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15. Louis Dalton Hall on horses, writing, and travel
89 Plays4 months ago
Louis Dalton Hall is the author of In Green: Two Horses, Two Strangers, a Journey to an end of the Land. He is also the founder of Big Hoof, an organization that organizes horseback rides and raises money for charity. We discuss:
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- The Great Plains Trail. (Here’s my old Backpacker article on the GPT.)
- What sets Fifers apart from the rest of the Scottish?
- Louis’s travel writing inspirations: Black Spring by Henry Miller; As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning by Laurie Lee; Sophy Roberts; Jan Brokken; Bruce Chatwin.
- Is Don Quixote still readable?
- What is our relationship with the horse? Masters/parents/friends?
- I ask Louis some intrusive questions like: What do you think about the shape your life is taking? Do you have a rich uncle?
- The difficulty of writing about a romantic experience.
- Guilt as a motivational force.
- Louis’s next adventure. (Mules and possibly America.)
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Transcript
Introduction to Podcast and Guest
00:00:05
Speaker
This is the Out of the Wild podcast with Ken Ilgunis.
00:00:18
Speaker
Louis Dalton Hall is the author of in Green, Two Horses, Two Strangers, a Journey to an End of the Land. He is also the founder of Big Hoof, an organization that organizes horseback rides and raises money for charity.
00:00:34
Speaker
Louis, hello. Hi, Ken. Thank you very, very much for having me. This isn't our first chat. I can only barely remember our first chat, which was a few years ago, in which you were talking about taking a horse across America. I don't think you did that, but is that still in the on the bucket list?
Shifting Plans: Great Plains Trail vs. Pony Express
00:00:54
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. The idea was indeed to go across. However, you put me in touch with the Great Plains Trail Alliance. who are really good bunch of guys who are trying to nationalize the ah Great Plains Trail, which goes um north to south, south to north.
00:01:13
Speaker
And so that is actually, that kind of yeah, the the plan evolved from going, you know, along the maybe the Pony Express or something. However, it's changed with a lot more meaning and a lot more challenges, and it will be certainly something I will, and I'm continuing talking to the group and, wait yeah, definitely over the next three years, that is something I really want to take off the the bucket list, yeah.
00:01:34
Speaker
Gotcha.
Scottish Roots and Early Life
00:01:35
Speaker
Okay. So you're not um calling from the Great Plains. You're not even calling from Scotland, despite your your accent. ah You told me that you're in the and the Netherlands, but you're from the county of Fife. i was just in Fife yesterday. I go to Fife every Tuesday because I'm in a graduate program Dundee. Yeah.
00:01:54
Speaker
um is there something about a fife man that stands out from the rest of scotland a fifer a fifer uh oh it's fifer yeah yeah a fifer it's a good question i mean i guess our claims of fame is the fact that we live in the only kingdom outside the united kingdom in the united kingdom that makes any sense um so we've got our kings and queens buried and ah in Dunfermline Abbey. I think other than that, we have some bit provide pretty bad press in the past of being known for being quite frugal.
00:02:27
Speaker
um I think there's a phrase that goes, ah to sup with a pfeiffer, you need a lang spoon, which means, yeah, as it sounds, you basically, you need to fight for your food if you're going to have supper with one. ah And...
00:02:44
Speaker
Yeah. Other than that, I mean, I've been doing a lot of work recently writing about the history of Fife because, you know, like ah many people, you you go places away from home and then you realize when you come back how much more there is, you know, under the nose.
00:02:57
Speaker
And it's absolutely fascinating the depth of the history. So i'm I'm very, very proud to be a Fifer. My accent isn't as strong as obviously it should be, but my dad is English, unfortunately. So that lets the side down.
00:03:11
Speaker
yeah, Yeah, Fife is a fantastic, fantastic place. And it's, ah yeah, really rich, rich, rich history. um So yeah, that's where I'm that's where i'm from.
Discovering Passion for Horses
00:03:25
Speaker
With your background in horses, and we're going to touch on that a lot, I kind of imagine you on some some big farm with a big pasture and there's four horses out there. Is that is that what your childhood looked like?
00:03:39
Speaker
Childhood was actually in Edinburgh until I was eight in the and a in the city and then up to Fife on a, I suppose you could call it a farm. It's not a farm. It's actually a house wedged in between three other farms and we're just in the middle.
00:03:56
Speaker
ah with a couple of fields there. as I think my parents got it with 20 black Hebridean sheep that came with the house. There was no choice there. ah Two chickens, big pig just for a pet.
00:04:11
Speaker
And then the horses came much later and that I had no real proper introduction to them at home. It was just beyond... It was beyond my kind of childhood that horses really came into my life. It was when I was 18 onwards, after leaving home, really, that that horses, I first kind properly discovered horses.
00:04:29
Speaker
I mean, of course, I was around them. You're in the country, mean, sort of ish, the countryside in in that part of Fife. And so you see them around and, you know, I've ridden a few times, but nothing um nothing compared to what i discovered when I was 18, yeah.
00:04:42
Speaker
Gotcha. So it wasn't until 18, you didn't have a special bonding moment with a horse before then. Well, there was a horse um that my sister had, which was passed down to me in theory, but I didn't really ride it. It was called Chunky.
00:04:57
Speaker
And he was really, really bad, but badly behaved and had a really bad temper. And we just didn't get on. And so that was my only experience and understanding of these animals before that. Yeah, before 18.
Adventures Across Mongolia and Europe
00:05:10
Speaker
You mentioned Mongolia. And I have to say by like page 10 of your book, I was like, is this even real? Not because like I doubt your truthfulness, but because it was just...
00:05:25
Speaker
You hit me with a lot in like the first 10 pages. Like you're buying horses as an 18-year-old in Mongolia. One of them's called Enigma or at some point there's a horse called Enigma.
00:05:38
Speaker
And then you're working for a prince in Naples. And I'm like, what the hell is going on here? was like, are you like, is this, was this written in 2025 or by like a British explorer in the nineteen 30s so I guess the big question behind all this is how did you end up living a life like that yeah I mean in the in the book I wanted to i wanted in a way the Mongolia chapter was probably it should have been a separate book that I had like could have tried to write when I was 18 when it happened i think the
00:06:15
Speaker
What happened in Mongolia and then what happened afterwards was something that I never really started to understand or, as you as you know, if I'm reading the book, or get over ah until this journey across Europe. a lot of ah lot of A lot of the things that happened before this journey across Europe was kind of solved or understood by doing this this big walk with with Sasha the horse from Italy to to Spain.
00:06:41
Speaker
um so Yeah, there iss a lot there was a lot packed in, but it did but i tried i did try to pack a lot in, I suppose, before the journey. um and And then it's um i just wanted to i wanted to set it up in a way that you can understand there's there's clearly ah ah restless individual at the helm of these events.
00:07:03
Speaker
adventures and inverted commons that never quite go to plan. Um, and that was one of the things I wanted to kind of show was that there were lots of things happening. However, nothing was ever sitting right with me or at least nothing ever, you know, I wasn't, ah never came out thinking, oh I've learned this or that, or this is now I'm this, it was always, okay, what's next, what's next, what's next. And so yeah, ah as it is, as it is in the book, everything did happen very fast between,
00:07:29
Speaker
18 to 25, 26, because I was because of something that happens, but also because of trying to fit in as much as I could to try and understand what I was in the world and my role in it and how I fit into it. Yeah.
00:07:46
Speaker
Gotcha.
Influences on Writing Style
00:07:47
Speaker
and and And maybe it seems like such an interesting life choice, partly because I come from an American background and why winding up in Mongolia when you're 18.
00:07:59
Speaker
Maybe that's more of British thing. But just to kind of stick with the anachronistic theme for a second, and um I read your book and it's extremely well written.
00:08:11
Speaker
And again, it feels like it's from... a different century. And what I mean by that is like, you described like characters like noses and stuff, which is something like Charles Dickens would do, but that's not really done anymore. Maybe because we just have, i don't know, pictures and videos now.
00:08:28
Speaker
um And of course you're kind of like this British man kind of wandering these, these foreign lands, which kind of just reminds me of a different century. So I'm wondering a couple of things.
00:08:40
Speaker
are you Have you been reading like a lot of like classic travel memoirs, which your book kind of brings to mind? And if so, has that influenced your writing style at all?
00:08:52
Speaker
Yeah, good question. I think a lot of the journey's energy came belief these... journey a lot of the journey's energy came from a belief that these people, these places didn't exist anymore or don't exist anymore.
00:09:11
Speaker
And I was kind of determined to find them. And these are the things that I, well, like we've all grown up on adventure stories, whatnot, from from comics to cartoons to yeah classic travel books.
00:09:25
Speaker
And those and those those are things that kind of fueled my childhood. And I suppose I really wanted to see if they were still there. and and And that book, Don Quixote, which which I reference a lot in in Green, he the character, dr Don Quixote himself, he goes out into the world because he also was convinced that there must be there must be something beyond what you're told. There must be something beyond what what what is around you. And i was at the time when I was planning the journey, I was living in London and it was, know, obviously it's kind of the
00:10:00
Speaker
the complete opposite to the places that I was visiting in, in on the journey. So it's, it's, I was kind of closed in, reading a lot of old travel, but also a lot of new travel, a lot of fiction. And I think fiction is the real one that made me do the journey in the first place because it it kind of had this weird um hold on me that and allowed me to kind of think that maybe this idea, this dream that, you know, sounds in practice that it can't really happen.
00:10:33
Speaker
Maybe it can if you just go and find it. So then on the journey itself, I think just by, wanting to see those things you just you're so led into those places and of course you know one person's description of a scene is always going to be different to another's um but I just really wanted to see the things that I knew were still out there and then when I came back though from the journey when it was over I didn't you know didn't even start writing i didn't even think about writing a book and and that happened much later but
00:11:05
Speaker
It took you know eight months after the final steps of of the road to to then think about what had happened.
Capturing the Journey's Essence
00:11:13
Speaker
I picked up the diaries and the descriptions weren't as I remembered them. They were actually really you know black and white. This is what happened. This is what happened, X, Y, Z. And so that kind of romantic image had gone.
00:11:23
Speaker
But then the moment I started writing it, I kind of then put myself back in that in that and that place um and evoked the real essence of how it felt for me at the time. Also, when I started writing, i was i i read I read as much as I could from anything that's been written and from now until you know the 16th century, literally like an absolute array of of how to and how not to write a travel book, but also just the things that's ah things that ah work and things that don't work. but
00:11:56
Speaker
And so i can I kind of understood or began to understand the shape of how I how i could kind of articulate the the journey. um But at the end of the day, it was a kind of, it was a dream that I wanted to complete. and and And to some extent, it I saw it as a dream as well, you know, because it was very hard to see as real.
00:12:17
Speaker
And that's why in the book, when you have those real moments of reality kick in, it's quite jarring because you're, as much as I want to believe it's kind of some different land and different place and time, actually, we're here right now and it's and you can't escape that. And that's why I think the end of the book, there's a very jarm um jarring moment at the finish. and But also throughout, I'm just reminded by, you're not alone. This reality.
00:12:40
Speaker
you know you're not you're not alone this is this is reality and And the more you walk doesn't doesn't diminish that. um So yeah, it was an interesting concoction of everything from stuff that's coming out right now to to to stuff that's been written before that that fueled the idea for it. But it was a whole jumble, really.
00:13:00
Speaker
So I'm a travel memoirist. I've written two of those. so let's get in the weeds just for a second there. um what Just name a couple titles, either fiction or nonfiction, that you feel inspired you or in informed you the way you wanted to write this or just principles of writing that you picked up along the way. Yeah, and I think to start chronologically, ah I was impacted a lot by...
00:13:28
Speaker
at at some moments of my life impacted a lot by Henry Miller, um the American writer. and um He, yeah, so that book I've clung, the book I've got, um i've which is dot black ah black spirit Black Spring or Dark Spring, is one that has never really left my bedside table.
00:13:49
Speaker
And the his style of just real fluency and no and you know no holding back is something i would i wanted to hope to achieve. Laurie Lee, as I walked out in mid-summer morning, um that again, that's one of those books I read just at the right time in my life. And it really has stayed with me, even though I've only read it once, can't probably tell you the entire plot.
00:14:07
Speaker
It just stuck with me. and Lots of other stuff by Laurie Lee that so I've read more recently is is he maintains that kind of control over his language, which I love. Robbie Louise Stevenson and then going more ah to where we are now.
00:14:25
Speaker
I love the thoroughness of um Sophie Roberts, ah who was a bit of a mentor right early on, actually when writing this book. There's a Dutch writer called Jan Brocken, who who has a real interest in quite specific unknown or a specific less unknown people and places.
00:14:44
Speaker
Obviously the places i'd get i was I was going are known to many, but it's just his his details level of detail was something I really i wanted to try and achieve, I suppose. um Bruce Chatwin.
00:14:57
Speaker
has yeah definitely been an influence for this. The sporadic nature of his piecing together bits of ah of an image that then make sense after 10 pages, but don't make sense at the time, that I really, really love. And I think that's a very it It allows the pace.
00:15:13
Speaker
And I think the worst thing on a travel book is when you're like, why I reading what you're having for breakfast? Do you know what I mean? It's you want to keep this thing moving. um And we should touch it on ah Don Quixote for a second. Yes.
00:15:26
Speaker
I think you had it in the the epigraph, or at least you mentioned it a few times in the piece. I don't think I've read any of Don Quixote. And maybe I've just been daunted by the sheer size of it. I think it's like...
00:15:38
Speaker
almost half a million words. um I guess one question is, should it still be read? Is it still a readable book in the 21st century?
00:15:49
Speaker
Yeah, I think what's a good question. I think what is brilliant about Don Quixote is that it's just timeless. i mean, the messages that he was talking about then, which is basically, it's a parody of society. They are completely, you can mirror them exactly to today. And that's what I was really hit by. Again, I saw this doorstop of a, of a book and I'd been, I've obviously had heard him about it as many people have, but then actually saw it. was like, Oh damn, this thing is just ridiculous.
00:16:16
Speaker
But then started reading it. And it was, ah it was, I was quite thirsty for, for kind of, I was living alone and then in London and and and had a lot of time to myself, didn't have a TV or anything like that or laptop and didn't work. So I just had this, was just reading quite a lot and i was like, all right, let's just get through it. So,
00:16:32
Speaker
I was thirsty for kind of knowledge, I suppose, at that moment and then just went through it and ah in a couple of weeks. But it's it what was so inspiring was the fact that this could be today.
00:16:45
Speaker
The messages he's getting across, the characters, the attitudes, misinformation, the prejudices that, you know, everything was just, wow, nothing nothing has changed much.
00:16:57
Speaker
And I think that's what was very inspiring about it. um And his simple message of maddest of all is to see life as it is, not as it should be. and And that just, when that when I read that line, it just lit a switch and was a real fuel for ah making sure the journey that I was suddenly kind of formulating in my head actually happened.
Sasha and Big Hoof: Mental Health Through Horseback
00:17:22
Speaker
So you met this, this horse, um, named Sasha. Um, and is Sasha still around? Is Sasha still with you? Yeah. the question that everyone asks after like a book talk is that is he all right like yeah he's yeah he hasn't been sold into tech tin food somewhere he's uh he's good he's very good he's in Scotland uh he he came back after the journey eventually after almost a year and a bit I just had to obviously find the means to get him slowly up France and to the UK.
00:17:53
Speaker
And he is now the kind of centerpiece of the Big Hoof charity. So he does journeys now all across the Scotland and the UK for mental health causes. So yeah, he's very much, he's very much doing well. I'm glad the 10 food thing didn't make it into the epilogue. It's such a downer.
00:18:10
Speaker
Maybe for, as a horse person, um you can help enlighten a non-horse person. as to the relationship between human being and and horse, you know, when there is such a ah bond, I kind of imagined the horse a little bit of a friend. You're kind of the master, you're kind of the dad, kind of something similar with the dog, but I'm guessing that's also a very common mistake.
00:18:36
Speaker
How would you characterize the relationship? Yeah, interesting that you said the father-son thing. i I don't have any children at the moment. and i I got Sasha five days before the journey was going to begin for lots of reasons out of my control.
00:18:53
Speaker
And we and i also needed to start then because I didn't want to reach Spain in the height of the summer. So... It started in late March. And, yeah, basically, there's two animals that are basically strangers to each other. That's kind of first off.
00:19:09
Speaker
The second thing is ah horses are herd animals, unlike dogs. So ah horse will... be very, very close and loyal to the thing that is the the the next constant.
00:19:22
Speaker
um So without their herd, they look for a herd effectively. And if it's in the form of another animal, that's great. Or if it's in the form of a human, even better. So we we kind of became quite close um after a week just because that is in his nature. However, then the trough thing is what horses kind of that's the that's their kind of their deepest sense, I suppose.
00:19:46
Speaker
And if they if a horse can learn to trust you, which basically means you have to trust yourself and then the horse can ah feel that, then then you're in ah in very kind of good hands. And what was what that kind of became apparent when we were growing and going across the Alps. We started off in Tuscany,
00:20:03
Speaker
After ah two and a half weeks, we got to the Ligurian Alps and that's where this kind of concoction of trails that i hoped to find, ah just went completely dry and it was snowing and we had to cross this. Yeah. So basically 17 days of, of mountain mountains and found these two women who are local to the area.
00:20:22
Speaker
These trekkers, really nice people. we sat down just forged a path made out of all partisan routes, local routes. a hiking trail called the Alta Via de Monte Liguri and some horse trails that they had to practiced themselves when younger.
00:20:36
Speaker
And yeah, so I was restarted. And then Sasha and I were basically, again, complete strangers, but strangers together in this strange environment. And being foreign in a foreign place with a horse just brings you really, really close.
00:20:50
Speaker
To me, and was what I can only imagine as father-son relationship because he was very reliant on me. He'd look to me first. For example, if I was going across a river, He'd stand there saying, I'm not crossing this river. It's ridiculous. I'd do it. I'd leave him alone, drop his reins whatever, and just walk and and just turn him back to him and go off.
00:21:07
Speaker
Then he'd look at me, you know see me do it, and then slowly walk after me. and It was these kind of moments that make you a lot stronger. and they but and He builds, therefore, a trust in you because he knows, therefore, you're not you know not an idiot. you're You're also going forward, and you're going to look after him at the end of the day.
00:21:24
Speaker
Again, like dogs, if you if you feed them, they're going to like you too. So as long as we had somewhere nice to shelter and, you know, something, some good hay or something we found, then he was ready to go in the morning. um But it was, yeah, what we had at the end, or at least by, certainly by the finishing the Alps, which was a real bonding experience, I would be walking, you know, walking without having to lead him. We'd be walking together. Every time I stopped, he'd stop.
00:21:48
Speaker
We'd stop at a bar. He'd just stand there next to me. Um, it was, it was, yeah, it was extraordinary. It was like a big dog or like a big, sometimes it was just a big teddy bear just walking next to you. And, um, However, at the moment that another horse was introduced, yeah, which is sort of three quarters way across the Alps, you know you're no longer just you and him. And that's, that changes the dynamic completely because he's now with one of his own. Um, not that he doesn't, not that he sort of turns his back on you, but that does change the closeness.
00:22:13
Speaker
And for example, when we do journeys and when I do journeys in UK now, it's when he's alone, it's just amazing seeing this animal come into its full kind of, uh, full fruition.
00:22:24
Speaker
And, uh, really trusting with you, you have this like real dynamic respect and language going on between you two that you're not vocalizing, but it's,
00:22:36
Speaker
Yeah, it's a very, it's a very extraordinary experience, but becoming a herd with a horse is definitely one of the the coolest things I've ever, ever experienced. It's pretty exhilarating to be honest, and it's very hard to describe, but it happens, I would say after kind of a hundred miles and, and you realize you're both in it for the long run. It's just this amazing kind of, yeah, kind merging of two, two different animals together.
00:23:01
Speaker
And you describe the spirit of a horse to be river-like, and I was was curious about that. what is How are they river-like? Yeah, because I think the way the horse takes you places that you've never really been before, takes you places that you wouldn't think about going perhaps, and forces you to engage with people for help and and for directions and just to keep you afloat, unlike you know the walker or the biker or the cyclist, because you could you can kind of be quite self-sufficient a lot of the time.
00:23:40
Speaker
But you really with a horse, you really have to engage because do you want to keep him safe. And that's I think that's the one of the biggest differences is that you rely on people's trust and rely on people's generosity a lot of the time.
00:23:53
Speaker
and which makes you meet strangers and experience the kindness of strangers in quite a big way. And so that then for me forges like a river of different personalities and people that you're meeting.
00:24:08
Speaker
And it's only done though because of the horse. You know, when they see me walking they'll just see a young guy walking. However, if they see me walking with a horse, immediately people would come and say, right what does that horse need?
00:24:20
Speaker
Where have you come from? Is he okay? And I'm kind of, you know, not really important in that interaction. They're looking at him. They're wanting to know more about him. Great, you know, because I end up though having to, I end up basically with a, you know, with free bed and some food just because of the presence of the horse.
00:24:38
Speaker
Because it kind of evokes quite a lot of eccentricity in people. it evokes a big kind of spirit in people. um They tell tales of times gone by with their parents or when their dad had a horse or their mom or whatnot. And it's a wonderful way to get people talking.
00:24:51
Speaker
um They kind of become like children a lot of the time. One of the observations I think I i felt on the journey. So yeah, and you end up kind of piecing together across these different places with cultures that don't aren't the same or with languages that you know the people don't understand each other. there was There is this kind of silent silent language of the horse that is that is kind of creates this river-like chain, which makes you feel very...
00:25:15
Speaker
but maybe yeah but It doesn't make you feel alone, that's for sure. You you feel like you're in the company of something big. Now I go up to to Dundee every Tuesday because I'm studying to be a ah psychotherapist. And obviously i've I've heard about like horse therapy, you know, um people spending time with horses to help them with their mental health problems.
The Power of Horse Therapy
00:25:37
Speaker
I'm wondering if you have any insight into into that, or maybe more specifically, is is it kind of therapy for you? Do you get something out of being, having a close connection to a horse?
00:25:49
Speaker
I worked with PTSD sufferers and when I was working and in Hyde Park stables before this journey, and it was absolutely incredible. Um, the way that stayed open up on top of the horse also with people with Asperger's and, um and X offenders and they it's people just transform on top.
00:26:09
Speaker
Um, with the big hoof at the moment, we were doing a lot of work with, um individuals from inner city areas that have suffered from, or suffering from isolation or have suffered from abuse, um, ex-alcoholics.
00:26:23
Speaker
And they come to meet Sasha and this other horse is here. And it is amazing the way that they kind of, they they often come with a carer and the care will be saying, yeah, he can't do this. She can't do this. I'm not, yeah, it's fine.
00:26:35
Speaker
And then they, they sort of leave that care behind and walk towards the horse and we'll put their hand there. And it's this amazing site just to see. them connecting with something that doesn't need, you don't need to vocalize anything. You don't need to explain yourself.
00:26:48
Speaker
You can just be in the present. I think the horse for me has always been a ah doorway into being in the moment, forcing me to not be anywhere else, but in the present because they demand it. They they can see if you go up to them agitated or have your, you're still thinking about yesterday or tomorrow.
00:27:07
Speaker
They'll sense that and you won't nearly make the same connection. They might even turn away from you than you would if you are seeing them as what they are, feeling vulnerable, but being open. And it just, they kind of just cut through all the crap that we put up as humans between each other, which I think is why they're very effective as within therapy is because you don't have to interact with another human in that process you're just being yourself with them and they do open you up to to look deeper into yourself I think so for me yeah they're completely my way into the present and I'm but very restless and
00:27:41
Speaker
often just can't sit still and just be. So they helped me a lot um with that. I wouldn't really be able to, I'm sure there's other ways of doing it, but for me, i don't think there's anything that compares to being a horse in that way.
00:27:52
Speaker
And it's, yeah, they mirror your um they mirror your emotions and there's just, there's no hiding. And I think it's something that's very rare. in this day's world is to find something so peaceful and also ancient with our history, five and half thousand years, they're intertwined with human history and they are kind of our oldest, most loyal companions, just, you know, always there.
00:28:14
Speaker
I'm guessing the horse as well ah helps you live in the moment. I'm here in nature on this thing, connecting to this
Embracing Unpredictability and Living in the Moment
00:28:22
Speaker
animal. And I wanted to read a quick um line from your your book, which is something about, I think, time.
00:28:31
Speaker
You write that ah nothing goes to plan. ah to put absolute faith in the plan is like sculpting in ice. Everything changes. It always will. Accepting this fact is my challenge. This is where faith belongs. Faith in the unknown through faith in letting go dot, dot, dot. I wish I could just allow the water to flow freely between my fingers. That's a, it's a, some beautiful writing there.
00:29:00
Speaker
And I'm wondering if you still, feel this way well i guess i guess what what my reading of that passage is that life is hard to plan because the future is unpredictable and things are always shaky and unpredictable unpredictable so let's accept and embrace this fact so yeah do you still feel this way and this does this affect like long-term life planning I think what I was really trying to explain to myself was thing was acknowledging that regardless regardless of what happens, it doesn't matter.
00:29:36
Speaker
And nothing will be the same tomorrow as it is today. and that was a kind of a realization moment, I think, because I'd planned this thing, this journey to go all the way to Cape Finisterre, this place.
00:29:49
Speaker
and which is a real which is a real place. It's a tangible destination. However, in my kind of gut right at the start of the journey, I just thought, yeah, something's going to happen there. And then I think as I was going along the journey, it dawned on me that this is the happening right now.
00:30:05
Speaker
And I don't think anything is waiting for you there. And it was really scary because it was like, well, what have I been looking at then all this time? Or what have I, you know, and However, then it became quite liberating. I think it's that sense of that balance, I suppose, of working towards something, but in the process, realizing it's it's just a way of letting you you know live, channeling your energy.
00:30:29
Speaker
Yes, you might have a destination, but it's it's just, again, it's just a ah way to put you in down that river as opposed to saying, right, what happens at the end of that river is the place. It's it's here. As you were speaking, I was just thinking about your life on, on paper.
Balancing Ambitions and Career
00:30:44
Speaker
Cause that's really all I know of it other than this 30 minute conversation so far.
00:30:49
Speaker
And it it does seem like a remarkable life. I mean, you founded a a charity, you've been on various horseback rides. You're now and an author, you work for some interesting company that's helping out Ukrainian people.
00:31:03
Speaker
Um, how, do how do you, um perceive your life? You've also described yourself as a restless person. ah how do you think of your, uh, the shape your, your life is taking so far?
00:31:16
Speaker
i don't think I've ever thought about that. um Um, and tell me how old you are. You look like you're in your late twenties, early thirties. Yeah. 20, 29, 29, 13 may next year. twenty nine thirty may next year um I've never really considered the the overall... I basically i' i think from from quite an early age, i was it was kind of um impressed upon me that I'm lucky to be kind of
00:31:49
Speaker
lucky compared to some other people in the world. And I think that has really made me not really think about like myself in that sense, in the sense of like, okay, what, what, what, what is your existence then? don't know, know how to describe this, but by constantly trying to better myself or prove myself or improve myself, then that's kind of how this, that's the, that's the kind of,
00:32:19
Speaker
the fuel of the restlessness, I think, because it's never really enough and not because of any kind of parental pressure or anything like that. They're very supportive of all the mad, stupid and incoherent ideas, but it's more um more somewhere in myself, I know that it would be such a waste not to try more um whilst I can, I suppose.
00:32:43
Speaker
and Yeah, I don't know. I mean, and in i would I wouldn't... I would say I'd be very happy with myself if I'd ever... If I was, you know, 20 and someone said, you're going to be... You're going have a book.
00:32:55
Speaker
That would have been like... That would have been really... really i would have been very... glad because at that point I thought I wanted to be ah an actor and I was trying hard to be an actor so if someone said that i' like ah okay I must have learned something on the way to stop acting and and started writing something must have been gained in me if someone said yeah you're going have a charity that would have been like okay well my life is going to turn to some point because I wasn't thinking about those things at that time um so yeah i'm yeah it's an interesting question but um I don't really have a very good answer i'm sorry
00:33:29
Speaker
I hope I didn't trigger like a 30 year life crisis or something. That's what I had. I had a 30 year life crisis because I lived my twenties pretty adventurously. You know, i did a graduate degree, which wasn't relevant to kind of making money. I did it kind of for the soul and self betterment and stuff like that. So when kind of age 30 came around, was like, what am I? Am I,
00:33:51
Speaker
Am I a writer? What's my career? Do I got to go back to grad school? I also had a a crisis at 40, but we won't get into that. But but yeah, i guess I guess, what are you? Are you ah you now, not an actor anymore, you you said. Are you are you ah a writer now or or what?
00:34:10
Speaker
Well, I mean, what yeah, i said that's a good question to ask. Any Any writer, are they ever a writer unless they're fully, fully fledged kind of, I don't know. I would like to be a writer one day, I think. However, it's not the writing that drives me. It's more learning things that makes, that's what drives me. Trying to find a way to facilitate that.
00:34:31
Speaker
That is, I think writing to me is a very good way to express the things that experience. um I would also love to be, love to go back to do some acting. ah Luckily I'm engaged to a documentary filmmaker who at least has some interest in doing a fiction film with me one day.
00:34:47
Speaker
um So I feel like that path will kind of take its own turn, but I would say, At this point, I am a wannabe writer with an obsession with journeys with horses.
00:35:00
Speaker
and And I mean, i if if there's a word for running a charity, I'd love that because that that's probably my proudest thing is being part of the Big Hoof. um and and that and And in many ways, that's a lot of it is a kind of...
00:35:14
Speaker
and mental health, mental health, um, facilitator or, or activist. I'm not sure what, what word you'd use, but it's, that's a kind of another angle of it. But yeah, it's, it's, there's no, at the moment there's really is no, you know, i don't have anything on LinkedIn. and I think on LinkedIn, I've got a very old account that's refers to the work I do in Ukraine.
00:35:35
Speaker
um and then yeah but that's that's different that's changed a lot now as well so no no concrete answer at this point again apologize maybe when i'm 40 and someone says what the hell have you done i'll be like you know i've done this so if you can skip the 30-year crisis great you'll just just have to wait 10 years how did you how did you react when you had that 30-year crisis then
00:36:01
Speaker
Um, it was kind of when my first book was coming out, which was called Walden on wheels. And it came out to some very weak and critical reviews. And the most publicity I got was some like, um, radio station in West Virginia. I was just like this, this didn't really work out.
00:36:20
Speaker
So what am I? But then it kind of, it did work out. The book kind of picked up some steam and I was able to kind of use an experience for book number two. So i'm like, okay, I guess I'm an author at least.
00:36:30
Speaker
at least for now. So kind of the world decided for me. needed i needed some external validation and i got it and that gave me the emphasis but then then the money ran out and that hence ah the 40-year life crisis so what am i now that's why i'm in graduate school in dundee um but but keep it going as as long as you as you can louie because because you have the the writing skill and now i'm going ask um a completely inappropriate question definitely inappropriate in britain and probably inappropriate in america and as you mentioned
00:37:04
Speaker
You've done some some acting work, but I know they weren't for big studios. So I'm guessing you weren't really paid much or anything for that. You're an author. I know that doesn't pay much at all. You do horseback rides for charity.
00:37:18
Speaker
You must have some like rich uncle who's just kind of funding these
Financial Management for Adventures
00:37:23
Speaker
adventures or something. How do you how do you make it work? guy wish I would have gone so much further. that I would have done America by now.
00:37:30
Speaker
Uh, if I had a, you know, um, bank of bank of dad or whatever it was, i mean, for the, it's none of this has happened you know overnight and, and, you know, the The first journey did was down in UK and that was for ah the Cystic Vibrosis Trust. And I raised three grand to do it.
00:37:52
Speaker
And I actually only spent something stupid like 800 quid on that journey because everyone was so accommodating for 57 nights. So I didn't lose any money then. Then went back to work, working in the stables in Hyde Park. Yeah, as you as you say, the acting wasn't lucrative and I certainly didn't have the patience to stick at it to make it anything of it really.
00:38:11
Speaker
and Since then, it's just been a case of working for the next thing, as it were. um And as a consequence, I don't have any children, don't own my own house and yeah barely have a job, I would say. I mean, yeah, like you say, writing is not exactly lucrative, but it does have to say it does pay the bills right now, which, as you say, long may it last.
00:38:34
Speaker
and But that is kind of where I'm at. You know, this time next month, we could be having a very different conversation. um But that's kind of where I'm at. And I, one of the things I'm just trying to also navigate the the world of sponsors and people paying for your trips and all that. And there are ways, you know, like brands and and magazines or brands.
00:38:55
Speaker
you know advances from a book. and So it's just kind of, I'm trying to pull the all the resources together and make some things sustainable out of it. But it's certainly not, um you know, it's it's it's early days and it I'm having to work a lot just to keep everything together.
00:39:13
Speaker
Because, yeah, none of the things that I do pay a lot in any way. So they all might pay a little bit, but it's nothing nothing really um to yeah to write home about. Yeah, but we'll that we'll get there. I think as sir yeah it's just it's just saying making it making it sustainable, as as everyone will experience in this field, is the hardest thing of all. And I'm just trying to work that out, I think.
Conclusion and Call to Subscribe
00:39:38
Speaker
Hey folks, that's the end of the podcast episode for free subscribers. If you'd like access to the last 20 minutes or so, you can hop onto my sub stack, Out of the Wild with Kenil Gunas, and become a paid subscriber.
00:39:52
Speaker
Becoming a paid subscriber gets you access to full essays, full podcasts, and a few extra things. Louie and I, we still have about 20 more minutes of chat.
00:40:03
Speaker
We talk about everything from, I ask him a whole bunch more, intrusive emotional questions. um Things like, what was it like writing about a romantic experience?
00:40:16
Speaker
um Guilt as a motivational force, Louis' next adventures, they may contain mules, and some ah cultural recommendations for Louis.
00:40:27
Speaker
Thanks for listening.
00:40:41
Speaker
This is the Out of the Wild podcast with Ken Ilgunis. Original music by Duncan Barrett.