 Our culture is obsessed with comfort. Collectively we have been coddled by modernity. We want more legroom, softer mattresses, and any vehicle that will save us from physically moving our bodies. Get in a time machine and travel to any generation before us and you'll be the softest, most sensitive soul around. Our hunter/gatherer ancestors, whose genes we still carry, would be stunned. Perhaps they are stunned inside of us at this very moment.
Suffering, inconvenience, and exertion are part of life. Just like one must experience heartbreak to get love, and betrayal to grasp trust; we must truly learn how to hold suffering to appreciate it's absence: the sweet state of being at ease. There is also a life principle at work. Accomplishing the best stuff involves pushing past challenges and imagined limitations. To become a better person one must take the Hero's Journey, walk into the dark cave, and endure some hardship. Suffering is, in fact, such an inevitable side of life that if we don't tackle it on the front side it will find us truly unprepared on the backside. The easiest realm in which to learn the virtue of suffering is in the physical. For that reason I organize Tuesday Trail Runs. Once a week we interval run up a small mountain in about 7 stages. The idea is to complete each segment with almost nothing in the tank and RPMs hovering at the edge of the red zone. Often I'll cry out in relief at the breaks as a powerful sensation of misery and ecstasy floods my body. The more tension I hold on the segment, the more powerful the wave of glorious release. On the trail the mechanisms of the self defeating mind get real clear. The first ascent triggers a cacophony of arguments to quit or walk.
On the second segment I cycle through empowering narratives to replace the weak ones.
For all other segments I settle on the technique that works best: Mindfulness and presence.
Hardship is a fascinating state that most of us work so hard to avoid. Take a moment to sit with it and examine it. You'll find that what you were afraid of isn't so bad. It isn't bad at all. There is a side of you to find and explore there. I recommend you develop a practice that will bulk up the mind and the body. If you find yourself in LA, join me on mine.
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In the fall of 2016 Maximilian Sperber and I decided to take vacations to a couple countries off the tourist highway. We filmed the experience of arriving fresh, with no planning. Then we cut a short video of the first destination, Kiev, thinking the series might have a market. After some strong bites from Tastemade and Fullscreen we got distracted with other projects and the weeds grew on D.U.
I am of the belief that good material should be seen. I create content, including these blogposts, not to make money but rather to put ideas out into the world. Sometimes the money follows and sometimes it doesn't; but I'm compelled to move forward either way. Each one of us was designed by nature to do something. We all have our talents and our truth to share. If we share that truth honestly we can help each other connect to the essence of this brief, wondrous life. There are two more episodes worth of D.U. content "in the can" that one day we may edit and release them if a budget manifests. For now, I hope you enjoy Destination Unusual: Kiev, and I hope the video inspires you to seek out unusual destinations for your travels. 
Got questions? Leave them in the comments. Add a valid email address and I'll PM you directly as well.  Living in the city is like diving a coral reef. There is a fascinating array of color and movement, but at some point one must surface and decompress. Thankfully, Los Angeles is a city surrounded with fabulous options to escape. I get out often to exhale, gain perspective, and reconnect with the natural world. Here are some of my favorite mini adventure destinations from Los Angeles: 1. Joshua Tree  This is the L.A. classic escape. Setting up in a popular campground like Jumbo Rocks allows for heaps of hiking and bouldering. However, when you're ready to level up, scan the maps for OHV roads, get yourself a 4x4 with survival gear, and camp backcountry. I've got a handful of secret backcountry spots in J-Tree, some recently discovered among the BLM land on the east side of the park. 2. The East Side of the Sierras  When Summer comes around in California I get super giddy about the Sierras. The deeper you can penetrate, the more exclusive it gets. Speaking of exclusive, the 395 side of the mountains has a fraction of the visitors who come in from the west. 3. Deep Creek  These hot springs have been on the nudist community's radar for over 30 years. Once a locals' secret spot, it's getting more traffic nowadays, but the long drive and moderate hike discourage many. Although it's technically illegal to camp at the springs, there is a perpetual clutch of regulars who risk the occasional ranger raid. Deep creek is special in that you can jump from the hot springs into a cold stream in an instant, and, if you like getting naked, go bananas... visitors have been thoroughly warned. Wearing clothing is the unusual maneuver. 4. The Mojave  The Mojave is the desert that California forgot about. Most people blow right past on their way to Vegas. If you stop to explore you'll find heaps of treasures: springs, ghost towns, abandoned mines, sand dunes, lava caves, and sweet isolation. Just remember that this isn't Disney Land. A couple bad judgements (especially regarding lack of water) could lead to your quick death. Here's a neat little video cut from some of our Road Less Traveled footage. 5. The Ruins of St. Francis Dam  This lush forest in the middle of the dry California chaparral is rooted in what was a giant lake. That lake was held in place by the magnum opus of Los Angeles' celebrity civil-engineer William Mulholland. Just after midnight on March 12, 1928 the dam collapsed sending Mulholland's reputation and over 500 bodies down the valley and out to the ocean on a 100+ foot wave. There are plans to do something official with the site, but for now it's off the beaten path. More information on this blogpost.
There is a misguided concept that runs deep in Western culture. Christians express the idea with the acronym NOTW (Not of This World). Neo-spiritualists rephrase it by saying "We are spiritual beings having a human experience." And most of us carry this frame by imagining ourselves static capsules, encased in flesh, walking through a foreign (and often hostile) environment. This is a complete illusion of separation in an interconnected universe, where everything leans on something else. It's a misconception that undoubtably leaves us all feeling disconnected and anxious, and puts our planet in peril.  Here is a quote from gotquestions.org, a Christian site (highlights added): "We are still surrounded by all the horrors and tragedy of this life, but this is not our life. The knowledge that we are not of this world gives Christians hope even in the darkest times; hope that this will pass and at the end of it we will be in heaven with our God, face to face forever. This cracked and broken place is not where we belong, and it is not where we will stay. The appeal of this philosophy is evident. The challenges we have as a species are stressful. Watching the news is like consuming anxiety. What a relief to completely wash one's hands of all global problems with zero guilt. Stand by, ride it out, and grab your flight to paradise. But what if this conjecture is wrong? It's impossible to verify stories of an afterlife. We see, hear, taste, smell, and feel the world every day. If this reality, confirmed by our physical senses, is our home then NOTW becomes a disastrous manifesto of non-responsibility. A bad idea that has spread past Christianity. Recently I was at the University of Santa Monica, a school offering a spiritual degree in philosophy. This same concept was passed around in different clothing. One man, addressing the entire room with a microphone, began a long, rambling thought with, "We all know that this world is not our home..." This perception even permeates the secular world. Look up from your screen and you'll likely feel a sense of subject and object with everything you see. There is a clear border between "you" and "not you". But is it really so distinct? To challenge the idea here are a few questions to ponder:
"Hold on Jonny", one might say, "there is a difference between the body and the spirit." We have a spirit that is NOTW... that's the real us. OK. Let’s think about our spirit and how it might resemble the person our friends and family know. What makes Jonathan Legg different than you?
Imagine a steel bar falls off a construction site and lands on my head. Instantly the brain is reorganized. My travel stories and a sense of adventure disappear. The new man remembers nothing about Jonathan Legg. However, he is a much more peaceful and kind person. When this man dies what does his spirit feel like: Jonathan Legg with his sense of adventure or the man who doesn't like to travel, but is extra compassionate? The steel bar is unnecessary. This restructuring is happening every day. This brain (and body) of ours is constantly reorganizing in a slower fashion. Brains at 2 years, 30, 90, and 'recently dead' are assembled differently, with profound affects on perception and behavior. Which version determines the characteristics of the spirit? Would a person to be lucky to die at 30 (to have a spirit in its prime), unlucky to die with Alzheimers, and terribly unfortunate to die while in a coma? If this undocumented spirit, flying off into eternity, resembles none of these personalities, with no cognition of former selves, why do we cling so tightly to this phantom? Here is the answer: the "spirit" is an escape capsule for the ego. A doomsday shelter for the pending identity apocalypse.  We live in an era of individualism unknown to our tribe-centered ancestors. The constant anxiety we feel in this modern age stems from our hyper-inflated, separately packaged egos. Egos that are culturally isolated from their environment, disconnected from each other, and terrified of their mortality. We cling to NOTW theories out of fear. They are sequels scripted to give the ego the happy ending of a Hollywood action hero.
Like many sequels there are some serious flaws with Jonathan Legg Part 2: The Real Jonathan:
What if we drop the sequel script and pay closer attention to the original movie that is in production right now. Let's look at it fresh as if all the characters, including us, are entirely OTW. What if we embrace the fact that we are part of this planet just like the plants, birds, and whales? The air we are breathing at this very moment came from a tree that needs sun. The sun is crucially a certain distance from this earth. The sun's distance is governed by forces that extend beyond this solar system to the farthest reaches of the universe. This would make us a glorious arrangement of pieces which connect both down and up into the entirety of existence.. a continually changing assortment which is remarkably conscious in the here and now. Who needs a far-fetched, piddling sequel? The original is a timeless classic. If you consume news it's easy to believe the world is a dangerous place, with tragedy around every corner. While there is unnecessary suffering we can work to eradicate, and there are hazards to avoid; mostly mundane things are happening around the clock. These moments can appear boring, disappointing, or utterly beautiful depending on the mental state of the observer. 99.9% of The Time News has three goals:
If you find the content of this series boring, please take one moment to examine that feeling. This is normal life. Isn't it a terrible thing to view normal life as boring? How did our minds get overstimulated to the point where we can't find the simple beauty in day to day existence? How can we reverse that trend? If you'd like to make one of your own 99.9% of the Time News Reports I'd be happy to collaborate. Reply with your interest in the comments.  New Anchor: Gregory Pekar  Half of Americans suffer from loneliness. In my travels I've seen its prevalence around the world. The world, however, is spilling over with people. How is this possible? To answer that question it's worth looking at how humans evolved. The Pharaohs of Egypt seem like long ago, but this was a recent event in the totality of our history. For 95% of this time we lived in tribes of 20-100 people that were completely egalitarian . Our ancestors hung out with all their family, friends, and homies all the time. They worked together, played together, grieved together, and constantly had each other's backs. Everything was shared. There is a strong possibility (as reflected in some modern day hunter-gatherer tribes) that they had no words for "mine" or "yours". Their concept of autonomy was much different than today's idea of individualism. Flash forward to 2018. The tribes are gone. We are encouraged to believe that success means having your own house and living in it alone (or with a small nuclear family). The 4,000-5,000 ads you see in a day prod you to distinguish (i.e. separate) yourself from the pack: wear a better watch, drive a snazzier car, have cooler gadgets. "Exclusive" is an alluring word in marketing, but who is being excluded? Perhaps it's you. Johann Hari, in his book Lost Connections, has called materialism a "junk value", comparing it to fast food. It hits the right signals in the brain but does not deliver the goods. Multiple studies have shown that people who think happiness comes from accumulating stuff and superior status suffer higher levels of depression and anxiety. This doesn't keep marketers from trying. That's the nature of today's economic game. The philosopher Epicurus emphasized three things for human happiness: Friends, freedom, and thought. Author Alain de Botton has demonstrated how advertisers consistently link these three virtues to their products:  Cracking beers with buddies (we crave the friends more than the beer)  Breaking free with a new SUV (A change in lifestyle can lead to a more lasting sense of freedom)  Finally you can regain your lost sense of child-like playfulness at the resort. Can't we arrive at the same state by a train of thought that leads to not taking our lives so seriously? On top of all the advertising misdirection there are a couple more doozies: pervasive religious beliefs that the earth is, in fact, not our home; and agriculturist ideas that nature is our enemy. Whoof! No wonder why so many folks feel like lonely soldiers trudging through a hostile world.
The good news is we have the power to break free of this matrix and reform what we lost. If you were born in the bottom 95% of human existence you were born into a tribe. From the day you popped out of momma everybody in the group had your back. That tribe had an intimate relationship with nature, from which it did not consider itself separate. Today we get to form our tribes. It is, thankfully, not that hard to do. The toughest part is taking those first steps. Something I will ponder in an upcoming blog post. An old friend calls out of the blue. He's got a ticket for you to come down to South America and join in a 5 day hike through a remote section of the Andes Mountains. You'll be carrying a 40 pound pack for 10 miles a day into scenery few have seen. Here is the catch: You have to get on the plane tomorrow. Are you physically capable right now, or will you have to decline because you wouldn't be able to keep up with the group? Are you "Adventure Ready"? You're walking down the street to the coffeeshop. Suddenly you notice dark smoke puffing out of a window. There is a little girl barely visible through the grey billows. "Help!" She screams at you. A scan the building reveals a pipe running up the side. It would be physically possible to climb that and get a hand on the window frame. But.. can you do it? Or the better question: Could you do it if you were in your peak physical condition? Or will you watch in high anxiety hoping someone else will arrive in time? Georges Hérbert, a French officer, was stationed in the island of Martinique when a terrible volcanic eruption put several lives in danger. Through his acumen, courage, and physical conditioning he managed to rescue hundreds of people. The event seared into his mind a philosophy: "Be strong to be useful". Georges "Natural Method" of fitness training is about remaining adventure ready. In our era of passive entertainment it's harder than ever to adhere to this principle. Where could you carve the time out to improve the ability to climb, run, leap, swim, and carry? How much more enriching would hours developing these skills be than hours logged watching a streaming series? How much better would you feel in your body for making the active vs. passive choice? How many more opportunities could you seize if you were adventure ready?  Natural Method lifting practice "The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek." - Joseph Campbell "You know what a free-range chicken is," the farmer asked me with a knowing smile on his lips. "We keep chickens in the coop through their infancy. During the chicken's adolescence a door is opened which allows her to walk into a tiny open-air courtyard. But here's the thing: They never walk in. The chicken is so accustomed to living inside confinement that the courtyard seems like a scary, unfamiliar place." Initially this conversation cemented my understanding that the marketplace is a unfeeling entity, prone to deception, which doesn't hesitate to capitalize on consumer goodwill. Recently, sitting beside a coffee table loaded with beer bottles and cocaine, I glimpsed a deeper parallel. ------ I had met the guy on the rooftop. We were both renting AirBnB's in the building. He was lonely and wanted company. In his apartment he spoke of the women he'd conquered and mentioned his sister was a slut for dating a few actors as she climbed the Bollywood ladder. He compared cocaine quality around the world as he chopped lines on his coffee-table. He asked about my favorite drug. "Judging by quantity of consumption it would be caffeine," I answered, "but the substance which has given me the best experience is magic mushrooms." "What does it do?" He asked leaning forward eagerly, a large Kingfisher beer in his grip, powder on his nose. "It turns off all the filters. You see and experience everything. You're ego begins to diminish as the feeling of connection with everything else grows." "Oh!.." He exclaimed flopping back in his seat, waving a cigarette, "No thanks. Beer and cocaine for me. I'm an alcohol and cocaine kind of guy." I was surprised by his reaction, but now I realize what I told him. I told him that a doorway would open in his coop and he would be nudged outside under the open sky, star-lit galaxies stretching to infinity. Like the free-range chicken, he found the idea terrifying. There is a reason why sitting in front of Netflix with a glass of wine sounds much more appealing than a multi-day meditation retreat. It's no coincidence that millions of people are drinking beer right now watching sports, while only a handful sit in psychedelic ceremony**. We've all been raised in the coop. Our limiting beliefs, fears, insecurities, and shame mixes with society's morality, norms, and materialistic values to create the walls. Our frail grip on identity is the interior decoration. Pharmaceuticals, alcohol, and mindless entertainment make us more tolerant of this confine. A spiritual journey leads to the exit.  Three Psychedelic Chickens by Isabelle Houghton Footnotes
** This reason, it must be clarified, is not physical safety as research has shown alcohol to be a more physically dangerous drug. Disclaimer: Psychedelics are unlike recreational drugs. They belong in a separate category. Always do your homework before taking a journey being especially mindful of "set and setting". To learn more about humanities ancient relationship to magic mushrooms, tune into Road Less Traveled Season 4 where we visit the Huautla natives who kept these secret ceremonies alive as they were lost to the western world.  Noa and her friends were trapped on the side of a reservoir in northern India. A dam had been opened and the water was rising quick, cutting them off from their route. They climbed the banks and spotted police officers in the distance, approaching them for help. The cops decided to use the opportunity to search their bags. After extorting them for 100$ for the gram of weed they discovered, they guided them to safety on another route.
I was riding a Bird (electric scooter) yesterday when suddenly I fell into a Santa Monica police sting operation. They were swooping up riders in batches, collecting money from each person for not wearing helmets. Why do we love firemen? They protect us from external threats. They are on our side. Why do we have significantly less love for police? They also protect us from external threats. But somewhere along the way they took on the guise of protecting us from ourselves, which almost always entails money. Swooping up scooter riders at 200$ a pop is significantly more lucrative than chasing purse snatchers. Why did it take LAPD 30 years to catch a sloppy serial killer dropping clues like breadcrumbs, but a beer drinking tourist on Venice Beach will quickly find a dark police ATV ready to disrupt their vacation with a 250$ fine? The vehicle weaving between prostate sunbathers is clearly a bigger danger than the 6 pack. But it never was about safety. This "protecting us from ourselves" routine has been a boon for law enforcement for a long time. During the 13 years of alcohol prohibition they seized on the opportunity to take off-the-books cuts of the money. Legalization of alcohol in 1933 was disastrous to their bottom line. They needed new income streams under the same pretense. Today police unions and prison unions have joined hands to lobby hard against legalization of marijuana. Portugal, which took the bold step of decriminalizing all drugs, has provided a model for the entire world on how to handle the subject. 17 years later we pretend the incredibly successful policy doesn't exist. American law enforcement doesn't have a more humane, effective, or compassionate idea. They have a more profitable one. Uber, Lyft, Lime, and Bird are also squeezing police department margins. DUIs and traffic violation profits dipping to unexpected lows. New policy is created to fill the coffers back up. Unsurprisingly these are formed under the same sham of protecting a citizen from herself. This entire enterprise is as disastrous for individual police officers as it is for citizens. Wouldn't they love to be embraced by the public the way firemen are? Loved in the old school sheriff, Andy Griffith kind of way? Of course they would. Deep down those SMPD cops know that most adults understand helmet safety just fine, and are assuming a comfortable level of risk. The same level of risk they would assume by going skydiving, white water rafting, or stepping on the top rung of a ladder. Any one of these police officers would find it ludicrous if a citizen charged them 200$ for cutting an apple with the knife directed towards their hand. It's risky, but is it not their body to risk? |
I'm Jonathan LeggThe road has been my greatest teacher.. challenging stagnant beliefs, disarming prejudices, and developing understanding of others. I hope the content on this blog will bring a sliver of that juju to you. Categories
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