Why ski to the South Pole?

The first thing people ask me when they find out about South Signal: Why would I do it? Am I crazy? While it’s difficult to put my motivation into words, I will try.

I have a few go-to answers, which offer varying degrees of satisfaction to the people who have heard them.

The first is that “I enjoy doing hard things.” They ask if it’s “type two fun,” meaning the kind of experience that might be unpleasant while it’s happening, but becomes fun in memory as soon as it passes. This is, in case you’re unfamiliar with the term, opposed to type one—which is fun the whole time—and type three—which is not fun at any point.

Expeditions, to me at least, are the third kind. Maybe sicko out there actually enjoys the experience. Maybe my advisor, Ben Saunders, who has the world record for the longest polar journey on foot, enjoys expeditions. (I should ask him.)

When I say, “I enjoy doing hard things,” the word enjoy is used as an approximation. I don’t enjoy doing the hard things themselves; I enjoy having done them. It’s not fun, but fun is not the goal. In fact, to some extent, fun is antithetical to the goal. Fun is an excellent motivator. It’s easy to do things if they’re fun. Un-fun things require another motivator.

You will note that this brings us no closer to an answer. All we’ve done so far is eliminate fun as a potential reason. What is that other motivator?

The second answer I often give goes something like this: “I’m a practicing Stoic, and Seneca said it’s a good idea to intentionally endure some hardship so you can say is this the condition I so fear? And see that it’s not all that bad.” Essentially, put your wants, fears, and ambitions in context by stripping yourself of the environment which cultivates them. You can’t worry about a promotion if you’re homeless. You can’t want new headphones if you have nothing to connect them to. Etc.

This gets us just an inch or two closer. Of course, being on the ice for 45 days will reduce whatever immediate concerns I have about my career or other material matters, but I will be acutely aware of the fact that those worries will be waiting for me to get home. The respite is temporary. The lasting effect, in this sense, is the perspective gleaned.

After my first “death trip,” as I and my friends call them—a bicycle trip from Boston, MA to Charlottesville, VA on a $25 thrift store bike, cowboy camping along the way, in the middle of winter—I experienced a deep sorrow and anxiety after returning to everyday life. Everything felt simple and meaningless. How are you supposed to care about homework when you’ve just recovered from frostbite? Eventually, the anxiety of apathy crystalized into a calm, peace. As soon as I stopped judging my own disinterest and started appreciating the peace, everything became easier. Of course, work was still work, and I was no better at it, but it didn’t carry the same pressure.

Every time I have been uncomfortable since that first trip, I could say to myself, “Well, at least I’m not so tired or cold or in so much pain as I was then!”

There is a saying: We do hard things so that we can do hard things. Life will inevitably present challenges. Some are forced on us—like the death of a loved one or the loss of a job—while others we choose—like changing careers or moving to a new city. Opting into doing hard things is probably the best way to prepare oneself for the hard things to come.

The natural rebuttal is: “If you’ve already gone on several of these trips and already gotten that perspective, what more will this expedition add?” Truthfully, I can’t answer that until afterwards, but hopefully something.

Hopefully isn’t enough to embark on an expedition like this, though. Which brings us to another typical answer I give: “Delayed gratification is one of the greatest predictors of future success, and expeditions are the greatest possible exercises in delayed gratification that I can come up with.” Before you rush to point out that this is at odds with the idea of stripping away material desires: The rewards may be undeniable but they are intangible.

Now we’re getting close. Some intangible reward for doing hard things. The reward I’m after—the reason I’m going to ski to the South Pole—is clarity. Clarity not on any one question in particular, but in myself.

Why stream it? Partly because it has never been done before, sure. And partly because I wish a thorough resource existed for me when I started planning. Really, the main reason is to expose what a journey like this requires. Short-form videos on social media are exciting, but the daily reality is more sublime. I hope to capture and share that with you.