What I did this week (Week 55)
What I did this week (Week 55)
A Radical Alternative to College
What I did this week (Week 55)
08/25/2024
Writing to you from Denver, Colorado.
Something I didn’t want to do
My 19th birthday was this past week. Everyone was asking me what I wanted to do, and I had no clue until the day before my birthday…
There were plenty of things I could have done, but I was given the idea of going skydiving. When I thought about jumping out of a plane it definitely did freak me out.
So, after assessing the few options I had in my mind, I realized that I should go skydiving, only because of the simple fact that I didn’t want to do it.
I booked my spot to jump out of a plane at 7:30am the next day.
My girlfriend and I got to the skydiving place and they told us to get on a bus that would take us to where the plane picks up the skydivers.
The bus was old, dirty, and rickety. The bumpy dirty road caused the entire thing to shake. Along the way, we passed another company bus that was sitting directly in the middle of the road with one of its wheels missing.
Old, broken-down equipment isn’t the type of thing you want to see before you take the 12,000ft jump…
It made me laugh.
When we were dropped off I met the instructor I’d be jumping with. He was the type of guy that you want to jump out of a plane with.
This guy was friendly, funny, and calm…which was probably due to him closing in on making 1,500 jumps.
I got my harness on, my instructor put all of his gear on, then we piled onto our plane with several other groups. At 2,000ft we were allowed to unbuckle our seatbelts and start prepping for the jump.
Not too long after that our pilot got us up to our jumping altitude of 12,000ft. I watched as a student jumper and a few wingsuiters dropped out of the plane. Then it was our turn.
The “worst” part of it all was the few seconds after jumping, when you quickly accelerate to terminal velocity at 120mph.
Once you settle in at terminal velocity everything seems fake. In the 45 seconds of free fall you have it’s hard to believe that what you’re seeing is real.
But, I did realize that I was in a great place to skydive when I saw the mountains on the horizon. We made the jump in Boulder, a town that sits directly in front of the mountains.
At the 45 second mark my instructor signaled “3,2,1” with his hands just before I felt a big pull upward as the parachute opened. I got to fly us around with the parachute for a bit which was fun.
We did some tight turns that made us fall 30-50ft each time. We floated around for a few more minutes before making an amazingly smooth landing on a patch of sand and small rocks they had as a landing target.
It was awesome…Definitely not as bad as I thought it would be.
A rough day
I don’t recommend doing what I did yesterday. In my mind it was largely a waste of time…
I got bit by the 14er bug again and figured I’d like to hike my 4th mountain. For some reason though, I always make the decision to do a hike at the last minute and I don’t do much planning.
My basic idea was to drive 4 hours south to the Sangre de Cristos to hike Kit Carson Mountain.
(Picture off the internet of Kit Carson peak)
To get there at a good time I left home at 12:30am. Unfortunately, I did not get any sleep. The drive wasn’t all that bad though, and soon I was at the trailhead. Hiking went smoothly between the hours of 4:30am (my start time) to 8am.
There was a steady incline, but nothing too difficult.
These mountains were different from the others that I’ve hiked. The entire look of the mountain range was different, strange, and ominous. Especially when I saw the clouds draped around the peaks.
Most of the day is all a blur now, but I do remember exactly when the trail got rough after reaching the lake below the peaks.
Another detail I should explain is that there were two 14,000ft peaks on this trail: Challenger and Kit Carson. Kit Carson was behind Challenger, which meant that I was hiking Challenger and would have to follow the ridge to get to Kit Carson.
(Photo off the internet of the trail)
Anyway, the trail turned into a steep 60 degree incline for the next couple hours. With 30-45lbs on my back I was moving slow. Hours went by until I finally reached the ridge where the incline ended. I stopped just short of the Challenger Point summit because the wind was insane.
The gusts were strong enough to knock me over if I was already off balance.
The wind reminded me of a time my father and I were driving our RV through eastern Wyoming. The winds were 80+ mph that day and soon after seeing a warning sign about the high winds, we began to hear a loud banging in the RV.
It turns out that one of the flaps on the side of the RV wasn’t properly installed and now the wind was slamming it against the vehicle. We pulled over and went to see what we could do about it. As soon as we rounded the corner at the back of the RV the wind hit us in the face.
My dad climbed up the ladder to check out the damage and see how we could solve the problem. At one point he sat on the flap to hold it down, but the wind was intense enough to lift him off the roof of the RV.
He told me to grab a KABAR from inside. I brought it back up, we cut the flap loose, and threw it off the side of the road. There was nothing else left to do.
Strong winds are no joke.
At that point I didn’t care about going to Kit Carson. I practically made it all the way up to Challenger. That was enough for me. Going all the way to Kit Carson would have taken another hour and a half to go there and back to Challenger point.
With the wind and weight I was carrying it likely would have been closer to 2 hours.
The climb down is mostly a blur too. Time moved strangely, it went by in the blink of an eye, but also incredibly slow.
On the way down I told myself that this would be the last 14er for a long time. It kicked my ass.
At 11 1/2 hours I made it to the bottom and drove off. I almost fell asleep several times while on the road. I had to rest, so I stopped on the side of the road for a bit before heading to a gas station to drink enough caffeine to keep my eyes wide open for the rest of the drive home.
Moral of the story: Plan better, sleep more, and be more realistic about how far you should hike in a day.
An idea
When I started The Preparation I constantly had the story of The Count of Monte Cristo in my mind. Particularly the part of the story when Edmond Dantes is falsely imprisoned in the Chateau d’If.
Upon meeting an old priest when Dantes was now imprisoned for 6 years, the priest began to teach Dantes a variety of useful skills. These skills included: Sword fighting, hand-to-hand combat, chemistry, mathematics (geometry, basic arithmetic, and cryptography), other sciences, philosophy, languages, history, and economics.
Within the remaining 8 years that Dantes had in prison he became well versed in every area of study. Making him an incredibly competent and dangerous man.
I like getting things done, but I don’t study much at all. At least I haven’t studied much of anything over the past few months besides some Spanish, chess, and copywriting.
Why not follow Edmond Dantes’ education?
I’m already doing BJJ, practcing Spanish, reading philosophy, and I’ve studied some history and economics. So, why not go further? Study more, learn more.
Whether you’re my age or 50 years older, I think we can all use The Count of Monte Cristo as an exceptional example of what can be done with persistence, effort, and time.
Activities
Chess for 30 minutes (3 out of 7 days)
The last time I played chess was over a month ago. For the time I’m not out on a fire I figured that I’d like to start playing again.
My performance isn’t great, but it isn’t terrible either.
Spanish for 30 minutes (3 out of 7 days)
Spanish has been going well. I’ve been doing the same Spanish foundations course for a long time now.
It’s about time I move on to the more advanced online courses.
BJJ (3 out of 7 days)
One of the few things I missed while I was on the Falls fire in Oregon was BJJ. I was happy to get back to it this week.
We focused on attacks and escapes from the mount position.
Reading
Started reading “The Laws of Human Nature” by Robert Greene
My girlfriend gifted me this book for my birthday. I’m not a big fan of Robert Greene, but so far I do enjoy this book. It’s pretty much a mid-level psychology (maybe a little sociology) book. I think a lot of people enjoy these books becuase they are “intellectual”, but really I think most of the information is not as high IQ as it’s made out to be.
What I like about the book is how it just makes you think a bit more about how and why people act. Plus, there are historical examples given which is a bonus. One of the first examples is of Pericles in ancient Greece and how his way of leadership could have prevented Sparta from destroying Athens (really, Athens ruined itself).
Finished reading “Vipers and Red Rocks” by L.S. Goozdich
Luke contacted me on instagram before I left for the Falls fire. While I was gone he sent me one of his recent books.
I finished the book in two days. All I can say is that it was fantastic. The arc and pace of the story reminded me of Louis L’Amour’s writing. You jump right into the story, you become insanely interested in what’s happening, and then the story dramatically picks up the pace at the end of the book.
The story was great. Luke is an unusually good writer. I highly recommend you check out his books. It’s worth supporting anyone who writes well and is determine to improve their craft!
Things I published
Are these updates informative? Are they useful? Entertaining?
Leave a comment below if you’ve got any suggestions or questions for me.
And don’t forget to send this to someone who might benefit.
I’ll see you next week.
-Maxim Benjamin Smith
I am acting as a guinea pig for a program which is meant to prepare young men for the future. This program is designed to be a replacement for the only three routes advertised to young men today - go to college, the military, or a dead-end job.
All of these typical routes of life are designed to shape us into cogs for a wheel that doesn’t serve us. Wasted time, debt, lack of skills, and a soul crushing job define many who follow the traditional route.
This program, which we can call “The Preparation”, is meant to guide young men on a path where they properly utilize their time to gain skills, build relationships, and reach a state of being truly educated. The Preparation is meant to set young men up for success.
What appeals to me about The Preparation is the idea of the type of man I could be. The path to becoming a skilled, dangerous, and competent man is much more clear now. I’ve always been impressed by characters like The Count of Monte Cristo, men who accumulated knowledge and skills over a long period of time and eventually became incredibly capable men.
Young men today do not have a guiding light. We have few mentors and no one to emulate. We have been told that there are only a few paths to success in this world. For intelligent and ambitious people - college is sold to us as the one true path. And yet that path seems completely uncertain today.
We desperately need something real to grab onto. I think this is it.
I’m putting the ideas into action. Will it work? I can’t be sure, but I’m doing my best. I’m more than 40 weeks into the program at this point. So far, so good.
You can follow me along as I follow the program. Each week, I summarize all that I did.
My objective in sharing this is three fold:
Documenting my progress holds me accountable.
I hope these updates will show other young men that there is another path we can take.
For the parents who stumble upon this log, I want to prove to you that telling your children that the conventional path - college, debt, and a job is not the foolproof path you think it is.