Announcing: A big hike

I'm hiking 850-ish miles through the desert for the next month or two.

One idiot. Infinite desert.

Post summary

• I’ll be in the wilderness on a hike for the next 45-ish days.

• Two Percent will run as always—posts will go out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday while I’m gone.

• Today, we’ll cover:

  • The hike.

  • Why I’m doing it (a new book!).

  • What I hope to get out of the hike.

  • Why adventure matters for us all.

  • What to expect on Two Percent while I’m in the wilderness (all good stuff!).

Housekeeping

• This post, like all Monday Two Percent posts, is free to all subscribers.

• But only Members get full access to all three weekly Two Percent posts, audio versions, and videos. We’ve got some great stuff coming up. Become a Member:

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Audio/podcast version

• Listen on your preferred player here.

The post

I got an offer to write a third book right as Scarcity Brain was being released in the fall of 2023.

I said thanks, but no thanks.

I was fried from finishing Scarcity Brain and beginning its book tour. And, frankly, I didn’t know what I wanted to say.

But I’ve spent the last 18 observing our culture, listening to all of you, and speaking with experts.

I’ve been thinking a lot about where we are as a society—and what we’ve gained and lost as the world has become more comfortable and convenient. On long walks in the desert and quiet moments at home, I’ve considered what my third book should be, what it might say, and how it might be helpful.

The Comfort Crisis examined some of the downsides of comfort and convenience and made a case for embracing discomfort. But it looked at most of those topics through a physical lens.

I’ve become particularly interested in how modern life is seemingly clashing with the mental game—mindset, mental health, and the experience of being alive.

In most ways, the world has never been better. We have everything we need to survive and thrive—from 401Ks and hot running water to ample food and a world of entertainment and knowledge at our fingertips.

And yet, despite all of that (or maybe even because of it), resilience and mental health are at an all-time low. The data suggests more people are dissatisfied, frazzled, frustrated, and medicated than ever, suffering from a collective lack of meaning and living inauthentic lives—a phenomenon T.S. Elliott called The Wasteland.

I want to learn more about that paradox. And I’ve always believed that I understand ideas better when I combine deep thought, research, interviews, and taking myself out to the edge to experience and consider what I’m writing about. That could be spending a month in The Arctic for The Comfort Crisis, or my trips into Baghdad and the Bolivian Jungle for Scarcity Brain.

But I needed an edge.

And then, one fine day, I was speaking to my book editor, and she mentioned The Hayduke Trail.

She offered a few vague details about it. “Southern Utah desert … 800 miles. Or maybe 900? I can’t remember … Anyways, I hear it’s hard. There’s no real trail … Something like 5 percent of people finish … Real hard … Remote … Not much water … If you get lost, and you will, I hear you …”

Find an edge

Over the next 45-ish days (plus or minus 10), I’ll be hiking the Hayduke Trail to report a third book.

Hayduke Trail is a misnomer. The word “trail” implies a well-trodden footpath one can mindlessly saunter upon and, with enough steps, be guaranteed to reach point B.

The Hayduke isn’t that. It’s more like a route—a roughly 850-mile, unmarked, mostly-uncharted suggestion of some loose directions a person might follow across isolated, waterless, scorching desert and call “a hike.”

The trail’s founders note that the trail is “not the easiest or most direct route … but is rather meant to showcase the stunning Red Rock Wilderness of the American Southwest.”

No two hikers take the exact same path—much like the mind and learning what we’re capable of, we find the most beauty and meaning by finding our own way and not taking the easier, pre-determined, direct route.

I think our comfortable world makes it easy to not really live. We’ve turned down the dial on experiences that give us perspective, teach us something about ourselves, improve our mental well-being, and make us feel alive.

I believe exploring the edges of life—finding an adventure, shaking things up, testing yourself, heading into the great unknown—can help us “experience the rapture of being alive,” as Joseph Campbell put it, and break us out of modern malaise.

Consider a line from the Arthurian legends that I love:

King Arthur and his Knights saw a vision of the Holy Grail.

So they set off in search of it.

They came to a dark wood and decided it would be shameful to enter it together.

So each entered the woods at the place that seemed darkest to them.

That’s adventure: Entering into the uncomfortable place of mystery and uncertainty that seems darkest to you. That’s where we learn the most, grow the most, find the most meaning, and feel the most alive.

Humans used to enter the unknown often. We would discover all we are capable of with experiences that tested our body, mind, and spirit. We’d explore our edges, and those edges would expand. We’d take the long walk back to normalcy a different person with a new perspective.

On the book

The book is about something like the above. Probably.

A wonderful editor at Harper bought the book. When I told her I’d begun to write some material based on the book’s proposal, she told me this:

Stop. Stop writing now. You don’t know what the book is about yet. Do the hike. You’ll figure out what the book is about out there—I trust you.

I pity the fool who trusts me. Nevertheless, I will hike, I will think, and I will have a book ready for her by early next year, probably.

What to expect on Two Percent while I’m gone

Posts will continue regularly

I’ve done A LOT of writing over the last few months. As always, posts will go out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

If I’m honest, I’ve been the most frantic and frenzied of my life over the past few months preparing for the hike and readying Two Percent for my stint in the wilderness. But breakthroughs often happen on the verge of breakdowns …

We have some amazing, useful stories coming up:

• A conversation with one of the world’s greatest mountaineers.

• A deep dive series into sleep.

• A scientific exploration into the truth about mental toughness (it’s not what you think).

• A brutal self-audit that’ll overhaul your life and priorities.

• A research-based dive into women and muscle.

• A look at one of the fittest groups of people and how they’re changing endurance (and these people aren’t who you’d expect).

• And much more …

The podcasts may have an interruption or two

I, of course, can’t record an audio read of the newsletter from what is literally the most remote part of the Lower 48 States.

We’ve scheduled as many audio reads as we possibly can. We’ve covered pretty much every post, but if a podcast doesn’t go out, you can listen to any episode this way:

1. Open the Substack App and tap on the play icon at the top right of your screen on a post (the two white arrows are pointing to the icon in the photo below). It looks like this:

   

2. Once you click, the audio will automatically start playing in the app player.

3. Here’s a guide if you’re confused.

I see the data. Most of you prefer to read instead of listen (❤️), but for those who love the podcast audio reads, use the method above if a post doesn’t have an audio read.

P.S. I’ll likely be revamping the podcast when I’m back. I’m excited about it, and I think it’ll give us more, newer, better information. More to come …

I’ll be going live from the trail weekly

I emailed

Zach @ Substack

, who runs live video for Substack. “Zach, how many bars of service do I need to go live in the desert?”

His answer: “At least three bars of 5G.” I’ll try to go live once a week during those fleeting, rare moments when a combination of the right coordinates and altitude offer at least three bars of 5G.

I was also emailing with

Clyde Rathbone

, Substack consiglieri to Two Percent. I told him I’d be going live from the trail … haggard, dehydrated, at my limit. He noted, “It would be really awesome if you died doing a live—I bet it would do serious numbers.”

It’s nice to have someone watching out for the best interest of Two Percent.

I’ll be running some useful trail-specific content

For example, we have a post dropping on Wednesday that details how I trained to hike 20 to 30 miles a day through rugged terrain.

I’ll also do a Gear Not Stuff where I cover the gear I’m using on the trail. And another where I cover the food I packed. I’ll have to carry up to seven days of food at a time, so I’m trying to strike a balance between nutrition, weight, and the caloric demands of hiking, which has many lessons for endurance nutrition.

And I’ll just generally post some notes, updates, etc. Keep an eye out for those.

Today: Let’s go live at 8am PST.

I just started a chat here. Drop any questions you have about the hike into it and I’ll go live at 8am PST.

Have fun, don’t die, and if you do die, do it on Substack Live because “I bet it would do some serious numbers.”

-Michael