Episode 1, Enter the Wild One. 


There are a group of lions that live along Namibia's Skeleton Coast. These desert-adapted lions have learned to survive in one of the world's harshest climates. From the strip of coastland named the Skeleton Coast, as a result of all the skeletons of ships wrecked along the beach, the lions operate inland through the region known as Damaraland, as far as the Hoanib River. Here, where the coast gives way to an inner desert, game naturally occurs and survives in the dry. Gemsbok and springbok speckle the land. Desert elephants trundle through sand dunes. And along the beach, the lions have recently been recorded hunting seals. It is in this region that James, Alex, and I will venture in an attempt to find desert lions. Given the vastness and challenge of the terrain, we harbor a secret desire to find these most elusive creatures in their natural environment. 


In a region without borders, we will have to rely fully on our kitted 4x4. With a vehicle in place, we are free to go where the tracks take us.


And as I sit here writing this first episode in preparation of the trip, I can feel the wildness calling me. I can feel the sighs and emptiness of the desert. I know the lions are out there, moving secretly through the dunes, and that these trips we three friends take together are the call of the wild one inside. Now, of course, to be handled, the biggest challenge being to meet with a lion researcher in the area. Although he recently got Starlink, trying to intercept him in the desert is a challenge as he often goes dark for weeks at a time. And since he initially agreed to meet us and show us the area, he has frankly not been heard from And so we must plan as best we can without any local knowledge. The situation has also also been complicated by a recent lion attack on a tourist. The tourist had climbed down out of his rooftop tent to urinate in the early dawn and was pounced on by a very, very hungry lion. This is, of course, an extremely unfortunate and tragic situation. A rare incident, really, and one which we will also partly investigate while we are there.


This trip to the wild will be my first as a new father. And this time in the wild, conjuring the inner wild one, feels more important than ever. I've come to believe that if you are disconnected from your wild one, you're disconnected from your life. I think of the wild one as a well of present primal energy, alive in all people, but mostly latent in modern life. These primal currents of life force are full of information, and the closer you can be to the Wild One, the closer you will be to knowing your own unique mission, your fullest expression. This time with my friends in nature seeking the Wild One is a time to drink from the well of life. All through the year, building prams, installing the car seat, and literally building the physical symbols of fatherhood The sight of wild week on my calendar, albeit six months away, gave me a tremendous calm. I have a working hypothesis as a father that the great paradox of family life is that if subtly you're trying to get away from the mundane grind of domestic life, you'll be gripped by it. If you're able to fully presence and presence yourself to it, you will be set free. Chloe knows that part of what makes me present with her and our son is how she sends me off at times to be with the wild one. And this dimension of our relationship feels like a profound gift we share with each other. Especially because when I return it's not that I have more to share, it's that after time, I am more. And it's helped me refine my goal, which is to walk something of a masculine tightrope as a father. I want to be known for stability and wildness. When it's time for our son, Veld, to leave home, I want him to leave easily, because I'm boring, old, stable dad.


I want to be resolved as a psychological figure inside of his heart and psyche.


At the same time, I want him to always feel the alive presence of the wild one in his dad.


So much so that the energy of storms and rivers and mountains that is in me seeps into his body without a word ever being said about it.


I have for a long time believed that boys absorb the energy of the men around them.


They learn more through this absorption than through any words.


They learn by example and sensation.


So the wild one will be a theme all through these episodes.


Where does it sleep?


How is it awakened?


And what it truly brings to a person's life.


These trips are also a time to step out of daily life and into the company of two great friends.


Being with Alex and James in wild places is something I so look forward to.


The wild week is a time with no time.


We enter nature's rhythms.


Time is for more socialized spaces.


We allow ourselves to be like animals.


We move on the currents of where we think we need to be.


We give ourselves the best opportunity to find the right tracks.


And it's true that the wild one needs both solitude and brotherhood.


The wild one needs time to be away from the order of the city, to feel itself to something as grand as a wilderness.


I've always been able to find myself in wild places.


In the presence of trees and forests and mountains and rivers, I somehow know myself.


But it's more than that, too.


In a wild place, I feel myself.


In Africa, the idea of Ubuntu says people are not people without other people, meaning we experience ourself in relation.


But to me, that experience of self in relation expands to the natural world.


Rivers and mountains help me sense more of my own being.


I find myself in relation to these more natural energies.


It's a very intangible sensation, hard to talk about, although anyone with inner attunement feels it.


Tracking, friendship, wildness have become the most important mediums of these trips.


And the beautiful fact that the trip is almost completely unplannable.


The essence of adventure is to be up against the total unknown of what lies ahead.


So much energy resides there.


So I hope this episode will bring light to your own adventure awakening your inner wild one, and I hope you will enjoy this journey into the Namibian desert.


And I'm happy that we find ourselves here again, at the beginning of a new adventure, a new story to hunt, lions to track, life force to zipline along