This is personal. The short version is that Rugged Rocks is here to stay. Please share on Social Media. The explanation is at the end, but please read for full context. You’ll need a few minutes to let this all soak in. So, please pull up a chair, grab a beverage and I will do my best to have this all make sense and come full circle by the end. Please stick around.
I also highly recommend you kick it up a notch with this background music: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1DWUPafHP1BJw1?si=0e7eb9bce4d94417
Most people have 2 modes, Their work life, and their home life. I wasn’t wired that way, I operate in a mode of a symbiotic ecosystem. And here is where things get weird..
Here I am. Unless you have been reading my e-mail newsletters for the better part of a decade or more, you probably don’t really know who I am. My Identity in my writings and beyond had been temporarily washed out. So allow me to breifly reintroduce myself, and in a way that I’ve never done before, for fear of being boastful. Now is different, in light of recent events, I feel I need to expose a deeper level of personal transparency. My brain runs fast. I like helping people, connecting with communities, solving problems, building stuff, and exploring the outdoors & beyond. I’m a systems level thinker, while linear procedures not only put me to sleep, but are intellectually mind numbing. I’m not one for labels, as I believe they in themselves are restrictive. However, I can be best described as a deeply empathic & extremely high functioning neurodivergant. I always knew I absorbed and comprehended information like a sponge. (Queue the Short Circuit movie ‘Input’ meme here) Until recently I didn’t know why, nor did I care. I just accepted myself as I was, expected the same from others, and moved on. I have always had a way of operating on the daily that worked for me. Queue up the scope of the whole system, then maintain the needs to stay operational, then expand. In my head, the tasks of the day aren’t a list. They are part of a web of systems that all need the apropriate attention to stay functional. It’s like an orchestra of moving pieces that all work together. To simplify and imagine this in the real world, lets pretend that you take a long strand of old-school christmas lights to construct a sculpture. The goal is to keep the structure lit at all times, but if one bulb goes out, the whole thing goes dark. Unexpected input, especially criticism delivered without context, doesn’t register as ‘feedback’ — it registers as systemic instability. It disrupts the operating rhythm. So if one bulb goes out, it’s not matter of one bulb being the problem.. it’s that the sysem collapsed. An absolute crisis. Unacceptable in a fast paced world with consumers expecting perfection and near telepathic results. So what are the options to do better? Preventative maintenance in the form of just replacing bulbs. But which ones and how? Quantified intervals by simply keeping tabs on the variations of bulb types, or by learning the cadence and orchestrating the maintenenace with attention, intuition and deep pattern recognition as a background mental process. To most people this sounds exhausting, but to me this is heaven. In a calm predictable and stable environment, I can keep tabs on all the bulbs while hyperfocusing on building the next system. It’s expansive, intellectually stimulating, and relies on the ability to be in flow state. A mental state where everything is calm, but effortlessly fast paced at the same time. Any desert racers reading, probably know what I’m talking about. It’s like when you’re going 150MPH in the dirt, but you’re so calm, cool, collected and hyperfocused that it feels like you’re doing 30MPH. And rather than being exhausted, it’s perpetually energizing for long periods of time. It’s a special kind of productive high. This is where I thrive and how the legacy of Rugged Rocks and Rugged Routes was built. Historically, answering e-mails, phone calls and processing orders was either between flow states, or a right of passage before flow time.
Wild, I know…. now.. as I thought everyone leveraged this on some level until recently. Anyone can enter flow state as an option, my neurotype requires it. I wouldnt have it any other way. Either a low pressure recharge or calmly and effortlessly going fast. It’s never a competition against anyone other than doing the same or better than I was yesterday. Flow state: wicked fast poetry.
This level of mental scope and operation relies on my neurotype performing at its highest which requires a predictable working environment. When the cadence is stable, I can move extremely fast and maintain many systems simultaneously.
My ecosystem is composed of 4 primary parts. Community, Commerce, Creativity, & Exploration.
Community. Although my life journey in the dirt started at a young age, Rugged Rocks (the Nissan stuff, to clarify) was born out of the online community at https://www.nissanpathfinders.net/ in the early 2000’s. I first had a thirst for knowledge there realized I was among many great people, collaborative, creative, and trying to solve industry shortcommings of nissan support and product availability. A few years later I leveraged my ecommerce knowledge to launch Rugged Rocks where I started to source and centralize the availability of overlooked Nissan parts in the aftermarket that werent often advertised. and started serving that community. This was originally meant to be a few year endeavour.
I expanded out to other forums. At one time, checking in on 20+ forums was part of my morning routine. I systemetized that too. As a result, I listened to the community, then collaborated with various companies in the industry to fill the gaps in more nissan parts needs.
It was one hell of a vibe that carried for many years. This was beyond parts, it’s been a place of belongning, understanding, and helping… all good stuff. These have been my people. The core of everything.
Around 2012 I added Rugged Routes to solve more gaps in the Lowrance GPS systems, with maps.. I started meeting people in racing and reaching out to the few friends at the time that I knew in that industry. I really wanted maps for My lowrance and it just started growing. After the first map I made, I was like.. holy crap.. people are going to want this. and I kept going.
Over time community has migrated from forums to social media, where I have been less active the last few years.
Commerce. Once the parts existed I made them available on the Rugged Rocks website. E-commerce was always my mode of sales.. as I honestly don’t like being in sales, I don’t like hanggling on a daily basis. but I do like helping people… which is why I still have a desk phone. some things are better off explained verbally.
I’m a terrible salesman but thats what the website is for. I have hired people in the past.. and people never wanted to talk to them. Overall people don’t call Rugged Rocks, they call Steven Lutz.
On the rugged routes side of things, the maps and electronics were born out of community and flowstate creativity.
Creativity. Unhinged curiosity. Although I love the people, I’m introverted to a point where I can only take so much. It exhausts me at times. This is where I take a break and engulf myself into a puzzle. Queue deep flow state. But of course these puzzles are more like the rabbit holes that get explored that allowed me to fill the gaps in Nissan gears lineup, CAD stuff, GIS Mapping, electronics / product engineering, Website maintenance, online ideas, creative marketing, writing an e-mail like the one you’re reading right now, and soo much more. Sometimes it’s on the computer, and sometimes it’s turning wrenches in solitude. A way to recharge but keep going.
Exploration. Decompression meets curiosity and adventure. As you can likely tell by now, I’m in my head a lot. It just runs. Getting outside gives it a break, do a little bit of wheeling and camping, meet customers and invite some friends. Getting grounded and let the structure in my head rest. Absolutely essential for myself but it’s also really nice to put names with faces and meet people face to face on common ground. I hate small talk but I can throw spaghetti at the wall in a wide myriad of subjects. Given the environment, it’s usually cool things to see outdoors which helps with Rugged Routes or advice for things people are trying to build. Gearhead stuff. This is where the cycle comes full circle with community. Where the online community meets in real life. and It’s really cool.
Rugged Rocks and Rugged Routes are not just websites, and definitely not just sales. They are parts of an integrated lifestyle fueled by fulfillment, purpose and productivity as a necessity which fits the way my brain works. In fact selling stuff is my least favorite part but a critical link in the ecosystem… it’s what also keeps the lights on and allows the rest to perpetually exist. However, the delivery of products that people are excited about, lights me up too.
A personal life can exist outside of this ecosystem but must be managed carefully. I must tie up all loose ends before relaxing weekends or going on vacation. Have logical stopping points at the end of each day. Stopping mid task is a recipe for disaster. This way I can load the context and structure of what my week will look like with fresh eyes on a monday rather than having to remember where I was among the structure and priorities from the week prior which would be an absolute mess. Things can carry over but nothing half baked or with random break points. It’s not structurally time based, It’s all based on cadence, flow and natural break points. It’s like orchestrating a symphony of problems to solve.
Crash and Revival of 2025.
The previously mentioned methods may seem overwhelming to those that dont operate this way. But to me, it’s the only way. A system that builds momentum on a seemingly free flight trajectory, but has a single corner stone requirement. A stable lifestyle and predictable undisturbed environment to allow peace and be in flow.
Unfortuantely I made the mistake of blindly believeing that I was, through dating, becoming part of a healthy progressive family system. I falsely believed that the primary mental health professional in the family would understand and appreciate my neurotype while respecting my needs and intelligence. I also falsely believed that the supposed progressive female police chief in the family, would be upholding healthy leadership qualities, integrity and respect. I was wrong on all accounts. My attempts to connect through knowledge and shared problem-solving triggered defensiveness and insecurity in the environment, & eventually chronically dismissed / minimised. Knowledge invalidated, and eventually was largely ignored. I unknowingly shrunk to keep the peace. Made endless sacrifices under the guise of compromise in a one way relationship dynamic. Over time, the constant instability degraded my cognitive performance, sleep, and went emotionally numb. I lost access to flow-state — the core requirement for my functioning. The effects followed me home. Flow state wasn’t even on the radar anymore, an impossible state that was pathologized as a control thing to be figured out on my own. No discussion. The household operated as a rigid, top-down system where autonomy, nuance, and collaborative problem-solving were not allowed. An emotionally unstable disaster where everyone must shrink to the smallest denominator in a quiet and covert manner. I didn’t understand what was happening at the time. Its clear now that I was being pushed to squish my life into a rigid common societal structure or even smaller. Any positive encouragement seemed to show up when I was failing or falling in line with their narrative. My Ecosystem of flow was completely fractured, and my entire life became reactive rather then maintainably proactive. Every day became unpredictably reactive. There were no stable variables, no pattern consistency, and no safe context to reset my system. I couldn’t get back on top of things. I was encouraged to shutdown the company and get a job. That wasn’t actually an option, so, I did the next best thing that I could think of. I kept the ecommerce going. but what I really needed was a creative outlet that would be fulfilling and make an industry impact with some level of structure that I could lean on outside of my own realm. I reached out to a well known race organizer to help solve the decades-old off-road race tracking problem. During this time I had announced the migration away from Nissan parts under Rugged Rocks to focus on GPS products with Rugged Routes, which was the genuine plan at the time. I dug deep for energy, architected an end to end solution that would transform the off-road racing industry and bring spectators digitally closer to the race by improving the live streams and 10x a second live tracking. I prototyped the hardware, wrote the firmware, did a demo on a new webserver.. lightyears ahead of anything we have seen in this industry before.. the reaction by the power at be, backfired for no good reason other than a bad day. Just another destabilizeing environment. Among this process I was dismissed from the family system and started to decompress and try to figure out what exactly happened to me. Shortly after, the Rugged Rocks & Rugged Routes webserver crashed before the new one was ready. In addition the electronics test equipment that I was using which was on loan needed to go back home after a generous time on the bench.
My entire reality was riddled with chronic unpredictability.
After nearly 3 years of confusion, stress, panic, sleep deprivation, and all the severe effects of the afformetioned events and treatment… Everything stood still.
For the last 6 months I have been rebuilding myself and taking care of loose ends, for a clean, managable, stable and scalable operation. A symphony of systems.
I still stand by the fact that I didn’t take on too much, I took it on with unmanageable variables unlike anything I have experienced since opening 20 years ago. Half my life.
Current Status.
-The Phone system is back up and running although the professional recordings aren’t implemented yet. 909-547-4651, Scheduled calls are preferred. https://calendly.com/stevenlutz
-Rugged Rocks and Rugged Routes websites have active checkout. Knowingly disorganised but will improve over time. Use Search.
-RCV Axle Shafts: Since the webserver crash, I have been reaching out to each customer to verify details of their order. All but 2 have returned my calls. I’ll be moving forward with the best information I have on those remaining 2 sets so we can finally wrap this up. Everyones patience on this has been greatly appreciated. This has been a complex and unprecidented situation. We should be looking at an ETA in Late January or so but will follow up soon.
-I am startingto get excited about electronics products like Trail Mark and Lowrance Engine Data Bridge. Long overdue. These are flow state projects.
I’m happy to be back in the office with motivation and clarity that I haven’t had in years. Energy is being restored. Over the summer I did get calls from Nissan community members that encouraged me to not shut things down. It was really grounding and motivating, and nice to be spoken to like a human being. I think the most powerfull thing that can happen right now is to simply just call me and say hi.
It’s been a ride, lets not do that again & Lets get back on the trail.
-Steven
From the late 80’s in to the early 2000’s, Nissan built both(W)D21 and (W)D22 V6 Platforms with with the R200 front differetnial. If you’re new to nissan you might be thinking,, what the heck is a D21 or D22. Just like you might hear about Jeep Wrangler YJ’s or TJ’s referring to different generations of the wrangler, Nissan also uses platorm ID’s of sorts. The D21 are the square body mini trucks of the late 80’s and early 90’s where the WD21 is the Waggon or SUV version more commonly known as the Pathfinder. in 1998 the D22 was introduced as the first generation frontier, and the WD22 was the waggon or SUV version commonly known as the first generationof Xterra. All of which shared very similar drivetrain. The V6 models have the R200 front differential across this entire range. and if yu’re rolling on larger than stock tires… you’re going to need gears, and they probably need to be the 5.13’s.