now and be happy. I hear Joseph Campbell: “People are not looking for the meaning of life, they are looking for the feeling of being alive.”

The restoration of the planet begins in people, the restoration of the planet begins in you, whispered the wild self.

I have spent a lot of time outside the conventional paths on trails of my own making. While this is a beautifully rewarding path, it can be lonely and it will put you face-to-face with your own doubts. I would not be able to live as a tracker without the incredible support I have received from my family, extended family, and village.

I suspect that part of being a man is that you will as a matter of course fall asleep in your own life. It will happen. Knowing this seems important to me.

We live with our attention directed outward. We focus on the social cues of our culture. We look to others to define our path and value and purpose. We lose ourselves in shoulds. Shoulds are full of traps—traps laid by society and your limited rules for yourself. No wild animal has ever participated in a should. What you know to do is deeper than

honeyguide, a bird that leads people to beehives and in return is left a share of the spoils.

Obsessed with perfection and doing it right, we want to go straight to the “lion.” We don’t realize the significance of the path of first tracks and how to be invested in a discovery rather than an outcome.

To this day I wonder about the courage I found underneath the fear. I wonder if I could find it again. I wonder if it is wrong to look for it. I know that one of the great dangers of my life would be to live without danger.

There is no fat in nature. Everything exists on the limits of its necessary entropy.