Changes, Updates, Thoughts

A Radical Alternative to College

Monday, June 23rd, 2025

Writing to you from Asuncion, Paraguay

Things have been busy to the point that I haven’t been able to update you.

The last time I spoke to you I was in Gabbs, Nevada. A small desert town with a population that I was sure was under 25, but found out later that it’s more like 75. Anyway, there’s two churches, one bar, a post office, and some abandoned looking playgrounds in the town.

(Photo taken 30 minutes away from Gabbs, NV)

For some odd reason the town of Gabbs is split into two parts (less than half a mile apart) between the old (more dilapidated) side and the “new” Gabbs as everyone called it.

What a strange place - with lots of characters…

But Lee, the bar owner, is hospitable beyond compare.

Now, because of a series of events and choices involving disappointment, the need to reorient myself, missing the people I love, and worldly events - I have found myself in Paraguay.

For a short time…

Anyway, if you were reading the past couple updates, I was in the Nevada desert for a induced polarization geophysics job - a very different and new opportunity that was presented to me.

The image that I crafted of this experience in my mind turned out to be misleading.

I figured that I’d be going to learn the hands-on skills like using the receiver and transmitter (which would send and receive electrical signals through kilometers of wire that we laid in order to measure the resistivity and chargeability of the minerals below.)

(Carrying a heavy spool of wire across the desert)

In addition to that, the assumption was that it would also be a period of intense academic education based on geophysics.

The thought of that was exciting, but wrong.

Frankly, it isn’t worth going into all the details, so I’ll keep it blunt and brief: The crew that I was working with, which I assumed (man, I’ve gotta stop doing that) was going to be a group of competent people. Yet, they knew nothing about the job, were incompetent, lazy, and had zero respect for Marc (the man running the operation).

Two of the crew members were potheads who were clearly not all there.

One of the two was running the transmitter which would send several amps of electricity through the wires.

|Oftentimes the sheer amount of electricity flowing through the wire is enough to kill a cow|

But, there was another big problem…Marc is an older man who has unfortunately begun to accumulate a number of health issues. A foot problem stopped him from doing the work in the field, so he hung out on the side while an apprentice of sorts ran the ground operations. Two bosses is cause for problems. Marc’s 40+ years of experience were disregarded and the two of them were butting heads frequently.

We didn’t have a good day for 9 days.

Each day was full of problems - blown tire, blown transmission in a truck, problems with the receiver, problems with the crew, and the cherry on top was that someone on the crew was shocked by the electrical wire on the 9th day.

I’ll tell that story another time…He is lucky he didn’t die.

It was all very interesting and strange. I tried to keep a cheerful attitude throughout my time there, but I began to say to myself:

“I came here to learn and I’m not learning anything. So, why am I here?”

There was no time to study, read, or write.

I’d be dead tired before dinner rolled around. Sleep, eat, grunt work, repeat. And still not learning anything. Don’t get me wrong, the grunt work wasn’t the problem. I was fine with it as a necessary part of things as long as I’d be learning something.

Lots to learn from all of it, none of it having to do with the job itself.

Primarily, I learned that I need to have more patience. Also, that I must harness the ability to pull myself out of the present moment to view the bigger picture, that my I can see clearly what I must do.

Something has to change

All of the stress caused from the short time doing the geophysics work brought an unpleasant feeling I’ve had for the past few months to the forefront of my mind…

Despite going through the wildland fire training again, going through flight training, completing the wilderness first responder course, and making good progress overall - this was the first time that I felt as though what I was doing didn’t matter very much.

To be straight with you, as I always am, it’s been incredibly demoralizing.

I’m in Paraguay with my girlfriend and her family. While we are here for a few weeks I am training kickboxing at a local gym. Soon, I’ll be back in Uruguay to continue from there.

Part of the reason I came back is due to conflicts heating up in the world. Part of it is that I hadn’t seen my girlfriend, who I love, for 3 months and was likely not going to see her for several more months if I had stayed in the states longer. But, the majority of the reason is that I have lost touch with the big Why - the huge motivating factor for it all. I think that’s why the last 3 months have been unpleasant. It’s still unpleasant now.

There are always things to do and ways to improve, but I am uncertain.

It seems that my own mental framework of things needs to be reoriented, reframed.

-Maxim Benjamin Smith