Alex Roddie - The Farthest Shore - January 2022
What a great start to the new year with Alex Roddie as we gently teased apart the threads of wilderness, solitude, mental health and technology.
As a child, Alex grew up with his own family mythologies about adventurous times past, so it was little wonder that he developed twin passions for writing teenage fantasy novels and mountaineering.
No one gets away with mentioning "ridiculous escapades", as Alex does early on, without being forced to elaborate! And what a great tale it was.
Alex shared how his writing and editing is done on instinct, as it seems is his life. With no set plan, just a guiding set of principles it seems like a happy accident that he came to be such an experienced and well known outdoor writer. But in reality, it was anything but.
Proof, as if we needed it, that the trail provides, particularly when you set out with intent.
Intent was a theme we kept returning to, as we overturned the simplistic duality of wilderness = good, technology = bad. It turns out it's what you do with it that counts, as Alex shared how he now tried to be more intentional in everything.
The comments in the chat at the end sum it up perfectly "Engaging, thought provoking and beautifully interviewed."
