Tell me your journey to you in the comments or in a PM.

Today, in a podcast, I heard a line that made me hit pause:

"If you want to know who you are, just look at what you have done."

That was not even the point of the podcast. Just a passing line in a story.

But I never turn down a chance to think deep thoughts. Let us dive in.

So yeah… sometimes people ask, "Who am I?"

I turned that question over in my mind while hiking today. Here is where I landed.

When I was younger, that question felt tangled. I remember it clearly. Like most of us, I was surrounded by voices, family, friends, and expectations, each one consciously or subconsciously shaping what I thought I should be. It was hard to tell what was truly mine. It is just part of being young and impressionable. But in many cases, the impressions being pressed on your mind do not fit. This is when things genuinely get difficult, especially for the younger.

So, like many before me, I stepped away from the noise when I was young. I moved into a new environment. It did not immediately reveal who I was, nor did I expect it to, but it did put me in a healthier space to examine what I was experiencing.

And over time, I realized something.

When I was alone, really alone, with no one around to influence my thinking, there was a different kind of clarity. I did not recognize it then, but I do now. My thoughts felt untouched. Not filtered, judged, or shaped. Not adjusted to fit anyone else's expectations or narrative. It was me, authentically.

So if I had to answer that question today, who am I, I would not start with what I have been told. I would start with the moments when I was original and authentic. I look at my actions, my choices, my words. What I have done, said, and thought over time is the trail I have left behind. That is the mirror that reflects me. It's the one you see.

So I understand why people take journeys to find themselves. They long to step away from the noise. Away from the voices telling them who they should be, outside the familiar patterns and expectations. In a place without judgment, their choices begin to reflect something more honest about who they are. With time, they see who they are, and they smile.

And when they come back, yes, they are often different, like it or not.

They know who they are. That is goodness.

So, if you want to know who you are, look back at what you have done, yep, that is you. If it's not, it's never too late to start your journey to you.

I recently spotted this swallowtail on a hike. As I quickly drew my camera for the shot, because I am good at that , a voice came from behind me.

I hadn’t seen them approach. I heard their steps and then the question, spoken in English with a hint of an accent.

There’s something about hearing an accent, almost any accent, that sends my brain scrambling through its dusty attic, searching for the foreign words I know. Danke dir, Volkhochschule!

Before I even thought it through, I replied:

“Ja, sehen Sie dort? Ich habe ein Foto von diesem Schmetterling gemacht.”

We both paused for a second, a little surprised.

And just like that, the moment shifted into a familiar ease. What followed was one of those wonderfully unexpected, genuinely pleasant conversations about travel, life, and a shared connection to Baden-Württemberg. You all know who you are!

All of it… sparked by a butterfly. I love my global life.

This photograph looks through a puka — a Hawaiian word for hole or opening — worn into the sandstone cliffs above Hanauma Bay. The rock frames the view like a window, revealing Koko Head.

The sandstone itself tells a stranger story. Scattered through it are small white fragments of coral, locked in place, not at the shoreline, but far above it — in some places close to a hundred feet higher than today’s ocean. Coral grows in the sea, not on cliffs. But yet here it is.

How it arrived here isn’t something you can explain casually. Massive wave events. Ancient sea levels. Forces large enough to lift, carry, and press reef material into stone. The science offers theories, but standing here, looking at it, the scale of time and energy involved is hard to fully hold.

A personal reflection on noticing the difference between performance and purpose in everyday interactions — how people speak, pause, and show up when they’re truly present.

Hawaiʻi and rural Nevada don’t belong in the same sentence.

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A nature-inspired poem comparing emotional resistance to hardpan soil and the unstoppable persistence of flowing water.

A short story about letting go, leaving the past behind, and starting again on the open road.

Union Pacific 7323 leading a long westbound freight through Reno, Nevada, after crossing the Sierra Nevada from the Port of San Francisco.

“From here to up there, and from up there back down here — stairs carry us in the rise and run of life. A simple invention, yet timeless inspiration.”

Old iron dock cleat —
weathered, reliable, resilient.
A maritime symbol of strength and emotional support,
anchored in time,
holding fast, the weight of ships and sorrow alike.