The desert teaches you patience. Not the patience of waiting for something that will eventually arrive — but the patience of understanding that life does not require what you assumed it required. The desert is a correction to the assumption that abundance and complexity go together.

The Strategy of Water

Plants in arid environments have solved water in three main ways: they store it, they avoid losing it, or they go looking for it deep underground. Succulents store. Spines instead of leaves reduce loss. Deep root systems — some desert root networks extend fifty feet down — go looking.

"The desert is not a harsh teacher. It is an honest one. It shows you exactly what you need, and nothing more."

Animals in the desert have solved it too, with their own strategies. Kangaroo rats never drink free water — they get all they need from seeds. Desert tortoises aestivate through the hottest months, sleeping in underground burrows. The creatures that thrive here are not the ones that fight the conditions. They are the ones that fit them.