The Importance of Discomfort
In 2019, Huckberry asked me to write something for Father’s Day. I didn’t want to write a how-to or a sermon. I just wanted to reflect on what I’d learned from a life on the road—and what I was starting to learn as a father trying to pass down a love for wild places.
I've spent my career exploring some of the most difficult-to-access places in the world, having life-changing experiences in remarkable places with remarkable people. I've witnessed history, photographed the plight of the marginalized, and seen firsthand their daily struggle to survive.
Pursuing my work and getting access to these locations has meant exploration has been a fundamental process. It has taken me to countless blazing deserts, along long dusty roads in the back of pickup trucks—through canyons and along ancient trade routes that traversed contested land with military roadblocks resisting entry and the way back home. I’ve bushwhacked through dense jungles with 400-pound gorillas peering through dripping ferns and steaming prehistoric volcanoes silhouetting the horizon. I’ve hiked jagged granite peaks and glaciers with racks of climbing gear and a week's worth of rations on my back, beckoning me further in spite of the conditions.
“The sunburns; the disease and sickness; the humidity; the never-ending border crossings; the planes, trains, autos, and yes, the camels—these are all the signs that I’m doing it right.”
Even traveling through the cobblestone labyrinths of ancient walled cities, the smell of fresh baked flatbread or boiling mint tea being my only markers for when to turn left or right, has been exploration for me. I’m forever drawn to the Golden Age of exploration and the tea-stained maps not yet complete. I think about the sheer grit it must have taken to go deeper and deeper when the conditions got bad, the destination was vague, and the safety of home was months away—if not years.
Where It Started
I grew up in a farm town. It’s not a destination for anyone, but it’s a place I’m proud of. Hot summers required grit and creativity. We got outside; we played in piles of dirt that, in my imagination, were Mount Everest or K2. We were encouraged to explore the world on our terms—to ride bikes, climb trees, ride horses bareback, swim in questionable water, make stuff, get a little bit hurt, and do it all over again the next day.
Today they call it “free-range parenting.” Back then, it was just growing up. My small town gave me the space to cultivate my love of exploration and wanderlust.
“And I’ll always attribute my wanderlust to my early days exploring with my family in America’s National Parks, wilderness areas, deserts, and remote beaches and reefs of Baja.”
Exploration
We were all born artists, and we were all born explorers. Exploration, in its simplest form, is how we learn. For kids, everything is new. Everything is worth examining. Kids can be as immersed in the micro as the great explorers were in the macro—their own blank maps to fill in.
Exploring requires us to step outside our comfort zones. It requires trying something new. And that, at its core, is learning.
I’m obsessed with cultivating that same childlike nature in myself—curious, open, alert. As a father, I’m driven to pass that on. But even more, I want my kids’ energy and wonder to shape me. They might never know how much their spirit sharpens mine.
“I think the bold are free—and kids are bold.”
Comfort
I’ve said for years that my best photographs have come when I’m the most uncomfortable. And I don’t know a good photojournalist who would disagree. If you’re comfortable, you’re probably doing it wrong.
Being uncomfortable takes practice. It means knowing you can handle more than you think, and trusting that discomfort is temporary.
I recently took a remote camping trip to the Eastern Sierra with my two- and five-year-old kids. An unseasonal cold snap hit us hard. My daughter was struggling in the cold and snow. I told her to look around and tell me what she could see—and what she couldn’t. She named the snowy peaks, the blowing wind, the smell of sage. I reminded her:
“If it were easy and comfortable, everyone would be out here.”
That night she burrowed into her -20-degree bag and slept straight through. The next morning, we woke to one of the most incredible sunrises I’ve seen in that spot. Coyotes. Tracks in the snow. The hush of wind through granite. All these years I’ve come here for that view. Now I’d rather watch them watch it.
Adventure
Our kids are always watching us—especially in the moments we don’t script. I want mine to see how I handle difficulty. That I don’t always get it right, but I stay in it. Because that’s where learning happens.
I don’t know exactly what we’re supposed to do as parents. I’m figuring it out like everyone else. But I do know that raising a kid isn’t just about producing a well-adjusted adult. It’s about handing them tools for awe, for resilience, for getting lost and loving it.
“As you carve out time, months in advance, for your vacation, my challenge to you is to also whittle out spontaneous, unpredictable time with your kids.”
Forget the Costco trip on a sunny Sunday. Skip the reserved campground. Pack up, go to some forgotten piece of BLM land, and figure it out. Let them see you struggle, laugh, get frustrated, and navigate. Let them feel awe in the unknown. Crack a beer at the end of it. Make cocoa. Celebrate new scars and chapped lips.
I promise—it’ll be worth it.
They’ll learn more watching your scars heal than you’ll ever be able to teach them.
Just go.
