ALONE, Where Man’s Hubris is Exposed in 4K

I mentioned this on Notes (do you like Notes? Are you using them? I want to chat, and that hasn’t happened for me there… yet!) I mentioned that I came upon the show ALONE.

I’m very late, I know. If you’ve been in a work cave like me and didn’t know about this unscripted reality show, here’s the premise:

A self-proclaimed survivalist puts their claims to the test by leaving everything behind save 10 items off a preapproved list and some cameras to document themselves in an inhospitable climate. There are ten of these folks, they do not ever interact because it’s called ALONE, something many of them have not fully realized what that means after three or four days, and the last person standing is the winner of a $500,000 prize.

As a person who grew up in an apocalypse-preparation cult, this is very much My Jam.

I’m not a huge fan of reality TV these days. The curtain has been pulled back, I’m weary of influencer culture, and people yelling at each other over Kenzie being as lustful as Gabe or not makes my shoulders drive into my ears. (I have no idea what this means, I just love my Gen Z coworker, Sadé, and celebrate her passions.)

ALONE is not like that style of television. The show cleverly weeds out the pretenders, the weekend warriors, the folks who, from the comfort of their expensive hunting 4-wheeler and tricked out in high-tech gear with the latest in infrared goggles, struggle to build shelter with what’s available on the ground. How are you going to be dropped in a savannah or forest and not prepare for a basic tarp-and-branch lean-to? Fishing without a pole, and not practicing how to do so, means many days with no food. And to me, the most egregious: not recognizing you built your shelter in a dry riverbed means that when a storm creeps up, you are now swimming out of a sleeping bag and all your gear is gone.

After these individuals “tap out,” call on a sat phone to a medical team nearby to retrieve them, we start to focus on the people who are professors of Indigenous peoples or antiquities, specializing in local flora and fauna, or fire tools or ship building. One man made a canoe. From wood he found, cut, fire-treated to bend into shape, assembled with washed up twine (!!) and a tarp. Riveting. Are you kidding me?! Just amazing to watch.

But the show is about a different kind of survival, really. Can (hu)man(s) live alone? What happens to us when we’re isolated? What mental games must we play to put one foot in front of the other, day after day when you have no one there to cheer you on, to pitch in, to give you praise? How long can we expect to thrive when we have no one? (Is anyone tracking Kelsey as she rows across the Pacific? She’s lasted longer than many of these contestants…)

I’m fascinated by what eventually drives a true expert with the mechanics of surviving the desert of South Africa or the bear-rich woods of Vancouver Island to finally say, “No more.” Often, it’s the emotional toll. They miss their partner. Their children. There’s a realization that their community of loved ones is the reason to get up every day. To put a foot forward. To strive, to try, not to just survive but to live.

Currently I’m on an island on Lake Superior with a community of authors led by AJ Harper —we have phones and beds and internet and pizza and each other—and there is always a moment at these events where the individual gears for each author clicks in sync with another author, and another, and another. They see each other as friends, as sources of insight and ultimately, as their treasured community. We’ll catch one another before we do the writerly equivalent of pitching a tent in a dry river bed with rain clouds forming. Striving together, trying together, not alone.

Too many authors go it alone and we don’t have to. Tap out of that mindset and make those connections.

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As I wrote in this post, I have to basically start my author platform from scratch. I’m collecting data and sharing it every few weeks on Fridays to help any other authors have this whole process demystified. I’ll share where I started, what I’m doing behind the scenes of just posting (that’s not a marketing plan!), and will update stats with what I think those changes mean or what drove them.

If you like juicy data as well as juicy stories, I’m your girl!

(I also your girl because I can build a water filtration system out of raw materials because again, raised in apocalypse-prep cult. Which is the next novel, btw…)

Comments mean community, so sound off! (What, you want me to go it alone??)

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