#36: Boundless Range ↔️
what Rick Rubin, Jimmy Chin, and Anthony Bourdain have in common
Everyone has something they believe that goes against the grain of society’s scriptures. I suppose I have several, but one of them is the idea that we can live a more vibrant life by cultivating range. Range creates a virtuous cycle between breadth and depth. The more you do, the more you know. Vice versa. Range enables us to flex between novice and master. We get the joy of rapid progression and the appreciation from compounding experience. Range breeds awareness of possibilities and creates dynamic realities. To dream big and then act big. Embracing range means exposing oneself to deeply caring for and cherishing a wide variety of things.
It’s not about skills like the generalist vs. specialist spectrum popularized by the book with the same name. It’s also not about being in a perpetual state of noncommittal behavior. I actually think range leads to even greater depth because you’re driven by self-directed curiosity rather than tribal conformity. Paul Graham writes about independent-mindedness in How To Think For Yourself which encapsulates some aspects, but it’s not just about how you think. It’s also about what you do and who you do it with.
Range is a measurement for what you are open to enjoying. It’s a filter for what you’re aware of, care about, and then act on. In this infinite set of worlds, your field of reality is defined by what you perceive is important.
The floor of your range depends on what you accept. Call it tolerance for discomfort or open-mindedness. The potential to experience the glory of winning is only made possible through persistent training. Catching a serene sunrise requires waking up to an alarm in the dark. Life-altering conversations require being open to vulnerability and vehement disagreement. Sensations, experiences, and people are only available to you when you’re open to them.
The ceiling of your range is defined by what you can appreciate. The capacity to recognize worth relies on good judgment, awareness, and taste. In their absence, life would be grayscale, bland, sterile. You won’t shell out for premium hair products until you can discern the difference between Olaplex and Herbal Escapes. A Youtube video is just a basic vlog until you notice the painstaking effort that went into all the cuts, angles, and effects. A five-course meal is just fuel for your body if you hastily swallow every bite instead of savoring the flavors.
Range is omnipresent across an infinite set of axes in this era of abundance. Our ancestors rarely left their hometowns. Now we can go anywhere in the world. Entertainment used to be ten radio channels. Now it’s millions of videos across dozens of platforms. With infinite options, we’re blessed with agency and cursed with responsibility to make decisions. From what we wear, to what we do, to what we believe.
Range applies to basic necessities, like what we eat. The food-is-fuel cult meal preps chicken with rice and chugs soylent while pondering if taste buds could be considered vestigial. Then there’s the yuppie cult that must document every meal on social media. Their three favorite words are truffle, omakase, and michelin. When it comes to food, Anthony Bourdain is a master of range. He went from culinary school and running fine-dining kitchens to traveling the world in search of authentic, down-to-earth cuisine.
Range comes up with fitness. With so many different forms of exercise, tribes have emerged, each with their own idiosyncrasy. Cycling and baked goods. Bodybuilding and pre-workout. Crossfit and kipping pull-ups. Baseball and chewing tobacco. Yoga and healing crystals. Participating in these rituals furthers your position in the tribal hierarchy, but makes it harder to have range. When it comes to athletics, hybrid athlete Nick Bare straddles intentionally across multiple disciplines having run a sub 2:50 marathon and placing first in his first bodybuilding competition.
Something similar can be said for how we travel. For some, where to stay is just a matter of picking the cheapest option because what more could you possibly need besides a bed and maybe a bathroom? Then there’s those who pick the Airbnb or hotel first and location comes second. Aesthetics are a crucial consideration, not an afterthought. The type to endure an international flight, but then never leave the resort.
On travels with my friend Joe, we’ve opted for dinky hostels or rudimentary tents. But when Joe travels to NYC for work, he always stays at The Edition, a five-star hotel next to Madison Square Park. It’s not that close to the office, but the feeling that there are magical hospitality fairies prancing around makes it worth it. It’s not just the custom-made Le Labo soaps or the view of the Empire State Building. The staff fold your clothes, neatly arrange toiletries, and even service the room three times daily. Once in the morning, then in the afternoon to set the drapes for evening lighting, and then finally for full blackout lighting. Without tolerance for discomfort, we wouldn’t have backpacked Alaska and seen the elusive Denali. But without appreciation for the finer details, maybe Joe would’ve picked a more conveniently located hotel.
Range might be most relevant for how we spend our leisure time. Call it hobbies or passions or lifestyle. The non-work things that make us who we are. There’s the sufferfest-chasing climbing bum in Denver on weekdays and car camping in their Subaru hatchback on weekends. While gnawing on a Clif bar with fellow granola pals, they wonder why anyone would live in a NYC shoebox surrounded by noises, smells, and street rats. Then there’s the creative spirit living in Bushwick. They subsist off of Trader Joe’s, alcohol, and espresso. None of that Mr. Coffee drip trash. Their idea of a good time is visiting an art museum followed by a film screening which they’ll inform you is incomparable to box office movies. At first glance, outdoor sports and creative disciplines appear to diverge, but Jimmy Chin has built his entire career from combining his passion in skiing, climbing, photography, and film-making. Alongside his wife and co-director Chai Vasarhelyi, they’ve produced award-winning films like Free Solo that could only be made by someone who understands Alex Honnold’s mentality and can expertly climb to get the shot.
We can even examine something as unassuming as music. There’s ravers who center their travel plans around which EDM festivals they’re going to. Then there’s the country enthusiasts who add cowboy boots to their wardrobe and drink cold piss in a can called Coors Light. K-Pop listeners love the music so much they’re learning an entirely new language. Music producer Rick Rubin embodies range through his repertoire of hit records. By being hyper-aware of what he likes and doesn’t, he’s traversed through genres, working with artists like Jay-Z, Adele, Slipknot, and Red Hot Chili Peppers.
And yes, range applies to politics as well. I do think there’s something that each side can learn from the other. I guess that’s what happens when you hang out with a construction worker in rural Wyoming and also a heavily tattooed anarchist in Portland.
But not everyone wants to have range. Maybe they say they do, but they don’t act like it. They don’t try new foods because they already know what they like to eat. They don’t meet new people because they’re happy with the friends they have. They don’t test out new beliefs because they think they’re already right.
They avoid range with excuses like saying they have preferences and that they know themselves. But what if it’s false authenticity serving as a crutch to escape the unknown? Ignorance is not bliss; it’s limiting. They’re saying “I’d rather not try because I’d rather not know.”
It’s easy to get stuck in your own ways. It’s easy to subconsciously transfix on a lifestyle that you didn’t actually sign up for. By default, without intentional action, you drift towards the tribe you’re nearest to. But the inverse of being in one tribe is excluding yourself from everything else. There’s the tendency to hastily don labels which smell like commitment and community, but taste like restriction and cults.
Cultivating range takes effort. It requires swimming upstream and dealing with the hopeless feeling of trying to boil the ocean. Overcoming inertia and managing the torrent of options is hard. But like any good workout, how hard we try is proportional to how satisfied we feel.
I wrote this for myself. To take a half-baked observation that I’m interested in so many things and try and offer up some possible explanations. To explain why I booked a $10 hostel for the first two nights and am excited to have my own hotel room for tonight. To explain why I’m surfing in Bali this month and equally stoked to make New York City my new home. To explain why I wake up at 4am for a ski trip with 3 granola bars for breakfast and lunch and am also grateful for my cooking influencer friend who made us tacos from scratch. To explain part of what makes me, me.
this idea is something I’ve been feeling and turning over lately, and it’s so helpful to read how you’ve put them into words. i often find myself at the tension you describe “With infinite options, we’re blessed with agency and cursed with responsibility to make decisions.” great points and examples!
This is great!