The Island of Misfit Stories #1

Does Running Make You Creative, Where We're Running out of Water, How Chatbots May Threaten Democracy but Probably Not Songwriting, and More

The stories that just didn’t fit // Photo by Jen Theodore on Unsplash

Oh hi!

This weekend, I was brainstorming some fun ideas for new series to introduce for subscribers, and after many mugs of caffeinated liquids (shout-out to the chipotle chocolate chai from Tea Chai Té), I came upon something I’m trying out right here, right now.

A big part of this newsletter is news curation — you know, the whole, I read the news so you don’t have to thing. Now, it doesn’t get a lot of credit, but curation is it’s own unique style of writing and gathering. With each story I share on the Modern Hiker Newsletter, I spend time digging around for good stories, I read each story (obviously, but a human doesn’t read the stories on your Google Frontpage or Facebook newsfeed), and I try to provide a synopsis and a take on each story to let you know why I thought it was important and why you might, too.

Of course, not all of the stories I read and save make it into the newsletter. Sometimes there are just too many good stories to share in a particular week, or maybe it’s a story that I found interesting but maybe don’t have a solid take on yet. Or maybe it’s a story that I got SUPER into but thought was a bit too far away from the newsletter’s general outdoorsy focus.

So, at the end of each month, I’m going to share some of my favorite stories, websites, videos, and pieces of webstuff that — for whatever reason — just didn’t feel like they fit in the Weekly Newsletter. I hope you’ll find some interesting stuff in here — or at the very least some good reading for later.

Let me know what you think!

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Does Running Make You More Creative?

I have never looked this enthusiastic while running except right near the finish line // Photo by Omar Tursić on Unsplash

I’m not a huge fan of running, personally, but somehow I keep getting signed up for 10ks and — without really understanding what it entailed — a Ragnar race this spring. But that said, I do kind of enjoy the occasional zen state I can get into running around my neighborhood and have even once in a while had a good brainstorm on some issue that was bothering me.