Sunday, May 24th, 2026
Writing to you from Evergreen, Colorado
Alone, again.
I’m back in the states for a short time to get a few things done. I’ll be doing a 4-day rope rescue course in South Dakota similar to the one I did back in 2024. Along with that, the plan is to do the 14-day wilderness expedition with Boulder Outdoor Survival School and work on wildfires for a couple of weeks.
It’s tough to be alone. The Preparation is nothing short of amazing when it comes to individual growth in the form of increased skills and bettered character, and it certainly blows the competition out of the water, but there are tradeoffs with everything…
In nearly 3 years of being the beta tester for the program I’ve found two major challenges—one that goes away with time and one that sticks with you: loneliness.
Let’s focus on the latter for now…
I’ve been lonely while working in the Nevada desert. I’ve been lonely while working on wildfires in Oregon. I’ve been lonely on a sailboat in the middle of the south Atlantic, in the mountains of Thailand, and on our own ranch in Uruguay.
More than that, I’ve experienced the loneliness that only those who live life fundamentally different from other experience.
That’s all to say that I understand what some of the other people in The Preparation are feeling. It’s a tough thing—and it’s thrown me out of the saddle a time or two. Loneliness cuts so deep and seems to wish nothing but that you feel as weak or incapable as possible. It feeds on negative emotion while conjuring more of it up at the same time. It sits with you when you’re alone and offers nothing but the worst.
A person who doesn’t constantly reflect on the meaningful path they’re on and actively look for joy in the things around them will be consumed by loneliness.
Trust me, I’d know by now.
Anyway…
I’m saying this to those who can derive use out of it, but I’m also writing this so that I remember what I have to do and how I have to think for the next few weeks.
Continuing on
I haven’t abandoned the Investor Cycle. In fact, I was going through a course on technical analysis and finished reading another investing book the week before last.
It’s a slow cycle, one that can be drawn out during a period where things are more time sensitive. Given everything that’s going on in the world, this may be the last time in a while that I venture outside of Uruguay to learn/do something. It seems clear that the wise thing to do for a bit will be to stick to learning things locally instead of travelling 6,000 miles to take a couple courses.
That being said, I’m going to make this short time count.
I’ll be doing the Survivalist and Investor Cycles at the same time while doing everything else I want to do here. Not everything will go my way. I might not get around to doing everything before it’s time to go. That’s okay. Ultimately, all that matters is that I do all that can and have a good attitude while doing it.
That would make this time, and the loneliness that comes with it, worth it.
I’ve got no clue of what I’ll be doing once I get back to Uruguay. It’ll probably be near the 3-year mark of my time in The Preparation. There will be a couple birthdays and I’m probably going to want to rest for a couple weeks. I need to do some more thinking about what’s next.
Reading
Finished reading The Most Important Thing by Howard Marks
Finished reading You Can Be a Stock Market Genius by Joel Greenblatt
Finished reading Education of a Wandering Man by Louis L’Amour (again)
Last update
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 60 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.
Good for you sharing something so personal, which will help all the others following you on The Preparation. I used to feel lonely when younger and alone and that led me into some behaviours and situations I prefer not to think about! However after years of being in two great relationships and bringing up two amazing young adults, I just feel peaceful now rather than alone. The work you are doing now will mean you will never be bored and the community you are building with your posts will also help - a global community of new friends, young and old. Good job so far!
Dude, I hear you about the loneliness. About a third of my time while Jack-Kerouacking around Europe for six months in 1980/81, I had no friends around me, no cell phone to text or call anyone from home or from my first two years of college. Often, no one even spoke English and my French and Spanish were very marginal.
And once i got back in the states, worked about three months at home and then at 21 took a good paying construction job in rural Kansas for six months thru the winter. That was even lonelier than any part of the Europa trip. Aaaaargh.
That shit is hard. But there is a payoff. It may not feel like it now, but your inner resources are building up like muscles after a workout. When you get this behind you, you will look back at how you sustained your forward motion without requiring someone else's approval or support.
Coming back from Europa and then coming back from Kansas, both times at home and after that, I felt invincible. I felt like anything hard that was in front of me, was just a thing. I could just f*cking do it. No question. And I knew I had done many hard things in the past and could overcome any of them in the future.
Also, in Kansas, I read all three volumes of Aleksander Solhzynitsens book "Gulag Archipelago." Russians trapped in the Soviet prison system on trumped up charges for decades. That was some evil shit. I read those three very long books, with the specific goal of reminding myself that there are many people who had a worse life than i did.
Bonus: all the introspection I did while lonely, especially revisiting how my relationships with women had turned out, helped me craft a better sense of self and a better way of dealing with other people. I was clearly a changed man...as on the drive home from Kansas, through Wisconsin, Canada, New England, DC and home to Beaufort, SC, three, count 'em, three women I'd had crushes on over the years decided the time was right to lure me into their beds. Not feeling lonely then. Nosiree.
Your mileage may vary.
But persevering through anything hard will payoff. But we can't always predict what form the payoff will take!
:-)