Our paths converge in the wilderness.
A TWIGGY BUNDLE
Hello and welcome. Imagine for a moment that we have come upon each other in the woods, both journeying in the same direction at a similar pace. We exchange nods and perfunctory greetings and find after a short while that our strides align. The question soon becomes: do we risk our solace with sustained interaction? Do we speak and break the silence? Nothing ventured, nothing gained. On we go.
Introductions then. Envision before you a bearded man of fading youth. He meets your eye, extends his hand, and flashes a grin. Just like that, you have met the Half Good Hiker, and I you. Moments such as these, walking alongside a relative stranger for the first time, present a nervy nexus of potential. Hell, what if old Half Good is an insufferable dullard, moon-eyed zealot, or of some other strange disposition? Such is the chance you take. However, the downside here is quite low; hike on or hang back as you please with no hard feelings. For now, though, let’s walk a bit.
In due course, I tentatively offer up bits of conversational tinder in an invitingly flammable twiggy bundle. Should it spark between us under current conditions, I would look to you for a bit of kindling, the conversational dry wood we all keep split and stacked inside ourselves: where home is, what we do for joy and for money, the people we love. With luck, we achieve a goodly blaze. Next, the exciting part: when the kindling runs out, do we start throwing on bigger stuff to burn?
LOGS FOR THE FIRE
By my nature, I prefer to listen and observe, making an effort to speak only when I feel my words improve upon the silence. If we walked in person, I would endeavor to develop a sense of what to offer and what to withhold, the order in which to offer it, and other indiscernible elements of tact and delicacy that smooth conversation. In this forum, however, I must simply forge ahead and hope you find my stories worthy of your attention. I say this for my own sake, an acknowledgement that I speak blindly hoping for interested ears. But what preamble! Onward then. The logs I have to burn are the articles I present to you. They distill the concepts I have considered most deeply throughout my life. The dense stuff worthy of our fire.
As a boy growing up in the New England woods, nature provided perfect sanctuary from the chaotic homelife that drove me forth from my small hometown and into the world. At eighteen, my departure ticket finally came in the form of a generous-enough scholarship to a respectable mid-tier liberal arts institution some seven-hundred miles away. Far enough for the time being. I patted the dash of my aging scarab-shell green Saab in reassurance and hit the road vibrating with emotion.
I was a young man motivated in the extreme by desire and fear. My newfound freedom was exhilarating; I still recall the incredible lightness of it, but a nagging thought followed me all the while: “This can all be taken away. Achieve or return to chaos.” There was no safety net, no soft landing, no choice. I would adorn myself with academic laurels and blaze a path anywhere but home.
Thus began the climb up my first mountain. I had tasted freedom, and I never wanted to give it up. That meant money. Reluctantly, I reframed my choice to major in Economics rather than English Literature as a prudent business decision based on expected return on investment as measured in dollars. With a clear path set and motivation to spare, I achieved in the extreme academically, landing a coveted, lucrative job with a “Big Four” Management Consulting firm after graduation.
I thought I had made it, but my thirst for freedom eventually demanded more than the ability to choose my own master. I found the FI/RE (financial independence/retire early) community, started stacking my nickels, and pivoted from consulting to investment banking. Two years later, I started a real estate investing business from behind my banking desk. My business set me free from traditional employment, first by getting me fired, later by providing the financial security I craved in the form of a modest stream of rental income. I was finally safe. I could stop for a moment and recover. Or so I believed for a pleasant moment.
Unfortunately, fueling yourself on a high-octane blend of unresolved childhood trauma and alcohol to ascend corporate hierarchies and start a company courts a fall. I did not have the knees for the downhill portion of this hike. The weight of the masks I chose to wear became evident; my prevailing depression worsened; I retreated deeper and deeper into the bottle I picked up in college but found less and less relief at ever increasing costs. Despairing, I beheld the burnt offerings heaped upon the altar of my own misguided mission over ten long years. To win the security denied to me as a child I had sacrificed everything else in my life.
I fell, face-first, from my false summit. The personal devastation was prolonged, extraordinary, and complete. All of my worst fears came to pass: I lost my mind, my freedom, my business, my friends, my relationship, my health, and my ego. Karma had come. Its job done. I was a broken, hollow-eyed husk of a man, free to rot, sleepless, with black thoughts and self-loathing in a city whose every sightline unleashed a haunting of bittersweet memories tainted by my own wickedness.
I was fucked, and I couldn’t un-fuck it. So, I did the only thing I could: hope and endure. I made myself a deal and began to trudge. Keeping myself alive was an undertaking. I got sober (clichéd but absolutely crucial), dragging myself to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and therapy sessions to talk through my shame and anger and grief. I took myself for coffee and kept up with my journaling. With effort, I eventually got back into a fitness routine. I spoke to almost no one outside of my AA group, my therapist, and my father on the phone. It was a lonely time.
For nearly one full year I licked my wounds before I noticed I was healing. During this period in the cave, I wracked my mind for the next thing. I badly needed a new identity to cleave to. Nothing came. Each possibility I considered seemed equal parts impossible and pointless. Such is depression. I dismissed every idea until finally, mercifully, one refused to let go. I secreted it away for months, letting the roots of the little seed creep into me. In time, full commitment came. I sought the blessings of my dad and my therapist, packed up my life in boxes, and booked a one-way flight to Atlanta, Georgia. I was going to hike the Appalachian Trail.
The hike from Georgia to Maine took six months. Nearly 2,200 miles in total. I marked my first full year sober after a few months on-trail, turned 33 two months later, and completed my journey summiting Mt. Katahdin (the AT’s Northern Terminus) not long after. Step-by-step I sought the core elements of myself, sifting slowly through the pain, and remembering, more than anything, my own capability. This majestic gauntlet of nature had sewn up the ragged wounds of my life into a scarred line of demarcation separating past and future. I did not return the same.
But return I did. This time clear-eyed with confidence and clarity. The city I called home for ten years was scorched earth to me. Nothing new could grow there. I knew I had to leave but didn’t know where to go. Before anything could happen, I needed my real estate business intact and functioning, so I worked as hard as I dared to tie up loose ends. I feared falling into old-habits, tightening the screw on myself to the point of bursting, but not again. My ear had become more attuned to the rattles of my own engine, and I knew when to change the oil. I scheduled another long hike, this time venturing abroad for the first time to walk the Camino de Santiago.
It was a beautiful trip. The walk itself, though challenging, did not require the same physical expenditure as the AT. My trial came in facing the fears I acquired during my fall. I had built bulwarks around my heart and mind bracing for the next blow. Now, the beating had stopped, but my posture remained closed. Thankfully, along the 800 kilometer path from St. John Pied de Port to Santiago de Compostela, I was blessed to journey with people who helped me begin to open. In their company my fears receded, and I started to feel again. It’s a hard phenomenon to describe. Like seeing the world in black and white then glimpsing snippets of color. I began to trust as I once had, not just in others but in myself as well. As hikers often say, “the trail provides,” and I wonder still at the remarkable precision of its generosity.
Once again, I returned from travel transformed. I felt perched on a tightrope in my city now, and I knew I had to walk it straight out of town. I pondered and planned, musing more openly with my handful of confidants. Eventually, a plausible course of action solidified, and I booked travel back to Europe with no plans to return. It felt like leaving for college all over again. I was excited, nervous, and thoroughly committed. Over the next six months, I buttoned up my business as best I could, sold my stuff, and said my goodbyes. Then, on a chilly April morning, I shouldered my 40L backpack, exhaled a quiet breath, and left to seek a second education.
Now, somewhere in the midst of that journey, I am still traveling, still hiking, still seeking but, thankfully, finding as well. It is remarkable how inseparable place, people, and purpose are with well-being. When I sometimes become aware of my own happiness, flighty as a bird fidgeting on a branch, I tell myself: “Brother, you are in the good times, and thank fuck that in this moment you realize it.” Then I take a moment and continue on. It’s a naturally occurring gratitude I could never manage before. I am still processing the fact that the security, freedom, and peace I craved bone-deep for so long is my present reality. It still does not seem possible.
But what to do with such a long, flat stretch of trail? Travel and hiking both provide unique means of self-discovery, escape, and accomplishment; however, for me, pure transience does not suffice in perpetuity. My desire for routine and solid ground upon which to build inevitably creeps to the fore. I find myself returning to the choice I faced as a freshman in college: Economics or English? I believe that often, when you are torn between equally pressing options, you are really just torn between timelines. It took me 15 years, but I am ready to put economics to bed and attend to the blank page, beginning here, with the awkward sincerity of a novice.
As Half Good Hiker, I have a means to share my experiences with full candor. My path in life has been one of success and failure in the extreme: I know the price of outrageous freedom and what can be done with it; I know the symptoms of spiritual misalignment that cause lives to grow crooked; I know about surviving dark nights of the soul and struggling back to the light. Marvel at my spectacular blunders and applaud token brilliancies. See what I have done and do better. Most of all, check my premises against your own, who and what you are living for and why, so your steps take you toward your true purpose and not disaster. These extravagant promises move my pen (alongside caffeine) and I hope to fulfill them in time.
BED OF COALS
Now that we have walked a bit together and the conversational fire has burned down, the lingering warmth of shared understanding becomes our bed of coals. You possess the required context. Return here at any time to throw another log on; we don’t need another 2,500 words of contextual preamble. Before parting, though, let me share with you how I mind the embers and maintain this forum.
I chose this particular medium of communication because of the blogs I read in early life. I remember the reassurance I felt pouring over articles that resonated with me while searching for a way forward. I felt like I wasn’t alone. The words I read were blazes on a trail to follow toward my future. Now, it’s time for me to do a bit of trail blazing of my own, or, at the very least, improve upon pre-existing paths.
The website, this small wilderness, is designed to emulate a walk in nature. I will always try to maintain a calm, quiet place. YouTube this ain’t. This is a deliberately slow medium that favors clean, simple text. You don’t shout in the woods, and I don’t shout here. People who lack doubt and spew advice without deliberation unsettle me. My experience is subjective: if it resonates with you, put it to use; if not, don’t. Take a breather from the Cult of Self Improvement and puritanical productivity. Everything here is intended as an invitation for reflection.
I promise to never add unwanted complexity to your life or invade your privacy. No pop-up ads, affiliate links, or AI bullshit of any kind. Fuck the algorithm. Fuck SEO. Fuck keywords. Here, I am serving up some organic, raw, grass-fed prose written by one person, me, who hopes to earn your trust over time and never break it. I am not after your dopamine, or your money, or your data.
As implements, I favor anecdote, analogy, and metaphor to draw out the concepts whose pursuit has ruled me in torment or rewarded me with insight. You’re unlikely to find travel reports, or top ten lists, or gear recommendations here because I view that content as candy; it does not stick to your ribs. Don’t get me wrong, I consume it too, but why not make a meal of something? Come here hungry.
Everyone is welcome, but subject matter is self-selecting. I expect people that experience life a touch too deeply will feel comfortable here. My hiker pals will surely turn up, the unconventional folks you find on long trails armed with a willingness to adventure, test limits, and endure discomfort. I hope also to draw those yet unaffiliated with the outdoors: the stuck creatives, businessmen and women prone to staring longingly out office windows, and, of course, the multitudes besieged by the trials of existence. You’ll be in good company.
Selfishly, the words I write here are also for a younger me. Circumstances sometimes force people to become their own hero, a stronger more capable version of themselves that could rescue them in the past. This is me trying on a new cape.
Onward. Always.
Half Good Hiker