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Comment by 0x1F8B | Hacker News Reader

> IN APRIL 2017, a man started hiking in a state park just north of New York City. He wanted to get away, maybe from something and maybe from everything.

> Everyone who goes into the woods is trying to get away from something.

> Everyone, at some point, has wanted to put their phone in a garbage can and head off with a fake name and a wad of cash.

Since you are here I want to mention how off-putting this rhetoric is to me, a person who likes being outdoors, who doesn't have problems around spend all day refreshing the NYT or twitter or instagram, a person who genuinely likes solitude. It's almost as if urbanity is now synonymous with a neurotic steady state of over-exposure and any act of finding a moment of peace in the outdoors is itself a futile act of desperation -- an attempt to flee modernity. It just doesn't ring true to me.

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Agreed, I've been working online for 20+ years in the Scottish Borders in a town of 15K people, with the forest and fields a minute walk away.

> Everyone who goes into the woods is trying to get away from something.

Getting into something is maybe more apt. Walking the dog in the middle of the countryside is very peaceful and regenerative, it grounds you. "Getting away from something" makes it sound like the something is the modus operandi when it never was. It's almost like it adds more nuance to a man's story, you know, the fast living 21st century tech man who has an epiphany. Perhaps the 80-hour a week tech worker's walk into nature means something more than other people's... or not really.

I agree. When an author writes "Everyone has ..." we often learn more about the author than everyone.

when you refresh nyt and twitter all day maybe you _are_ escaping something. i'm escaping chores sometimes lol

maybe when you do like being in nature (this was about not just being outdoors, but hiking in the wilderness), you are also escaping something

maybe a reader can resonate with a desire for solitude via anonymity, re: fake name + wad of cash, w/o it being off-putting rhetoric

But "getting away from it all" is such a common phrase I would say it is what most people are doing.

It's definitely what I do.

Since you are here I want to mention how off-putting this rhetoric is to me... It just doesn't ring true to me

His story. His words. His choice.

He is under no obligation to cater to every "But what about me? I'm different!" navel-gazing edge case in the world.

> I want to mention how off-putting this rhetoric is to me

I'm not sure your emotions are important to others. Maybe it would be better to address what you think is the flaw in the characterization rather than leading with how it impacts your personal emotional state.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24982298.

Why?

Because it's offtopic and a drag. Imagine showing up at a party and someone starts accosting you with "since you are here I want to tell you how off-putting" their pet peeves about your work are. I doubt you'd want to hang around in that conversation, and it doesn't make for the best party. We're hoping for better conversations and more interesting parties.

Thanks for the response. [edit, removed question]

I agree 100%.

I've chosen a life of less work, less stuff and therefore less money. I spend a lot of my time alone on big trips around the world, and out in the wilderness. I'm immensely more happy than I was sitting at a desk watching my life go by without really being alive.

I get a lot of this attitude about how I must be "running from something" or I'm "throwing my life away".

I think it's a symptom of our modern "society" that it needs to put down anyone who chooses not to be drowning in it.

Which, of course, makes me want to distance myself from it even more.

Must be easy to feel that way when you can afford to make that choice. It's something most of us 9-to-5 drones only dream of.

edit: lol wow downvoted? smug much? I never even said I disagreed.

I choose to look at it the other way around and say I can't afford NOT to make this choice.

But I don't have a lot of money, in fact my last few years of tax returns I've barely earned more than the tax free threshold. So it's not about having tons of money to escape the 9-to-5, it's about realizing you can find happiness with a lot less.

Nobody would criticize you if nobody could tell that you had less money than people making other choices.

Looking like someone that has to stay in hostels, versus someone that likes the inherently more social aspect of hostels are very different things.

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