A Replay of My Very First Substack Live While Out Skiing

Hello Friends,I saw this video sitting in my draft folder so I thought I’d dust it off and publish it. It was from a day in maybe December or January when I went out skiing. The video quality is a bit choppy but the message comes through okay. It’s only about an 8 minute video, but for some reason the replay includes about 5 minutes of silence.Still working out the bugs back then I guess.It’s kind of interesting to look at these thoughts from several months ago. It still applies. Get out there and have fun. Remember that they cannot control everything.I did ultimately ski the American Birkebeiner last year. I think the reason I didn’t publish this was because I’d decided not to. Then, I changed my mind the night before and went up and did it. I’m glad I did even though it was a hard day.Stay strong everyone! Go out and enjoy nature, it helps, I promise it does!TranscriptThis is just a basic transcript, I didn’t edit it.Awesome. It says connecting, connecting. Internet connection is unstable.But it says I am live. All right, we got one viewer, so I might as well talk. You know what? If you guys can leave some notes, leave them.I'm Walter Ryan of I'd Rather Be Writing. And today we have, as you can see, a snowstorm. And this is what I've been encouraging you guys to do on my podcasts and in my writing.We've got to get outside. With all the stuff that's confronting us, with all the hardships and with all the uncertainty, there are some things that you can look around and see that cannot be controlled by human beings, like the snow. And the joy it gives you to go outside and enjoy a day like this.Get away from your screens. Get out and play. As you can see, I'm with my faithful companion.Can you see him? Come here. Come here. Animal attack.He's the famous character in so many of my stories. He's there with me. And I'm preparing today for the American Birkebeiner.This is a ski race in northern Wisconsin. I've been doubtful that I was going to be able to do it. We haven't had any snow for trading.And I've just been depressed. I've been depressed for these last, since the election I've been depressed. And so I haven't been skiing as much.I've been going out on walks with the dog to stay in decent shape. So I'm doing okay. But it's a joy to have a snowstorm like this and to get out in the snow.Come here. Let's see if I can get him in here with me. Come here. There he is. Can you see him? I can't see him, but there he is. I'll just have him be the star of the show. You talk. Yeah, but this is just the park outside my house. I came here from my house.We were supposed to have a basketball tournament today, but the snow was canceled. I mentioned that in a podcast I recorded today. And, yeah, they did the right thing.This morning I was being grumpy and saying that they shouldn't have canceled it. But now that I got out here and I'm in the snow, it is kind of intense out here. It's fun, though. This is what we live for. Look at this. And I wanted to show you this.I came across here. There, uh-oh, forgive me if I get a runny nose. It's kind of wet and snowy out.But here is a, I don't know if I can see it. But somebody built this. Can you see it there? Somebody built this shelter.I don't know if you can see it. There's a, I think there's a kid or something in our neighborhood. And he's industrious.Because there's shelters like this. Maybe I can get a better view of it with me in there, too. Can you see it there? Yeah, there it is behind me.I've got about the best of this yet. This is my first time doing this. But there's this shelter he built.That's the kind of thing I used to do when I was that age living up here, growing up in northern Wisconsin. My friends would come over for the weekend. We'd crawl around in the woods.And that's, that was enough. There's enough out here. This is a play around.But we got this. We have access to a wonderful big park here about a mile from my house. I'm going to be skiing through it.I can't really see comments. I see that people are joining. I appreciate that you guys are joining.I'm not seeing comments, though. I'm kind of, this is one of my favorite spots in this park. Because often I get out here and there will be deer.There's a herd of about 30 or 40 deer. And last year my wife's uncle came out. And he managed to come out.We had another snowless year. But then he came out and we had a snowstorm kind of like this. So he was able to come up.He'd come up from Peru. And he came out and we had like a 33-degree day, which is perfect. When it gets down into the zeros or minus 10, I can't take it anymore.I'm too old. But that's still the light in these days when it's, you know, we got a nice 20-degree day. And it's, I got, you know, my hands are, I'm holding this in my bare hands.So I can do that. I'm holding my phone in my bare hands. You can do that on a day like today.So my wife's uncle from Peru was able to come down and get a picture of himself covered in snow. And I just want to encourage you folks. I mean, this is the thing that keeps you going every day, even if it's just 15 minutes.You got to get outside, get out, look at this out here. I mean, if you get something like this, get out into the anything that's away from your computer, those darn computer screens, scrolling, death scrolling, doom scrolling, whatever you want to call it all day long. It just gets in your head.And when you get up, give yourself a mental break like this. We talk about mental breaks. We don't often give examples of it.I've got my headphones on because I listen to audio books while I'm out here. Hopefully you're hearing me. Okay.I think it's recording through the mic on this headset. But we talk about mental breaks. It doesn't take you absolutely without question, without fail, have to give yourselves 10, 15 minutes, an hour.If you can outside in the snow outside around your, you know, just away from screens. If you can deconnect from digital devices entirely, that's for the best. But, you know, listening to an audio book is a good mental break to get out.And just remember, you know, there's, there's more at work than what appears. I mean, this illusion of power is all it ever is and all it has ever been. And there's only so much they can do to us.They're going to try, but their incompetence is going to shine through in the end. As I was skiing today, I was reflecting that the world I think has become too advanced and too technological. And it requires too much specification and education to function.So I think even though we're terrified and we're looking at history and we're looking at the way things are kind of repeating from the worst moments of history, things are different. Now we have to remember that they're different. And I don't think, you know, I think the incompetence of these hate-based movements is going to ultimately be there undoing like it has always been in the past, but I think it's going to come more quickly.This time positive thoughts, when you get outside and you managed to get away from your computer screen and the artificiality of all that, there's, this is just truth out here. This is, this is, you know, there's no spin you get out here and you feel like you belong here and you feel hopeful. And so the snow today has brought me more hope.And I just encourage all of you guys to get out. All right. I think that's going to leave it. My hands getting a little cold. My dog is getting a little tired. I'm not quite sure how to turn this off.This is my first solo live performance. Somebody else did one before. I love all you guys. Thank you so much for visiting. Like I said, get out there, enjoy your day. And I'll, I'll repost this on my, on my newsletter.Remember it's I'd rather be writing. Love to see your comments and you guys have a great day, you know, find a few moments for yourself and enjoy them. This is our present moment and that's all we get. So enjoy it. All right. We will see you.If I can figure it out.End transcriptThank you Sabrina, C Wallis, and many others for tuning into my live video! Join me for my next live video in the app.You all make this newsletter happen! Thanks for your sponsorship! I have payment tiers starting at as little as twenty dollars a year.Upgrade at 30% offUpgrade at 40% offUpgrade at 50% offUpgrade at 60% offI'm so happy you're here, and I'm looking forward to sharing more thoughts with you tomorrow.My CoSchedule referral linkHere’s my referral link to my preferred headline analyzer tool. If you sign up through this, it’s another way to support this newsletter (thank you).I'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. 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