I don't know about any of you, but when I think of prospecting for gold, images of horse drawn covered wagons looking exactly like the show 1883 come to mind. Tim McGraw out there covered in filth and embracing the suck while whacking away at a giant wall with his pick axe. I know that part didn't happen in the show, but the tone is set....winky face.
Contrary to popular belief, gold mining is still alive! According to my good 'ol friend Jason Malcolm, there's a whole bunch of color still left in them thar hills. Enough for him to make a hobby out of it anyway. Jason not only discovered a fun pastime that potentially generates profit, he's doing it the right way. There are legal places that anyone can go and pan for gold, but there is another way to do it. You can go stake a claim. That's right, just like they talk about in the history books. If you do it right, for just a few hundred bucks and attention to detail on the paperwork, you can find public land that you want to pull resources out of and claim it as your own. There's a little more to it than that, but ya, it's a thing. Check out these texts that he sent to me after Episode 3 of The Never Inside Theory.
"I'll show you how to locate and file a mining claim if your interested. Hardest part is finding rich available ground. California is the mother lode country. Huge.... Gold discoveries. The entire Sierra Mt range has gold in its streams."
"Fresno north through the Sierra all the way to the Siskiyou Mountains in Oregon is Gold Country. California has the best."
There's a reason Jason is actually successful when he's out there poundin' sand, and that's because he's not full of shit. He's not trying to fool himself or anyone else. While dazzling us all with his infinite knowledge of harvesting riches from earths veins, he made an error in some facts that he spewed about the value of some gold that was historically retrieved. Lucky for me he didn't pay any attention to the terrible math that I performed when I was calculating what 100 grams of gold would add up to...spoiler alert, it's not $1000. He wanted to make sure to correct himself as not to look like a douche so here is what he wrote.
"I realize I misquoted the amount of gold that was pulled out of the pocket in Gold Hill that I referenced last night I stated they pulled 700,000 worth of gold in the 1800s which was worth $7 million today in fact it's actually worth closer to 63 million today. Gold's worth 90 times more than it was back then."
The drive to spend his spare time shoveling rocks and dirt out of a flowing stream could be a number of things. Potentially, it's simply what's in the picture below. Maybe it's the fact that he lives with four women, and just needs to keep his sanity (no offense to the women out there, but I think you understand). Another cause of this insanity might be that being outdoors, or "outsiding" is in his blood, and this is a damn good excuse to be out there.
I personally think it's a combination of them all. I also think there's a little more to it. Someone willing to do that has a different kind of mindset. There's an uncontrollable passion for adventure and the pursuit of difficult goals that pushes them. Anything worth doin typically ain't easy, and a guy like Jason ain't timid.
In my experience, most outdoors activities aren't easy. Not all, but most of them take a certain level of health, persistence, drive, and an unwavering spirit. This goes not only for outsiding, but the outsiding mentality in everything people like Jason do. Professionally, physically, recreationally, and in life, these characteristics all apply.
Go get what you want...Let's outside!