Dear friends, 

It's been a long time since you've heard from me. I, like many of you, have been teetering between extreme productivity and a sense of pointlessness that has only been intensified by COVID. For my absence, I apologize. But I come bearing gifts! (And I'm not a Greek, so you're ok there...)

Before the gifts, I wanted to share some thoughts about discomfort. The first inspired by Amazon Prime's recent reboot of the Eco-Challenge race. For those who don't know, it's like amazing race and Survivor in one. It's riveting television, but that's not what got me.

It was the willingness of these people (over 250 of them) to put themselves through completely insane physical pain and discomfort, all for the sake of a race. But rather than leaving me cold, it made me realize how badly I had stopped leaning into discomfort in my life, forgetting that in those moments of discomfort is when the greatest creative inspiration takes place. 

My second thought came after reading The Lord of the Rings for the twelfth time. I was completely undone by something I had not noticed before. Both Frodo and Sam are completely convinced they will die on their journey to Mordor. They see this reality with no rose-colored glasses. And yet, they still persevere and push through incredible discomfort. Why? Because they must. Because the fate of so many depend on them.

That's the part I forgot. We human beings are incredibly interdependent. It is simply a fact that our personal hero's journeys affect many around us. The decisions we make-- to lean into discomfort or to choose the easy path--do actually have ramifications. Sometimes very wide-ranging ones, as we're seeing with COVID.

These thoughts inspired a new post on how the Kingfisher (of all things!) can actually help us live in a crisis reality. 

They also inspired me to take the whole family on our first ever hike with all five of us together:

All this talk of discomfort only hammered in how important it is to remind ourselves about the power of adversity to shape us, especially through storytelling. Not surprisingly, many Russian fairy tales have some pretty hefty overcoming of adversity in them. And what better time or place to tell you about these stories than here? 

And so, with no further ado, I am happy to announce that my new podcast, In a Certain Kingdom, is now live! In it, I retell Russian tales and give a bit of analysis after each one (but not enough to destroy the enjoyment of the story, I hope).

As often happens, as soon as I remembered the topic of embracing difficulty, I started to see it all around me. 

First there was the Art of Manliness podcast about the young man who decided to challenge himself to a year of doing uncomfortable things, and who managed to cure himself of panic attacks in the pocess! 

Then there was the absolutely amazing concept of "friluftsliv" that many people practice in Scandinavia, and how it might be very helpful to us this coming winter.

Finally, if you're completely convinced that now is the time to start sleeping outside in the cold for the sake of your humanity, you may need to know which kind of bivvy bag to buy. I got you covered :)

As a last gift, I wanted to share with you the wonderful work of my fellow writer and collaborator Ryan Jaroncyk, who is sharing his novel about ancient Rome for free on Wattpad. It's called Soul of an Empire, and it looks amazing. Check it out!

As always, thanks for coming with me on my writerly adventures, and make sure to share my new podcast with your friends!

~Nicky