"Average in Everything Except Curiosity"

The thing about being alone with your thoughts in the wilderness is that eventually, you have to listen to them.

But sometimes the wilderness sends you company first.

I'm sitting on a ridge overlooking Elephant Butte Lake, the red camp chair positioned exactly where I've placed it hundreds of times before. The sun is sinking toward the horizon, painting impossible colors across New Mexico's high desert—bands of orange and magenta that would look fake in a photograph but somehow feel perfectly real when you are breathing the thin air at 6,000 feet.

The wind carries the scent of sage and something else, something that smells like possibility mixed with dust. Below me, the lake's surface mirrors the sky so perfectly it's hard to tell where water ends and heaven begins. This is the kind of beauty that stops your thoughts cold, forces you to just... be. But tonight, my mind won't settle.

Tonight, I can't stop thinking about Miguel.

Five days ago, what should have been a simple two-minute encounter—"Here, have some water, now leave"—turned into three and a half days that changed some of what I thought I knew about America, citizenship, and what it means to belong somewhere. But now there's something different driving the restless curiosity that made me an utterly average student. Now I'm questioning some of what I thought I knew about power, authority, and how the world actually works because of a Guatemalan man who wandered into my campsite in the Magdalena Mountains, lost and desperate for help.

Miguel was not supposed to happen. None of it was supposed to happen.

The Magdalena Mountains — Five Days Earlier

I'd been living and working from my trailer for months, trying to figure out how to get back into mainstream life—not easy when you are rebooting a life from scratch. The Magdalena range had become my temporary home, remote enough that I could think without interruption, close enough to civilization that I would not completely lose touch with the world I was trying to rejoin.

That morning started like any other. I woke before dawn, made coffee on the camp stove, and settled into my routine of testing gear and wrestling with Tymmber concepts. The fire ring at my feet—built from smooth stones I'd collected over weeks of visits—held the dying embers of the previous night's design session. My notebook lay open beside me, pages filled with sketches of modular camp kitchen components and half-formed thoughts about systems thinking.

I was deep in problem-solving mode, trying to figure out why outdoor companies create dependency instead of capability, when I heard something that did not belong: footsteps on gravel, slow and uncertain.

I looked up from my notebook to see a figure emerging from the desert scrub like something out of a fever dream. At first, I thought it might be a hallucination—the high desert plays tricks on your eyes, especially in the early morning light. But as he got closer, the details became unmistakably real: a man, maybe mid-thirties, wearing clothes that had seen too many miles and carrying a backpack that looked like it had been through a war.

His face told the story before he said a word. Exhaustion. Fear. Hope fighting against desperation. And something else—a kind of dignity that somehow survived despite everything he'd been through.

"Excuse me," he said in English that was careful but clear. "I am lost. I need help."

That was the moment. The choice point. I could have pointed him toward the nearest road, given him some water, and sent him on his way. Two minutes, maybe three. Clean, simple, legal.

Instead, I found myself saying, "Sit down. Let me make you some food."

Because here's what hit me in that instant: this was not just some random encounter. This was a test. Not from God, not from the universe, but from life itself. The kind of test where your response reveals who you actually are versus who you think you are.

Over the next three and a half days, Miguel and I talked for hours around that campfire. His English—one of three languages he spoke—was more than good enough for deep conversation. What struck me was how we were both chasing the same thing: the American Dream. Just coming at it from completely different angles. Me, born American but somehow losing my grip on what that meant. Him, risking everything dangerous and illegal to become one.

But let me be honest about what those three and a half days really meant. This was not just some heartwarming encounter around a campfire. I was making a choice that could have destroyed my life.

By helping Miguel — giving him food, shelter, guidance on his journey north — I was potentially breaking federal law. I could face charges for harboring an illegal immigrant. I was risking encounters with Border Patrol, possible cartel connections if his story was not what it seemed, and the social backlash that comes when your neighbors discover you helped someone "evade the law."

The question that haunts me, the one those AI podcast hosts asked their audience after hearing our story: Would you do what I did? Would you risk breaking the law to help a fellow human find their American Dream? Do you have that kind of courage?

Most people want to believe they would. But when you are sitting across from someone who's risked everything, and you realize that helping them means risking something of your own — your reputation, your legal standing, your safety — the calculation gets complicated fast.

I chose to help him anyway. Not because I thought through all the legal implications or weighed the risks carefully. I helped him because it felt genuinely right in a way that had nothing to do with what was legal or socially acceptable.

One night, staring into those flames with this man who'd sacrificed everything for a chance at something better, I heard myself say words that stopped me cold: "You have as much right to be an American as I do."

Miguel told me stories that would break your heart and restore your faith in human resilience at the same time. About leaving everything he knew because staying meant watching his children grow up with no future. About the thousand small brutalities of the journey north. About the dream that kept him walking when his body wanted to quit.

And I told him stories too. About feeling lost in my own country. About starting Tymmber because I was tired of systems that create dependency instead of capability. About questioning whether the American Dream I'd inherited was the same one he was risking his life to reach.

We were both immigrants, in a way. Him trying to get in, me trying to figure out what "in" even meant anymore.

On the third night, he asked me a question that I'm still trying to answer: "Why did you help me? You do not know me. You could get in trouble."

I did not have a good answer then. I still do not, not really. All I could say was, "Because it felt right."

He nodded like that made perfect sense. Maybe it did.

When Miguel finally left on the fourth morning, he shook my hand and said something I'll never forget: "You are more American than you know."

I watched him disappear into the same desert scrub where he'd appeared, and I knew something fundamental had shifted. Not everything, but some of what I believed about citizenship, belonging, and what it means to be American.

Back to the Present — Elephant Butte Ridge

Miguel left, but the questions did not. Some of what I was told, some of what I believed, got turned on its head. That encounter planted something, though I did not recognize it at the time.

The desert wind picks up now, carrying the scent of sage and the distant promise of rain. I reach into my jacket pocket and feel the familiar weight of small stones I collected on the hike up—smooth river rocks worn down by countless years of water and weather. Each one different in size, color, texture. I pull one out and roll it between my fingers, the same ritual I've performed dozens of times without really thinking about why.

But tonight, the metaphor hits me like a physical force.

These pebbles are like beliefs. We carry them around without really examining them, collecting them from parents, teachers, culture, religion, politics. Most people's pockets are so full of inherited beliefs they can barely move. They've never taken them out, never really looked at them, never asked the fundamental question: Do these actually serve me, or am I just carrying them because someone else put them there?

I think about F. Scott Fitzgerald's observation about intelligence being the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind simultaneously while retaining the ability to function. Maybe that's what I've been doing my whole life without realizing it—believing things while simultaneously questioning them, holding onto inherited wisdom while wondering if it's actually wise.

The Miguel encounter was the first time I consciously practiced this. I believed in law and order while helping someone break the law. I believed in borders while helping someone cross them. I believed in following rules while following my conscience instead. And somehow, I functioned through all of it.

Most people can't do this. They need their beliefs to be unshakeable, their worldview to be solid, their foundation to be permanent. The idea of questioning everything feels like spiritual suicide.

But what if it's actually spiritual evolution?

Then, a few years later, I made a throwaway comment on social media. I'd written this long, researched post about Mexican wolves in New Mexico — trying to get people to think more deeply about the complexity, presenting multiple perspectives, citing studies. Classic me, trying to elevate the discourse when everyone just wanted simple answers.

But buried in all that thoughtful analysis, I tossed off this casual line: "This is still the American West! Might remains Right!"

The moment I hit send, something nagged at me. I stared at that screen and thought: Is that really true? Does Might actually make Right? Here I was, spending all this effort making better arguments, trying to get people to think beyond knee-jerk reactions, while simultaneously reinforcing the very power dynamic I was unconsciously questioning.

That question started haunting me. A few months later, I found myself writing another long post — this time about New Mexico's education crisis. Rank 50th out of 50 states, billions spent, nothing to show for it. But what really got me fired up was not the money — it was how we'd turned schools into surveillance fortresses instead of community hubs. How we'd replaced local wisdom with bureaucratic expertise that delivered no results.

I found myself writing: "Believe in meritocracy? Prove it — replace all the experts who have mastered the art of spending, but lack the accountability."

And then I hit post, knowing full well what could happen. In our world today, if you stand up and speak up against established narratives, the platforms shadow ban you, add disclaimers to your posts, or worse — report you to authorities for follow-up intimidation to silence your concerns and opinions. Every time I write something that challenges the official story, I'm risking digital punishment. Algorithmic suppression. Content warnings. The modern equivalent of being disappeared from the public square.

But I posted anyway. Just like I helped Miguel anyway.

There it was again. That same pattern. Questioning whether the people with power actually deserved it. Whether the systems we're told work because they are backed by authority and funding actually... work. And being willing to face consequences for asking those questions out loud.

That question, coupled with some of what Miguel had stirred up, is what brought me to this ridge tonight. Three sparks that lit a fire I'm still trying to understand: a conversation about belonging, a casual comment about power, and a rant about failed expertise.

But here's what I'm starting to realize sitting up here: each time I chose to do what felt genuinely right despite the risks — helping Miguel, challenging the wolf narrative, calling out educational failure — I was not just taking a stand. I was building something inside myself. Call it moral muscle memory. The confidence that comes from facing down fear in both the digital and analog worlds.

Every time you survive choosing authenticity over safety, something shifts. You start to understand that the "might" in "Right is Might" isn't some external force you have to find or borrow. It's already inside you. It grows stronger each time you use it.

When you help someone despite legal risks, you discover you can handle consequence. When you post truth despite algorithmic punishment, you realize you can survive digital exile. When you question expertise despite social pressure, you learn that their authority over you is mostly illusion.

This is how you build the courage to start unpacking those pebbles — those inherited beliefs you've been carrying around without examination. Because once you know you can face down immediate, tangible fears, you begin to suspect you might also be able to handle the deeper, scarier work of questioning everything you've been told to believe.

The Desert Laboratory — Tymmber's Real Origins

Most people would call this beautiful. I call it my outdoor office.

And it really is an office. This red camp chair beside me has been my thinking throne for hundreds of nights like this one, positioned perfectly to watch the lake's surface mirror the sky while I test gear, refine product concepts, and wrestle with questions that started about outdoor equipment and somehow evolved into questions about everything else. The fire ring at my feet—built from smooth lake stones I've collected over months of visits—has been the centerpiece of more late-night design sessions than any conference room table ever hosted.

This isn't casual camping. This is field research. This is where Tymmber's "Designed to Do More" philosophy gets tested against reality, one uncomfortable night at a time.

Take the modular camp kitchen setup beside my chair. What started as simple frustration with disconnected gear has evolved into something approaching systems thinking. Why do I need different equipment for car camping versus backpacking versus overlanding? Why can't my cook system work seamlessly whether I'm at this lake or three miles deep in the Gila Wilderness?

The answer reveals everything wrong with how we approach problems—not just in outdoor gear, but in life itself. Companies create specialized solutions because specialization creates dependency. They want you to buy their car camping setup AND their backpacking setup AND their overlanding setup. Three separate revenue streams instead of one integrated system.

But what if the real problem isn't technical? What if it's philosophical?

Sitting out here, testing prototype after prototype under actual field conditions, I started recognizing a pattern. Every time I solved one problem, I created two more. The ultra-light backpacking stove that would not work in wind. The car camping kitchen that was too heavy for anything but car camping. The overlanding setup that required a specific type of vehicle.

I was designing for dependence instead of independence. Creating systems that worked perfectly in controlled conditions but failed when conditions changed. Just like everything else in our world.

The breakthrough came during a brutal three-day storm last winter. I was trapped in my trailer with nothing but time and a pile of gear that was not working together. Everything I'd designed was optimized for specific conditions—and none of those conditions were the ones I actually faced.

That is when I realized the real problem: I was thinking like a gear company instead of thinking like a human being trying to live outdoors.

What if, instead of designing different solutions for different activities, I designed one system that adapted? What if the core components stayed the same, but the configuration changed based on the situation? What if capability mattered more than specialization?

That night in the storm, "Designed to Do More" was not just a business philosophy. It was a life philosophy. The idea that tools—whether physical or mental—should expand your options, not limit them.

But here's where it gets interesting: once you start thinking this way about gear, you can't stop thinking this way about everything else.

Why do we accept that education systems should create students who can only function in classroom settings? Why do we tolerate economic systems that require most people to be financially dependent on employers? Why do we embrace political systems that encourage citizens to be passive recipients of decisions made by experts?

Every system in our society seems designed to create dependency instead of capability. Specialization instead of adaptability. Compliance instead of competence.

And suddenly, my frustration with outdoor gear became frustration with the entire world.

The irony isn't lost on me. Here I am, a guy who barely scraped through college, running a startup called Tymmber that exists more as philosophy than product, having thoughts that feel too big for my skull. If curiosity were a GPA, I'd be off the charts. If there were grades for will to power—not the kind that dominates others, but the kind that refuses to accept inherited answers—I'd finally be an A student.

But out here, under a canopy of stars so dense they look like cosmic dust scattered across black velvet, I've been learning things they do not teach in business school. Things about how natural systems actually work. How everything in this desert—from the prickly pear storing water for months to the kit foxes that emerge only when conditions align perfectly—seems designed with an intelligence that makes human engineering look clumsy by comparison.

Desert systems do not specialize. They adapt. The same plant that stores water during drought seasons flowers magnificently when rain comes. The same animal that hunts at night during summer hunts at dawn during winter. Nothing here does just one thing. Everything is designed to do more.

That is when I understood that Tymmber was not really about outdoor gear. It was about learning from natural systems that have been optimizing for thousands of years. It was about applying that intelligence to human problems.

It was about remembering that humans, like everything else in nature, are designed to do more.

The Moment of Recognition

The sun is sinking lower now, turning the lake surface into hammered copper. In the distance, I can see the lights of Truth or Consequences—a town that had the audacity to rename itself after a game show, which somehow feels appropriate for this moment. Because that's exactly what I'm contemplating: a game show where every belief has to answer the ultimate question: Why do you deserve space in my pocket?

I pull out another pebble, this one smaller and darker than the first. I roll it between my fingers, thinking about how many beliefs I'm carrying that I've never actually examined. How many assumptions I've inherited from parents, teachers, culture, religion, politics that I've never questioned because questioning them felt dangerous.

But Miguel taught me something about danger. Real danger isn't questioning your beliefs. Real danger is carrying beliefs that do not serve you, do not reflect reality, do not help you navigate the world as it actually is.

The social media posts taught me something else: the people who want to silence your questions are usually the ones who have the most to lose from your answers.

And Tymmber taught me the most important lesson of all: the best systems are the ones that expand your capabilities instead of limiting them. That goes for belief systems too.

It was during one of these gear-testing sessions, maybe six months ago, when I realized I was asking the same question about everything. Not just "why doesn't this equipment integrate?" but "why don't my beliefs integrate?" Not just "who decided outdoor gear should be specialized instead of adaptable?" but "who decided my worldview should be inherited instead of examined?"

The transition happened so gradually I almost missed it. One night I'd be sketching improvements to a roof rack system by firelight, wondering why outdoor companies create dependency instead of capability. The next night I'd be staring at those impossible stars—thousands of them invisible from any city—wondering who decided what I should believe about creation, meaning, power, truth.

My phone buzzes. Another notification from the digital world I keep trying to escape. I glance at it, then deliberately set it face down on the sandstone beside me, next to the worn notebook where I sketch product concepts and philosophical questions with equal intensity. This is the problem: we have created a world where being constantly connected has become our default state, where the ping of a notification feels more urgent than the whisper of wind through juniper trees, more important than the lessons written in how a desert ecosystem actually sustains itself.

The result? A generation burned out on digital performance, desperately booking "digital detox retreats" just to remember what their own thoughts sound like without algorithmic interference. We've outsourced so much of our thinking to external systems that we have forgotten how to think for ourselves. We buy gear we do not need to have adventures we do not actually want because influencers tell us that's what outdoor life looks like.

But out here, in the high desert quiet, something different happens. The mind settles like sediment in still water. The constant noise fades. And in that silence, ideas have room to breathe—ideas about how things could work differently, about what we actually need versus what we're told we need, about systems that empower instead of creating dependency.

It's taken hundreds of nights in places like this to understand what I'm really building with Tymmber. Not just better outdoor gear, but better ways of thinking about what "better" even means.

It's a terrifying thought. And an exhilarating one.

The desert wind picks up, carrying the scent of sage and the distant promise of rain. I stand up, pocketing the river stone, and start the descent back to my truck. But something has shifted up here on this ridge. A decision has been made, even if I do not fully understand it yet.

I'm going to empty my pockets. All of them.

And I'm going to see what, if anything, deserves to go back in.

The Drive Home — Processing the Revelation

The drive back to town should be quiet, but my mind is anything but. The headlights cut through desert darkness, illuminating patches of scrub and stone that look alien in the artificial light. Behind me, the ridge where I just spent the evening recedes into black silhouette against a sky full of stars.

But I'm not thinking about the scenery. I'm thinking about what just happened up there.

For the first time in my life, I asked the right question: What if everything I believe needs to earn its place in my pocket?

The truck's engine hums steadily, that low rumble of a machine that's seen better days but still gets the job done. Kind of like me, I guess. Average in everything except curiosity, but that curiosity is finally pointed in a direction that matters.

I think about Miguel, probably somewhere in California or Florida by now, still chasing his version of the American Dream. I wonder if he has sleeping under stars like the ones I just left, if he is still carrying the faith that got him through our three days together. The faith that kept him walking when his body wanted to quit.

That is what I need now. That kind of faith. Not faith in inherited answers, but faith in the process of questioning. Faith that examining my beliefs won't destroy me—it might actually save me.

The miles roll by, marked by the occasional ranch light or cell tower blinking red against the darkness. This is empty country, the kind of space where thoughts have room to expand and take whatever shape they need. Out here, you can't hide behind the constant noise of civilization. You have to face whatever's actually going on in your head.

Tonight, what's going on in my head is a revolution.

I keep thinking about that moment when I told Miguel he had as much right to be American as I do. The words came out automatically, like they'd been waiting inside me for years. But the moment I said them, I started questioning them. Not because I wanted to take them back, but because I wanted to understand them.

Who gave me the right to extend American-ness to someone else? What made me American in the first place—the accident of being born here? The blood in my veins? The beliefs I inherited? And if those beliefs are wrong, what does that make me?

The social media posts feel different now too. I thought I was just trying to get people to think more clearly about complex issues. But maybe I was actually testing my own thinking. Seeing if my arguments could survive contact with other people's objections. Building my confidence in my ability to navigate controversial territory without losing my way.

The education post especially. That was not just about New Mexico's failed schools. That was about the whole apparatus of expertise that claims authority without demonstrating competence. The way we're supposed to trust people with credentials even when their results are catastrophic. The way questioning their methods gets you labeled as anti-education or anti-expert.

But what if being pro-education means being anti-bad-education? What if being pro-expertise means being anti-fake-expertise?

The headlights sweep across a road sign: Truth or Consequences — 15 miles. Even the town names out here seem designed to make you think about what matters.

I think about Tymmber, about all those nights testing gear that did not work the way it was supposed to. All those prototypes that solved one problem while creating three others. All those moments when I realized that the real issue was not technical—it was philosophical.

We design systems to create dependency because dependency creates recurring revenue. We build complexity because complexity justifies expertise. We optimize for control instead of capability because control is easier to manage.

But what if we optimized for something else entirely? What if we designed systems—gear systems, economic systems, political systems, belief systems—that actually expanded human potential instead of limiting it?

The truck crests a small hill, and suddenly the lights of town spread out below me. Not many lights—Truth or Consequences isn't exactly a metropolis—but enough to remind me that I'm returning to the world of other people, other opinions, other pressures to conform to inherited ways of thinking.

Tomorrow, I'll have to interact with that world. I'll have to make small talk and follow social conventions and pretend that everything is normal. But something fundamental has changed tonight. I've made a decision that can't be unmade.

I'm going to examine my beliefs. All of them. One by one, like pebbles pulled from a pocket that's been getting heavier for forty-some years. I'm going to ask each one the same question: Do you serve me, or am I serving you?

The ones that serve me can go back in the pocket. The ones that do not—well, maybe it's time to let them go.

This is terrifying territory. Most people build their entire identity around their beliefs. If you start questioning those beliefs, you start questioning who you are. And if you discover that some of your core beliefs are wrong, what does that say about the person you've been?

But here's what I realized up on that ridge: the alternative is worse. Carrying beliefs that do not serve you is like carrying gear that doesn't work. It might feel familiar and comfortable, but when conditions change—and conditions always change—you are going to be in trouble.

Better to travel light with tools that actually work than to be burdened by weight that provides no benefit.

I pull into my campsite for the night just as the first stars are becoming visible through the light pollution of town. The location is out of public view, dark, quiet, normal — just the sounds of the wind and lake, with a perfect view of the morning sunrise. But I'm carrying something different now—not just pebbles in my pocket, but a question that feels big enough to reshape everything I thought I knew about truth, power, and what it means to think for yourself.

Tomorrow, the real work begins.

But tonight, for the first time in years, I sleep the deep sleep of someone who's finally asked the right question, even if they do not yet know the answer.

Because here's the thing about being average in everything except curiosity: when you finally find something worth being curious about, it changes everything.