For a handful of years, I'd made this annual trip to the desert in Utah.

I'd take some time to be solo to clear my head, leave my phone in the cabin, which didn't have service anyway.

I'd grab a backpack with some food, my camera, and I'd just go exploring. From the time the sun came up to the time I went down, I'd follow trails through the canyons,

climb over rocks, wedged myself between boulders, traverse open fields, I would get lost

in something so far outside the realm of my standard day to day that life, well, didn't feel like life.

It felt surreal.

One day I was out there, and I guess I got kind of carried away making a running video.

I looked down at the map as the sun was setting and realized I was miles from the car in the desert.

Not a good place to be.

And this panic set over me, right?

It was a mix of fear and annoyance with myself for letting something so stupid happen.

This is precisely the vulnerability that the routine of our day-to-day lives seeks to mitigate.

This is Society 101.

We pay taxes and stop at red lights in exchange for the certainty that we won't die in the middle of a random desert.

But hey look, life comes at you quickly.

Suddenly that safety net wasn't there to protect me.

Now what?

I started running in what I believed to be the general direction I came from.

Backpack full of camera gear and empty water bottles bouncing up and down with each step.

My heart was pounding so fast that it felt like a movie.

It didn't feel real, and as the sun lowered itself behind the mountains,

I wasn't quite sure what it would leave for me.

...