Essays from Mental Sweat: stories and reflections organized around adventure, attention, philosophy, courage, routine, and the work of becoming consciously alive.
Begin with six published essays spanning the first public arc of the site: getting unstuck, reclaiming attention, traveling with intention, and examining the strange habits that shape a life.
Featured Essays
These are the first published essays in the Mental Sweat archive. More of the older archive will be cleaned and released gradually.
Getting Unstuck
The Courageous Journey
A personal origin story about courage, illness, risk, travel, and the first choices that begin to change a life.
Attention and Agency
Unplugging: A Month of No Earphones
A personal experiment in attention, silence, discomfort, and the world that returns when constant input disappears.
Adventure and Travel
Being Unprepared: The Chilasco Fiasco
A flooded tent, a mountain storm, a night beneath exposed roots, and the difference between confidence and preparation.
Philosophy and the Good Life
Hurts So Good
What about human nature draws us to things that hurt? Familiar pain can distract from the harder work of truth, courage, kindness, and change.
Intentional Living
Travel, Routine, & Mental Strength
How routine fits into a constantly changing life of movement, adaptation, and mental strength.
Attention and Agency
The Mystic Writing Pad
Freud’s metaphor for perception and memory opens into larger questions about how experience becomes worldview.
All Published Essays
The public essay archive will expand as more writing is cleaned, categorized, and released.
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Being Unprepared: The Chilasco Fiasco
I’m talking about that feeling where you’re kicking yourself, lamenting over life’s lack of a restart button because the situation you found yourself in is SO excruciatingly preventable.
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Travel, Routine, & Mental Strength
Discover how routine fits into a constantly changing lifestyle of nomadism. Making certain parts of your day second nature while traveling is essential.
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The Mystic Writing Pad
Freud’s Mystic Writing Pad offered a mechanical metaphor for perception and memory. The metaphor also raises deeper questions about how experience becomes worldview.
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Hurts So Good
What about human nature draws us to things that hurt? Familiar pain can become a distraction from the harder work of truth, courage, kindness, and change.
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Unplugging: A Month of No Earphones
With cirrus clouds and sea spray hazing the space around me, my unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt flapping wildly in the wind, and occasional lounging beach patrons, I was consumed…
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The Courageous Journey
One winter night in Colorado back in 2018 I discovered the story of Alexander McCandless, the backpacker who gave up everything he had and hit the road. The…
Continue with The Saga Letter
Receive new stories and reflections on adventure, attention, philosophy, burnout, and intentional living when there is something worth opening.