Back in the springtime, I heard something that opened my eyes to a new truth. Rick Rubin stated in an interview, something to the effect of: “When you endeavor to do something that does not align with your purpose, that goes against your moral grain, a fissure develops. You will try to fill that gap with all manner of things..” It could not have been a more poignant time for those words to reach me.

In 2021 I was growing tired of fabrication, working in construction was starting to feel tame and the opportunities for further growth seemed less attractive than they once had. I was hunting for my next adventure in the capitalist hamster wheel, paying bills and complaining of how little free time I had.. I was looking for a cheat code, again. I became aware of this particular profession where especially skilled sawyers are hired by the US Forest Service on VIPR resource contracts to do specialty tree-cutting work on wildland fires. They are called Falling Modules, or mods, and they looked like some bad motherf*ckers. They supposedly made upwards of $800 USD/ day, worked out in the woods and traveled to intriguing locations all over the western US during the summer months. It sounded dreamy to me, as I envisioned myself working 7 months a year and then just free-wheeling during the off season (as is my preference, finances allowing).

So, a not-so-long, but still convoluted path of various chain-saw focused jobs led me to hiring on as a commercial timber faller with a Washington state outfit in early 2024. It was what seemed like the last necessary step to accrue much needed experience and get on a falling module thereafter. I knew I was going to feel like a square peg in a round hole. But wow, I wasn’t prepared for the physical and emotional beating I was about to endure and the life lessons that would appear in that chaos.

Never have I done anything in my professional life so difficult, nothing even holds a candle to this experience. Actually, barring one thing, I’d be hard-pressed to think of anything in my life that would. The hours are insane, the conditions are miserable more often than not and the physicality of the work is nothing short of monumental most days. This, in combination with me feeling culturally out of alignment with many of the folks in that industry, was a burden that weighed heavily. Oh yeah, and don’t think for a second that I got by without ‘new-guy’ hazing, I didn’t. To top it all off, I like trees. Killing living ecosystems for the profit of some timber company far removed from the daily operations, day in and day out, takes a serious emotional toll.

For me, in the end, it was a detour. I realized that this occupation was not only creating the aforementioned ‘fissure’ in me, but that the search for such a ‘cheat code’ within capitalism was perhaps misguided anyway. I have planned my retirement from the industry in favor of other pursuits. It all came full circle when a colleague casually offered me an unsolicited vote of confidence, saying that I had the experience to work on a falling mod.. Whether it was true or not, I didn’t even raise an eyebrow when I heard it. I didn’t want it any longer.

I just wanted to share a little about how I came to realize I want to be behind the lens.