Week 11 - Krabi, Thailand

 No Phone, No Story?

There’s a strange kind of freedom when your phone disappears—not because you lost it, but because, for once, it didn’t feel necessary.

I don’t remember if we were told to put them away during NatureMindED, but either way, mine stayed down. No angles. No snapshots. No internal monologue raving about the last photo I’d taken. And that silence—both digital and mental—opened up space I didn’t know I’d been missing.

The contrast hit me hardest when I scrolled back through my camera roll a few days later. Over a hundred video clips from our first full day in Krabi—longboats, island hopping, cave shrines, people learning how to flip off the edge of the boat and conquering their fears midair. I remember thinking, "This is the day I’m going to miss most."

But as I kept scrolling, I hit a wall—because after that, there was nothing else to show.

The footage stopped, but the memories didn’t.

What I reflect on now? The moments no one recorded.

That longboat reel was my last of three full-day videos—made not for strangers on the internet, but for the people who lived it with me. A little gift. A living archive. Something to pull from when the memories blur.

But the stuff that stuck? It wasn’t in the footage.

Because that’s when NatureMindED started.

Three days. No content. Just connection. No camera roll. Just memory. No stories crafted—only stories lived.

And for someone like me—who spent most of first semester with only my phone camera, squatting into every shot like it meant something—this was a real shift.

My friends had been calling me a photographer long before I ever claimed the title. I kept waiting to earn it. I don’t even know what that meant—how many photos it would take to qualify. But I see now it was never about volume. It was about ownership.

Photography is how I see the world. But that week? It was the lack of it that let me actually be in it.

The first day of NatureMindED was a full-blown sensory overhaul: bouldering, slacklining, cave exploring, climbing trees, wandering barefoot, reflecting around dinner. There are no photos of me looking (in my mind) badass climbing that tree, or scaling those rocks, or breaking down handholds with a friend like we’d been doing this our whole lives. We hadn’t. But in that moment? We were fully in it.

I didn’t consider myself a climber. But I climbed.

I didn’t consider myself a slackliner. But I kept stepping back on.

And cave exploring? There was something sacred about it. The kind of quiet that doesn’t feel empty—but full. Like you could sit there forever.

I kept thinking: What if I applied that way of thinking to everything else I want to do?

Because for how long it took me to start calling myself a photographer—I’m still holding off on titles like editor, colorist, and cinematographer. Not because I don’t want them. But because I feel like I haven’t earned them.

But if I called myself those things now—wouldn’t I fight harder to live up to them?

That’s the core of it. The Maddox Perspective doesn't exist for those three days. Because no one was crafting theirs either. We weren’t performing. We were just being.

We were all just trying things—because why not? There wasn’t much urge to share or perform when everyone was fully in it.

And that attitude—Why not?—it followed me into the climb.

Later that day, after all the earlier activities, came the rock wall. A real one. Four lines. Maybe five. Harness clipped. T-shirt and shorts. I took off my shoes. Because we’d been barefoot all day—and honestly, why not?

I mean, sure, most people would say climbing shoes are better. But cramped toes and rigid soles? Nah. I’d rather risk a few scrapes and experience just a bit more 'freedom.'

That activity was the one that stuck.

The cheers when someone topped out. The problem-solving when someone slipped. The kind of camaraderie that made three months feel like three years—in the best way.

I made it up nearly every route. Until the last one. I was so tired I couldn’t even get off the ground. I don't call myself a climber now. But for those few hours, that's all what I was. I kept going at it till I couldn't give anymore because—why not?

The next two days moved like a blur—full of new experiences, but also filled with something deeper. Because by then, what mattered most wasn’t the activity. It was who we were becoming through it.

That’s where the "explorer" identity took root. Not from climbing or slacklining or bouldering—but from saying yes to each new thing without needing to know why. I don’t call myself a rock climber. Or a slackliner. Or a caver. But I call myself an explorer—and that’s the one I refuse to let go of. It didn’t need to be earned. It just needed to be lived. It came from motion. From presence. From asking myself: why not?

And then came the circle.

Our final night. We gathered after dinner. Our tour director handed someone a ball of yarn. Each person connected themselves to the last. Thread by thread, memory by memory. Until the web stretched across us. We weren’t just recapping three days. We were unveiling eleven weeks of travel.

We weren’t strangers anymore.
We were witnesses.

To change. To each other. To the versions of ourselves we met and let go of.

And for me? That week brought forward a version of Maddox I hadn’t acknowledged. Someone who tried things just because. Someone who didn’t need proof to believe something mattered. Someone who remembered that every version of yourself—even if it only lasts for a few moments—is still real.

I don't go around calling myself a rock climber or slackliner or caver. But I do call myself an explorer.

Because to me, that’s not just a label. It’s a promise.
A promise to show up curious. To say yes before I have the answer.
To believe that the version of myself I become next deserves just as much space as the one I was yesterday.

It didn’t come from mastering something. It came from doing.
From risking failure. From presence.

From asking: why not?

Why not climb barefoot?
Why not call yourself something before anyone else does?
Why not live like every version of you—even the temporary ones—deserves to exist?