Hey Mike,

I do think I've experienced some of what you're talking about -- when I quit my career and started the PCT I felt very free and awakened. Somehow though it got to a point where I had SO MUCH freedom over the last several years that it was easy to become stagnant. Plus covid affected everyone in weird ways; I feel like it made me more isolated and screen-focused. I've been needing to plan another grand adventure and actually I have a pretty cool thing lined up this summer, I think. And to be fair I have experienced some pretty awesome senses of wonder in the past, I'm just looking to get back to that, and maybe find a more reliable way to get there more often..?

I agree the tribal instinct is there deep down, I mean how could it not be? That's how humans always evolved to lived. Same with the nomadic instinct, stronger in some than in others.

I remember the first time I went on a multi-day rafting trip, where we set up camp at a new point along the river each day... getting a taste of traveling with everything you own, moving through the land, unlocked something inside of me that just felt so right and I knew I wanted to do a lot more of that. Same feeling I got when I spent 3 nights on a sailboat in harbor (I've wanted to try sailing but haven't done it yet).