In March 2020, Brent Underwood drove from Austin, TX to a small California ghost town of Cerro Gordo ​that we told you about on Tuesday​. He’d been slowly renovating and turning into a resort and the plan was to stay there for a couple weeks while the caretaker of the town took a couple weeks off to care for his sick wife. There was, after all, a pandemic going on and it seemed like the ultimate place to socially distance. But then a freak series of snow storms trapped him at 8,000 feet, miles from help, without running water, electricity or internet.

As it happened, Daily Stoic (which Brent helped get off the ground) was in the middle of ​trying to talk to people about what to do​ with both the stress of a scary moment and all the free time that lockdowns had forced upon us.

“It was during that time that we were putting together the Alive Time Challenge for Daily Stoic,” Brent explains in his lovely new book ​Ghost Town Living​. “So I was thinking a lot about that and is this going to be alive time or dead time? … And I kept going back to that fundamental Stoic lesson: separate things into what you can and can’t control.”

As it happens, Brent had packed one of the cameras we use for the Daily Stoic YouTube channel. ​Choosing Alive Time​, he started a YouTube channel of his own, “Ghost Town Living,” ​documenting his time spent living in his abandoned ghost time​. The channel would go on to do hundreds and hundreds of millions of views. This period of enforced solitude into an ​opportunity for storytelling​, exploration, and ​sharing the unique history of Cerro Gordo​.

It’s a great example of what the Stoics said: you don’t control what has happened, but you control how you respond. And of what Marcus Aurelius said: we can turn everything that happens into fuel, and that the impediment to action can actually advance action. We can always find something to do, even when our original intention or plan is thwarted. We always have a choice between alive time and dead time. The choice determines the course of our life, whether what we face is an obstacle or an opportunity.

You can read more about how Brent chose Alive Time and overcame incredible physical danger out in the harsh desert and deep inside mine shafts in his new book ​Ghost Town Living: Mining for Purpose and Chasing Dreams at the Edge of Death Valley​. It’s a gripping story of adventure and tenacity, as well as a call to chase after audacious dreams, defy the conventional, and devote yourself to your own pursuit of an extraordinary life. Check out ​Ryan’s time exploring Cerro Gordo with Brent​ and grab ​limited-edition numbered and signed copies​ of the book over at the Painted Porch while supplies last!