How did I get here? 

Like the all the other 3.8 billion social media users out there, sharing stories of my life on the internet felt fun, until it didn’t. When it became addicting instead of inspiring. When my value as an athlete hinged on the “false god of data” instead of my athletic accomplishments. When my time was spent on creating this data instead of improving my athletic skillset-which is why I started skiing in the first place. When 25 thousand “followers” seemed insignificant instead of an incredible feat of reach not made by humans 20 years ago. When I had a story to tell but was limited by not only by a fixed word count but the confining space of a 3 by 5 inch screen. 

All of a sudden, it felt like we had lost the forest for the tree, we had confused a snapshot for the whole story. Our connection to one another started to feel as deep as the phone in our hand-8mm. 

Or as Robert MacFarlane sums it up in words I wish I wrote myself: “I realized how configured my sense of distance has become from living so much on the internet, where everything is in reach and nothing is within touch.” 

A lot has changed for me the past year and a half, and I’m sure for you too.  My tolerance for bullshit* is at an all time low while my motivation for the realshit* is at an all time high. 2020 seems to be the year where that sentiment is echoed across all social spheres. And the real that I want is connection. Connection to myself, to the natural world, and to the people around me (physically and internet-lly). I want the touch back. 

Once or twice a year, I am able to go on an expedition to a service-free place. The phone goes off, an away message goes up, and I get to be where I am. I used to make the distinction between the “real world” and the “natural world”. But they are both natural and both real, and I have to live in both. 

Instead of giving up all technology, why not just create the kind of technology I want to use.  Instead of giving up on world I live in day to day, why not just bring the world I live in the mountains here. Create a space where I feel like my stories could live-live in the way that they connect me with another person. And in doing so, hopefully I would be creating a space for others to share their own stories without having to give up their privacy, be reduced to a number or data point, and have all the word count they need in order to tell their story. How can I bring the service free experience I have in the mountains online? How can I have a virtual campfire?

I ran through a few different models in how this would work. And a paid subscription is where I landed. It’s how this space can be ad free, how your data can live as a story not a monetized good, it’s how your privacy can be maintained. I hope it’s how you can feel human on the internet instead of a human used by the internet. In order to do these things, there is a lot of work on the back end (thank goodness I had significant help from Katie Wood who did the magic that allows you to click any button on this website and not be directed to an error code). And there’s a lot of work that goes into my writing (case in point this is draft 8 of this document alone).

Writing is my labor of love...I truly did love the time put into all 8 drafts, but it is also work. And again as a Courtney Martin, another writer whom I wish I could steal her work and pass it off as my own writes: “the more we honor the people that feed us--whether they be caretakers or teachers or artists--the more we value, protect, and appreciate their role in our society, and the more human we all stay. Money isn’t the only way to honor another person and her labor, obviously, but it is a way, and one that matters--particularly at a scale where it’s hard to arrange exchanges of labor and love.” 

So this is me asking you to join the Discourse. To join me on this new adventure in the hopes that we can do something fun and rewarding here.

-Hadley

*In all 8 drafts I tried to find a different set of words, because this community is meant for all ages, but in the end I couldn’t, and I hope parents can explain the lesson that swearing is 98% of the time inappropriate, but 2% of the time is 100% necessary.

 **If you aren’t currently able to swing it financially, email me and we can work something out.