WHY MOBILITY MATTERS IN SURVIVAL

WHY MOBILITY MATTERS IN SURVIVAL

A Life Told Through the Machines That Carried Me

Mobility has shaped my entire life — long before I ever understood why.

When I was a kid in Dallas, my BMX bike was the first vehicle that ever gave me freedom. I didn’t care about rules, I didn’t care about boundaries, and I sure didn’t care about staying inside the safe little bubble adults drew around me. I’d ride miles across the city, through drainage ditches, through creeks, over bridges I shouldn’t have been on, into neighborhoods my mom would’ve had a heart attack over.

Nobody knew where I was.

Nobody could find me.

But I always found myself.

That was the first time I learned this simple truth:

Movement is survival.

Movement is freedom.

Movement is who I am.

As I got older, that hunger for movement just kept evolving. The BMX became ATVs and dirt bikes. The dirt bikes became shifter karts — little two-stroke missiles that taught me more about physics and instinct than any classroom ever did. The shifter karts became my first Bronco II — a beat-up box of independence that felt more mine than anything I’d ever owned.

I can still remember the sound of that Bronco II’s doors when they shut — that metallic clack that told you, “Yeah, this thing isn’t pretty, but it’ll go anywhere you tell it to.” And it did. I drove that little truck into places no truck should’ve gone. And it never quit on me.

Mobility wasn’t a hobby.

Mobility was identity.

Then came the motorcycles — Aprilias, Ducatis, Yamahas — machines I didn’t just ride, but dissected, rebuilt, tuned, sharpened, and eventually raced. I didn’t love motorcycles because they were fast. I loved them because they were honest. You can’t hide who you are on a motorcycle. There’s no insulation. No padding. No distance. You and the machine speak the same language, and if you lie for even one second, it drops you on your ass.

Then came the 2015 Toyota Tacoma — TRD supercharged, Camberg suspension, Fox shocks, racks, armor, the whole setup. That truck wasn’t a vehicle. It was a companion. I lived in it for three years. I towed a little black trailer with everything I owned inside it. I slept in that truck. Cooked next to it. Survived because of it. I had days where the only thing between me and the world was that Tacoma’s roof and the mountains above it.

When life fell apart — when Rivera Corsa collapsed, when I lost my house, my partner, my business — mobility was the only thing I still had left.

I didn’t know where I was going.

I didn’t know what the future looked like.

But I had wheels.

And wheels meant I could keep moving.

And moving meant I didn’t have to die inside the ruins of my past.

That truck took me into the Colorado mountains where I stayed for months with almost nothing. I didn’t know it then, but that was the start of Unencumbered.

I didn’t go into those mountains to find meaning.

I went because I had lost everything else.

But somewhere between the rivers, the ridgelines, the forests, and the silence, I finally understood something:

You cannot survive — mentally, emotionally, physically — if you cannot move.

Stillness is where people fall apart.

Stillness is where society traps you.

Stillness is where fear grows.

Stillness is where anxiety builds.

Stillness is where life becomes small.

Movement breaks all of that.

Movement gets you out of your head.

Movement reconnects you to instinct.

Movement sharpens your senses.

Movement resets your brain.

Movement puts you back in your body.

Movement separates you from the lies society feeds you.

Movement lets you see your life clearly.

When I say “vehicles,” I’m not talking about horsepower or brand loyalty or specs or overlanding trends.

I’m talking about freedom — the real kind.

Freedom to leave.

Freedom to return.

Freedom to explore.

Freedom to escape.

Freedom to heal.

Freedom to wake up.

Freedom to live your life instead of being trapped inside it.

A bicycle can save a life.

An electric bike can extend your world.

A motorcycle can awaken your instincts.

An ATV can get you places people don’t even know exist.

A Bronco II can climb into mountains where modern trucks break.

A VW bus can take you deep into wilderness even if the whole world sees it as a joke.

A Tacoma can become a home, a shelter, a companion.

A van can become a universe in motion.

Mobility isn’t luxury.

Mobility isn’t entertainment.

Mobility isn’t gear.

Mobility is a survival skill.

Movement is medicine.

Vehicles are tools that expand the edges of your world.

When you can move, you are not trapped.

When you can move, you are not helpless.

When you can move, you are not at the mercy of society.

When you can move, you are not stuck inside your own mind.

When you can move, you are alive.

This is why Unencumbered has an entire section devoted to vehicles.

Not because they’re cool — though I’ll admit they are — but because they’re necessary.

Movement is freedom.

Mobility is survival.

And the machines that move you become the chapters of your life.