:10 But the one that I was able to be conscious
2:30:12 through a slowly evolving experience
2:30:15 that I thought I might die in was at one point
2:30:17 we were siphoning gas out of a barrel
2:30:18 and it was almost to the bottom
2:30:21 and I was just like sucking really hard to get the gas out.
2:30:23 And then I didn’t get the siphon going.
2:30:24 So I like waited.
2:30:26 And then while I was sitting there,
2:30:30 Europe put the a new canister on top and put the hose in
2:30:31 and I didn’t see.
2:30:34 And so then I went to get another, you know, siphon
2:30:36 and I went like sucked as hard as I couldn’t
2:30:39 and just instantly like a bunch of gas filled my mouth
2:30:40 and I couldn’t like spit it out.
2:30:42 I had to go like that.
2:30:46 And I just full mouthful of gas that I just drank.
2:30:49 And I was just like, oh, like what is that gonna do?
2:30:54 And he and my friend were gonna go on this fishing trip.
2:30:55 And so was I.
2:30:56 And I was just like, oh, I might just stay.
2:31:00 And I was in this little Russian village and they’re like,
2:31:03 all right, well, Europe was like, man, I had a buddy
2:31:06 that died doing that with diesel a couple of years ago.
2:31:08 You know, and I was, oh man.
2:31:10 And so, anyway, I made my way to the hospital.
2:31:13 And by then, you know, you’re really out of it because,
2:31:16 and then, and it was, they put me in this little dark room
2:31:19 and almost sounds like unrealistic,
2:31:20 but it’s actually how it happened.
2:31:25 They put me in a little, a little room with a toilet
2:31:28 and they gave me a cold, you know, galvanized bucket.
2:31:31 And then like, they just had a cold water faucet.
2:31:33 And they’re just like, just chug water at puke
2:31:35 into the toilet and just flush your sister as much as you can.
2:31:37 But they only had a cold water faucet.
2:31:39 So I was just sitting there like chug, chug, chug
2:31:42 until like you puke and chug until you’re puking them
2:31:42 in the dark.
2:31:45 And I, and I was like, started to shiver
2:31:46 ’cause I was so cold.
2:31:47 But I said to like, still like,
2:31:50 get this thing up to me and chug until I puke.
2:31:52 I was picturing, I remember reading, you know,
2:31:55 about the Japanese torture where they would put a hose
2:31:59 in somebody and then make them drink water until they puke.
2:32:02 Anyway, the, and I, and I just felt so,
2:32:04 the only way I can express it, I felt so possessed,
2:32:05 like demon possessed.
2:32:07 Like I was just permeated with gas.
2:32:09 I could feel it, it was coming out of my pores.
2:32:11 And I like wanted to like rip it out of me.
2:32:14 And I couldn’t, I’d like puke into the toilet
2:32:16 and then couldn’t see, but I was wondering
2:32:18 if it was like rainbow.
2:32:20 And then, and then I just remember like,
2:32:22 I could tell I was going out pretty soon.
2:32:26 And, and I remember looking at my hands up close.
2:32:27 I could see them a little bit.
2:32:30 And I was like, oh, that’s how dad’s hands looked.
2:32:31 You know, they were alive, alive.
2:32:36 And then interesting as it,
2:32:37 are my hands going to look like that?
2:32:38 In a few minutes or whatever.
2:32:40 And so then I wrote down like to my family,
2:32:41 what I thought, you know, like,
2:32:46 I love you all, like feel at peace, blah, blah, blah.
2:32:49 And then I passed out and I woke up, but I didn’t think,
2:32:52 I actually thought, when I went to pass out,
2:32:54 I thought it was, there was a coin toss for me.
2:32:58 So I really felt like I was confronting the end there.
2:33:02 – What are the harshest conditions to surviving on earth?
2:33:06 – Well, there are places that are just purely uninhabitable.
2:33:09 But I think as far as places that you have a chance.
2:33:12 – The other chance, look at where to put it.
2:33:13 – Maybe Greenland.
2:33:16 I think of Greenland because I think of,
2:33:17 you know, those Vikings that settled there
2:33:22 were rugged, capable dudes and they didn’t make it.
2:33:24 But there are Inuit that, you know,
2:33:28 natives that live up there, but that’s a hard life,
2:33:30 you know, and the population’s never grown very big
2:33:32 ’cause you’re scraping by up there.
2:33:36 And your picture and the Vikings that did land there,
2:33:40 you know, they just weren’t able to quite adapt.
2:33:43 And the fact that they all died out is just a symbol to that.
2:33:45 That must be a pretty difficult place to live.
2:33:47 – What would you say that’s primarily
2:33:50 because just the food sources are limited?
2:33:51 – Food sources are limited,
2:33:53 but the fact that some people can live there
2:33:54 means it is possible.
2:33:57 You know, they’ve figured out ways to catch seals
2:33:58 and do things to survive,
2:34:03 but it’s by no means easier to be taken for granted or obvious.
2:34:07 I think it’s a harsh, probably a harsh place to try to live.
2:34:09 – Yeah, it’s fascinating, not just humans,
2:34:13 but to watch how animals have figured out how to survive,
2:34:16 of watching like a documentary on polar bears.
2:34:19 Like they just figure out a way and they get,
2:34:21 and they’ve been doing it for generations
2:34:22 and they figure out a way.
2:34:27 They travel like hundreds of miles to like to the water
2:34:31 to get fat and they travel 100 miles.
2:34:34 So like, for whatever other purpose,
2:34:37 because they want to stay on the ice, I don’t know.
2:34:39 But it’s like, there’s a process.
2:34:40 – Yeah.
2:34:42 – And they figure it out against the long odds
2:34:43 and some of them don’t make it.
2:34:44 – It’s incredible.
2:34:48 It’s a, what a, tough things, man.
2:34:51 You just think every little, every animal you see
2:34:53 up in the mountains when I’m up in the woods,
2:34:55 is that thing just surviving through the winter,
2:34:56 winter scraping by.
2:34:59 Like, it’s tough, tough existence.
2:35:02 – What do you think it would take to break you?
2:35:04 Let’s say mentally.
2:35:08 Like if you’re in a survival situation.
2:35:11 – I mean, I think it would have, mentally,
2:35:13 it would have to be,
2:35:19 well, we thought, we talked about that earlier, I guess.
2:35:22 The thing that I’ve confronted that I thought I knew,
2:35:24 was that if I knew I was the last person on earth,
2:35:26 I wouldn’t do it, like I thought,
2:35:29 but maybe you’re right, maybe I would think I wasn’t.
2:35:32 But I think, you know, I can’t imagine,
2:35:37 I can’t imagine we’re so blessed in the time we live.
2:35:41 Like, but I can’t imagine what it’s like to lose you kids,
2:35:42 something like that.
2:35:44 It was an experience that was so common for humanity,
2:35:45 for so much of history.
2:35:49 Would I be able to endure that?
2:35:53 I would have at least a legacy to look back on
2:35:57 the people who did, but God forbid,
2:35:59 I ever have to delve that deep.
2:36:00 You know what I mean?
2:36:02 I could see that breaking somebody.
2:36:05 – And I mean, in your own family history,
2:36:07 there’s people who have survived that.
2:36:08 – Right. – Maybe that would give you hope.
2:36:10 – I mean, I think that’s what I would have
2:36:12 to somehow hold on to.
2:36:14 – But in a survival situation,
2:36:16 there’s very few things that–
2:36:17 – I don’t know what it would be.
2:36:20 So on a loan, like on a loan,
2:36:24 I knew if I wasn’t gonna, and ultimately it is a game show.
2:36:26 So it’s like, ultimately,
2:36:27 I wasn’t gonna kill myself out there.
2:36:32 It’s like, but so if I hadn’t been able
2:36:35 to procure food and I was starving to death,
2:36:38 it’s like, okay, I’m not, I’m gonna go home.
2:36:41 You know, but like, if you put yourself in that situation,
2:36:45 but it’s not a game show and haven’t been there
2:36:49 to some degree, I will say I wasn’t even close.
2:36:50 Like I don’t even know.
2:36:53 Yeah, I hadn’t got, it hadn’t pushed my mental limit
2:36:56 at all yet, I would say, or on the scale.
2:36:58 But that’s not to say there isn’t one.
2:37:02 I know there is one, but I have a hard time.
2:37:05 I know I’ve dealt with enough pain
2:37:08 and enough discomfort in life
2:37:10 that I know I can deal with that.
2:37:13 I think it gets difficult when you start to,
2:37:16 when there’s a way out and you start to wonder
2:37:19 if you shouldn’t take the way out as far as like,
2:37:25 if there’s no way out, I don’t know what to do.
2:37:26 Oh, that’s interesting.
2:37:30 I mean, that is a real difficult battle
2:37:33 when there’s an exit, when it’s easy to quit.
2:37:35 Right, well, how am I doing this?
2:37:40 Yeah, that’s a thing that like gets louder and louder
2:37:43 the harder things get, that voice.
2:37:46 It’s not insignificant, like if you think you’re doing,
2:37:50 if you think you’re doing permanent damage to your body,
2:37:52 you would be smart to quit.
2:37:56 You should just not do that on a, when it’s not necessary
2:37:59 because health is kind of all you have in some yards.
2:38:02 So, I don’t blame anyone, then they quit
2:38:05 because of that reason, it’s like a good, but,
2:38:08 but if you’re in a situation
2:38:11 and you don’t have the option to quit is knowing
2:38:12 that you’re doing permanent,
2:38:14 it’s not gonna break, that won’t break me.
2:38:16 You know, you just have to get through it.
2:38:19 I’m not sure what my mental limit would be
2:38:23 outside of like the family suffering
2:38:25 in the way that I described earlier.
2:38:28 When it’s just you, it’s you alone, there’s the limit.
2:38:31 You don’t know what the limit is.
2:38:32 I don’t know.
2:38:36 Injuries, like physical stuff is annoying though.
2:38:38 That could be.
2:38:40 Isn’t it weird how like, I mean,
2:38:42 I can be have a good life, happy life.
2:38:44 And then you have a bad back, or you have a headache.
2:38:47 And it’s amazing how much that can overwhelm your experience.
2:38:52 Then again, that was something I saw in dad.
2:38:57 It was like, interesting, how can you find joy in that?
2:38:59 When you’re just steeped in that all the time
2:39:00 and people I’m sure listening,
2:39:01 there’s a lot of people that do.
2:39:06 And it’s so, and talk about the cross to bear
2:39:09 and the like hero journey to be like good for you
2:39:14 for trying to find what your way through that.
2:39:17 There was a lady in Russia, Tanya,
2:39:21 and she had had cancer and recovered,
2:39:24 but always had a pounding headache.
2:39:27 And she was really joyful and really fun to be around.
2:39:30 And I just like, man, you just have to have
2:39:32 a really bad headache for today.
2:39:35 Know how much that throws a wrench in your existence.
2:39:38 So all that to say, if you’re not right
2:39:41 and now suffering with blindness or a bad back,
2:39:44 or it’s like, just count your blessings
2:39:46 ’cause it’s so easy to have.
2:39:48 It’s amazing how complex we are,
2:39:51 how well our bodies work, and when they go out of whack,
2:39:54 they can be very overwhelming and they all will at some point.
2:39:57 And so that’s an interesting thing to think ahead on,
2:39:59 how you’re gonna confront it when it does.
2:40:01 Keeps you humble, like you said.
2:40:03 It’s inspiring that people figure out a way.
2:40:06 With migraines, that’s a hard one, though.
2:40:09 If you have headaches, it’s so hard.
2:40:13 – Oh man, ’cause those can be really painful.
2:40:14 – It’s overwhelming.
2:40:16 – And dizzying and all of this,
2:40:21 oh, that’s inspiring, that’s inspiring that you found it.
2:40:23 – There’s not nothing in that.
2:40:26 You know, I mean, you can find,
2:40:29 somehow you can tap into purpose even in that pain.
2:40:31 I guess I would just speak from like, right?
2:40:33 My dad’s experience, I saw somebody do it
2:40:35 and I benefited from it.
2:40:40 So thanks to him for seeing the higher calling there.
2:40:43 – You wrote a note on your blog.
2:40:48 In 2012, you spent five weeks-ish in the forest alone.
2:40:50 I just thought it was interesting
2:40:55 ’cause this is in contrast to on the show alone.
2:40:58 You were really alone, like you’re not talking to anybody
2:40:59 and you realized that,
2:41:03 you’re right, I remember at one point
2:41:04 after several weeks had passed,
2:41:06 I wondered into a particularly beautiful part
2:41:09 of the woods and exclaimed out loud, wow.
2:41:11 It struck me that it was the first time
2:41:14 I had heard my own voice in several weeks
2:41:15 with no one to talk to.
2:41:20 What, did your thoughts go into something like deep place?
2:41:27 – Yeah, I’d say my mental life was really active.
2:41:31 You know, you end up, when you’re that long alone,
2:41:33 I’ll tell you what you won’t have
2:41:35 is any of the skeletons in your closet
2:41:37 that are still in your closet.
2:41:41 Like you will be forced to confront every person,
2:41:43 even the one, I mean, it’s one thing
2:41:45 if you’ve cheated on your wife or something,
2:41:48 you’ll be confronted with the random dude
2:41:49 you didn’t say thank you to
2:41:53 and the issue that you didn’t resolve,
2:41:56 all this stuff that was long gone will come up
2:41:57 and then you’ll work through it
2:42:00 and you’ll think how you should make it right.
2:42:04 And I had a lot of those thoughts
2:42:05 while I was out there
2:42:08 and it was so interesting to see
2:42:10 what you would just brush over
2:42:15 and then confront it because in our modern world,
2:42:16 when you’re always distracted,
2:42:19 you’re just never ever gonna know
2:42:20 until you take the time to be alone
2:42:22 for a considerable amount of time.
2:42:24 – Spend time hanging out with the skeletons.
2:42:28 – Yeah, exactly, I recommend it.
2:42:30 So you said you guide people.
2:42:33 What are your favorite places to go to?
2:42:38 – Well, if I tell them, then is everybody gonna go?
2:42:40 – I like how you actually have a,
2:42:42 it might be a YouTube video or your Instagram posts
2:42:44 where you give them a recommendation
2:42:46 of like the best fishing hole in the world.
2:42:48 And like you give detailed instruction
2:42:50 as how to get there, but it’s like a journey of a life.
2:42:51 It’s like a Lord of the Rings type of journey.
2:42:55 – Right, right, no, I love the,
2:42:59 I love the like in the, you know, there’s a region
2:43:01 that I definitely love in the States.
2:43:04 It’s special to me, I grew up there.
2:43:06 Stuff like that, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana.
2:43:08 Those are really cool places to me.
2:43:10 I like the small town vibes,
2:43:12 they’re still maintaining and stuff there.
2:43:15 – Just like a mix of like mountains and forests.
2:43:16 – Mm-hmm, but you know,
2:43:21 another really awesome place that blew my mind was New Zealand,
2:43:25 that South Island of New Zealand was pretty incredible.
2:43:28 As far as just stunning stuff to see.
2:43:30 I was pretty high up there on the list,
2:43:33 but there’s all these places have such kind of unique,
2:43:38 unique things about Canada became like where they did alone.
2:43:40 It’s not typically what you’d say
2:43:43 because it’s fairly flat and cliffy and stuff,
2:43:44 but it really became beautiful to me
2:43:47 ’cause I could tapped into the richness of the land, you know,
2:43:51 or, you know, the fishing hole thing is like,
2:43:53 that’s a special little spot, you know, something like that.
2:43:55 And you see the beauty,
2:43:58 and then you start to see the beauty in the smaller scale,
2:43:59 like, oh, look at that little meadow with that.
2:44:02 It’s got an orange and a pink and a blue flower
2:44:02 right next to each other.
2:44:04 That’s super cool, you know,
2:44:06 and there’s a million things like that.
2:44:08 – Have you been back there yet?
2:44:10 Back to where the alone show was?
2:44:13 – No, we’re going back this summer.
2:44:14 I’m gonna take a guy to trip up there.
2:44:15 Just take a bunch of people.
2:44:17 I’m really looking forward to being able to enjoy it
2:44:19 without the pressure of it.
2:44:20 (laughs)
2:44:22 It’s gonna be a fun trip.
2:44:23 – What advice would you give to people
2:44:28 in terms of how to be in nature?
2:44:32 So like, hikes to take or journeys to take out of nature,
2:44:34 where it could take you to that place
2:44:37 where the busyness and the madness of the world
2:44:42 can dissipate and you can be with it?
2:44:43 Like, how long does it take for you,
2:44:46 for people usually to just like–
2:44:48 – Yeah, I think you need a few days, probably,
2:44:50 to really tap into it.
2:44:52 But, you know, maybe you need to work your way there.
2:44:56 Like, it’s awesome to go out on a hike,
2:44:58 go see some beautiful little waterfall
2:45:01 or go see some old tree or whatever it is, you know?
2:45:06 But I think just doing is it.
2:45:08 Now, you know, everybody thinks about doing it.
2:45:10 You just really do do it.
2:45:13 Like, go out and then plan to go overnight.
2:45:17 Don’t be so afraid of all the potentialities
2:45:20 that you delay it inevitably.
2:45:21 You know, it’s actually one of the things
2:45:25 that I’ve enjoyed the most about guiding people
2:45:28 is giving them the tools so that now they have
2:45:30 this ability into the future.
2:45:31 You can go out and feel like,
2:45:34 “Oh, I’m gonna pick this spot on the map and go there.”
2:45:38 And that’s a tool in your toolkit of life
2:45:40 that is, I think, really valuable
2:45:44 because I think everybody should spend some time in nature.
2:45:48 I think it’s been pretty proven healthy.
2:45:52 – Yeah, I mean, camping is great and solo.
2:45:53 I mean, she has to do it solo.
2:45:54 It’s pretty cool.
2:45:56 – Yeah, that’s cool you did.
2:45:56 – Yeah, it’s cool.
2:45:59 And I recorded stuff so that helped.
2:46:00 – Oh, good, yeah.
2:46:02 – So you sit there and you record the thoughts.
2:46:04 Actually, for having to record the thoughts,
2:46:07 I had to like, it forced me to really think
2:46:10 through what I was feeling to convert the feelings
2:46:14 into words, which is not a trivial thing
2:46:18 because it’s mostly just feeling.
2:46:21 You feel a certain kind of way.
2:46:23 – That’s interesting.
2:46:26 You know, I felt like the way I met my wife
2:46:28 was like, we met at this wedding
2:46:30 and then I went to Russia, basically.
2:46:34 And we kept in touch via email for that year
2:46:36 and a similar thing.
2:46:37 It was really interesting to be,
2:46:39 have to be so thoughtful and purposeful
2:46:41 about what you’re saying and saying.
2:46:46 I think it’s probably a healthy, good thing to do.
2:46:47 – What gives you hope about this whole thing
2:46:52 we have going on, the future of human civilization?
2:46:54 – If we talked about gratitude earlier,
2:46:56 like, look at what we have now.
2:46:57 That could give you hope.
2:46:59 Like, look at what the world we’re in.
2:47:03 We live in such an amazing time with, you know.
2:47:04 – Buildings and roads.
2:47:05 – Buildings and roads.
2:47:05 – Airplanes.
2:47:06 – Food security.
2:47:07 – Food security.
2:47:08 – And, you know, I lived with the natives
2:47:10 and I thought to myself a lot.
2:47:12 Like, I wonder if not everybody would choose
2:47:13 this way of life.
2:47:16 Because it is, there’s something really rich
2:47:18 about just that small group,
2:47:22 your direct relationship to your needs, all that.
2:47:26 But with the food security and the help,
2:47:28 you know, modern medicine,
2:47:30 the things that we now have that we take for granted
2:47:32 but that I wouldn’t choose that life
2:47:34 if we didn’t have those things.
2:47:36 Otherwise you’re gonna watch your family starve to death
2:47:38 or things like that.
2:47:41 We, so we have so much now which should lead us
2:47:46 to be hopeful while we try to improve
2:47:48 because there’s definitely a lot of things wrong.
2:47:52 You know, but I guess there’s a lot of room for improvement
2:47:54 and I do feel like we’re sort of
2:47:56 walking on a nice edge, you know.
2:48:00 But I guess that’s the way it is.
2:48:02 – As the tools we build become more powerful.
2:48:04 – Yeah, exactly.
2:48:05 (laughing)
2:48:08 – My edge is getting sharper and sharper.
2:48:13 I talk, yeah, I’ll argue with my brother about that.
2:48:15 Sometimes he takes the more positive view
2:48:17 and I’m like, ooh, I mean, it’s great.
2:48:18 We’ve done great.
2:48:22 But man, more and more people with nuclear weapons
2:48:25 and more, it’s just gonna take one mistake
2:48:27 with the more power.
2:48:28 – I think there’s something about the sharpness
2:48:30 of the knife’s edge.
2:48:33 It gets humanity to really like focus
2:48:37 and like step up and not screw it up.
2:48:40 There is, just like you said with the cold,
2:48:43 going out into the extreme cold, it like wakes you up.
2:48:44 – Yeah.
2:48:46 – And I think the same thing when nuclear weapons
2:48:48 is just like wakes up humanity.
2:48:49 Like, it’s not…
2:48:50 – Everybody was half asleep.
2:48:51 – Exactly.
2:48:52 (laughing)
2:48:54 And then we keep building more and more powerful things
2:48:55 to make sure we stay awake.
2:48:57 – Yeah, exactly, stay awake.
2:48:59 See what we’ve done, be thankful for it,
2:49:00 but then improve it.
2:49:05 – And then, of course, I appreciated your little post
2:49:06 the other week when you said you wanted some kids.
2:49:10 You know, that’s a very direct way to relate to the future
2:49:11 and to have hope for the future.
2:49:13 – I can’t wait.
2:49:15 And hope they also get a chance to go out
2:49:16 in the wilderness with you at some point.
2:49:17 – I would love it.
2:49:18 – That’d be fun.
2:49:19 – Open invite, let’s make it happen.
2:49:21 I got some really cool spots of it.
2:49:23 Have in mind to take you.
2:49:25 – Awesome, let’s go.
2:49:26 Thank you for talking to me, brother.
2:49:28 Thank you for everything you stand for.
2:49:28 – Thanks, man.
2:49:32 Thanks for listening to this conversation
2:49:33 with Jordan Jonas.
2:49:36 To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors
2:49:37 in the description.
2:49:41 And now, let me try a new thing,
2:49:43 where I try to articulate some things
2:49:44 I’ve been thinking about,
2:49:46 whether prompted by one of your questions
2:49:48 or just in general.
2:49:50 If you’d like to submit a question,
2:49:53 including an audio and video form,
2:49:56 go to lexfreedman.com/ama.
2:50:00 Now, allow me to comment on the attempted assassination
2:50:02 of Donald Trump on July 13th.
2:50:06 First, as I’ve posted online,
2:50:08 wishing Donald Trump good health
2:50:10 after an assassination attempt
2:50:12 is not a partisan statement.
2:50:13 It’s a human statement.
2:50:18 And I’m sorry if some of you want to categorize me
2:50:22 and other people into blue and red bins.
2:50:25 Perhaps you do it because it’s easier to hate
2:50:27 than to understand.
2:50:28 In this case, it shouldn’t matter.
2:50:30 But let me say, once again,
2:50:33 that I am not right-wing nor left-wing.
2:50:35 I’m not partisan.
2:50:37 I make up my mind one issue at a time
2:50:38 and I try to approach everyone
2:50:43 and every idea with empathy and with an open mind.
2:50:48 I have and will continue to have many long-form conversations
2:50:51 with people both on the left and the right.
2:50:55 Now, onto the much more important point.
2:50:58 The attempted assassination of Donald Trump
2:51:00 should serve as a reminder
2:51:04 that history can turn on a single moment.
2:51:07 World War I started with the assassination
2:51:09 of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
2:51:12 And just like that, one moment in history,
2:51:14 on June 18th, 1914,
2:51:17 led to the death of 20 million people,
2:51:20 half of whom were civilians.
2:51:23 If one of the bullets on July 13th
2:51:25 had a slightly different trajectory,
2:51:28 where Donald Trump would end up dying
2:51:30 in that small town in Pennsylvania,
2:51:33 history would write a new dramatic chapter,
2:51:36 the contents of which all the so-called experts
2:51:39 and pundits would not be able to predict.
2:51:43 It very well could have led to a civil war.
2:51:44 Because the true depth of the division
2:51:46 in the country is unknown.
2:51:50 We only see the surface turmoil on social media and so on.
2:51:52 And in his events, like the assassination
2:51:56 of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, where we, as a human species,
2:51:59 get to find out what the truth is,
2:52:01 of where people really stand.
2:52:05 The task then is to try and make our society
2:52:10 maximally resilient and robust as such to stabilizing events.
2:52:12 The way to do that, I think,
2:52:16 is to properly identify the threat, the enemy.
2:52:20 It’s not the left or the right that are the, quote, “enemy.”
2:52:23 Extreme division itself is the enemy.
2:52:25 Some division is productive.
2:52:28 It’s how we develop good ideas and policies.
2:52:31 But too much leads to the spread of resentment and hate
2:52:35 that can boil over into destruction on a global scale.
2:52:40 So we must absolutely avoid the slide into extreme division.
2:52:42 There are many ways to do this,
2:52:45 and perhaps it’s a discussion for another time.
2:52:47 But at the very basic level,
2:52:49 let’s continuously try to turn down
2:52:51 the temperature of the partisan bickering,
2:52:56 and more often celebrate our obvious common humanity.
2:52:59 Now, let me also comment on conspiracy theories.
2:53:02 I’ve been hearing a lot of those recently.
2:53:05 I think they play an important role in society.
2:53:08 They ask questions that serve as a check on power
2:53:11 and corruption of centralized institutions.
2:53:15 The way to answer the questions raised by conspiracy theories
2:53:17 is not by dismissing them with arrogance
2:53:19 and feigned ignorance.
2:53:23 But with transparency and accountability.
2:53:25 In this particular case, the obvious question
2:53:27 that needs an honest answer
2:53:31 is why did the Secret Service fail so terribly
2:53:33 in protecting the former president?
2:53:35 The story we’re supposed to believe
2:53:38 is that a 20-year-old, untrained loner
2:53:40 was able to outsmart the Secret Service
2:53:43 by finding the optimal location on a roof
2:53:47 for a shot on Trump from 130 yards away.
2:53:50 Even though the Secret Service snipers spotted him
2:53:53 on the roof 20 minutes before the shooting
2:53:54 and did nothing about it.
2:53:58 This looks really shady to everyone.
2:54:01 Why does it take so long to get
2:54:03 to a full accounting of the truth of what happened?
2:54:06 And why is the reporting of the truth concealed
2:54:08 by corporate government speak?
2:54:10 Cut the bullshit.
2:54:11 What happened?
2:54:13 Who fucked up and why?
2:54:14 That’s what we need to know.
2:54:17 That’s the beginning of transparency.
2:54:19 And yes, the director of the US Secret Service
2:54:20 should probably step down
2:54:22 or be fired by the president.
2:54:24 And not as part of some political circus
2:54:26 that I’m sure is coming,
2:54:28 but as a step towards uniting
2:54:31 and increasingly divided and cynical nation.
2:54:35 Conspiracy theories are not noise,
2:54:37 even when they’re false.
2:54:40 They are a signal that some shady, corrupt,
2:54:42 secret bullshit is being done
2:54:45 by those trying to hold on to power.
2:54:46 Not always, but often.
2:54:51 Transparency is the answer here, not secrecy.
2:54:52 If we don’t do these things,
2:54:56 we leave ourselves vulnerable to singular moments
2:54:58 that turn the tides of history.
2:55:00 Empires do fall.
2:55:02 Civil wars do break out
2:55:06 and tear apart the fabric of societies.
2:55:08 This is a great nation,
2:55:10 the most successful collective human experiment
2:55:13 in the history of Earth.
2:55:15 And letting ourselves become extremely divided
2:55:18 risks destroying all of that.
2:55:21 So please ignore the political pundits,
2:55:24 the political grifters, clickbait media,
2:55:28 outrage fueling politicians on the right and the left
2:55:29 who try to divide us.
2:55:31 We’re not so divided.
2:55:33 We’re in this together.
2:55:37 As I’ve said many times before, I love you all.
2:55:40 This is a long comment.
2:55:43 I’m hoping not to do comments this long in the future
2:55:45 and hoping to do many more.
2:55:48 So I’ll leave it here for today,
2:55:50 but I’ll try to answer questions
2:55:52 and make comments on every episode.
2:55:55 If you would like to submit questions, like I mentioned,
2:55:57 including audio and video form,
2:56:00 go to lexfreeman.com/ama.
2:56:03 And now, let me leave you with some words
2:56:05 from Ralph Waldo Emerson.
2:56:08 Adopt the pace of nature.
2:56:11 Her secret is patience.
2:56:14 Thank you for listening
2:56:16 and hope to see you next time.
2:56:19 (gentle music)
2:56:22 (gentle music)
2:56:26 (gentle music)
2:56:29 (gentle music)
2:56:32 (gentle music)