THAT’S THE FEELING YOU GET when you get your hands dirty. And your clothes are stiff with dust and it’s blazing hot and you’re doing something so great you don’t even care. That’s spending your summer on a paleontology dig in northeast Montana, where the only traffic jams are the deer on the road at dusk, where you come over the crest of a hill and the badlands suddenly assert themselves, proud hills stripped bare of everything but the marks of time. Where the dinosaurs lived their last days on earth. That’s your first day at the T. rex site. The anticipation of standing around, getting your gear and your crew together before you slip under the barbed wire fence and make your way through boulders and sagebrush, watching for rattlesnakes. Before you pick out your spot in the quarry, get out your chisel and your brush, and realize you’re sharing ground with one of the fiercest creatures the world has ever known. That’s realizing you’re not the only one who loves the things you love. It’s finding a place where you can trade your time, and your energy (and your sweat!) for learning something new every day. That’s being part of something bigger than you. That’s joy. Mark Stone/University of Washington