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The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast
1KHO 699: Safety Comes at a Cost | Alex Hutchinson, The Explorer's Gene
01:01:13
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- [00:00]
Opening/Closing Song Performer
Oh, it's a beautiful world Ain't nothing on screen that's ever gonna be this view oh, it's a beautiful world and I just want to share with I just want to share with you this beautiful world Such a beautiful.
- [00:34]
Podcast Host - Sponsor/Intro Voice
Hey friends, thanks so much for pressing play. Today's episode is with science journalist and New York Times best selling author Alex Hutchinson, whose book the Explorer's Gene investigates something fundamental about human life. Why we seek the unknown, even when comfort, routine and predictability pull us the other way. In his research that spans neuroscience, psychology and stories of real world exploration, Alex breaks down the paradox that shapes our choices. Do we stay with what we know or do we risk the unknown for the possibility of something better? His insights apply from everything from how we raise our kids to how we handle change in our own lives. And while you're listening, if someone comes to mind who needs this perspective, send this episode to them. That simple act is what keeps this show growing. One small favor before we jump in, because it genuinely changes the future of this podcast. Tap Follow on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. On Spotify, it's the Follow button at the top of the show page. On Apple Podcasts, go to the show page and tap follow, follow. It takes a few seconds and it's one of the strongest signals you can send that this podcast is worth showing to more people, which helps with visibility. Okay, let's not wait any longer. Except for through one ad.
- [01:40]
Jenny Urch - Podcast Host
Here we go.
- [01:41]
Podcast Host - Sponsor/Intro Voice
Safety Comes at a Cost with Alex Hutchinson. If you're a parent, you know how hard it is to find drinks that are actually good for your kids. And honestly, for yourself too. I always read the label before I let my kids drink anything, and Cure is one of those rare finds that checks every box. I've been trying Cure hydration packs for myself when I'm traveling, or even just first thing in the morning when I know I need to drink more water. They're plant based, have no added sugar, only 25 calories, and they hydrate better than water alone. And the flavors are so good, not overly sweet, not fake tasting. Watermelon and lemonade are my favorite. It genuinely makes drinking enough water easier, which I know so many of us struggle with. Now let's talk about kids because this is where Cure is doing cool stuff. My kids would sometimes ask for sugary sports drinks, especially after playing outside for hours. Switching to Cure Kids Mixes changed everything. They're formulated with kids in mind, made with real ingredients, no added sugar, no artificial colors or dyes, and free from all the major Allergens. From long outdoor play days to sports practices, or even when they're just not great at drinking water. Cure Kids helps replace the electrolytes they lose throughout the day so they can keep doing what kids are meant to do. Play, explore, and be kids. Staying hydrated isn't just about water. You also need electrolytes. That's why my family loves Cure. It's clean, it tastes great, and kids actually ask for it. You can grab Cure on Amazon or find a store near you@cure hydration.com outside. Real ingredients, real hydration, ready for the whole family.
- [03:05]
Jenny Urch - Podcast Host
Welcome to the 1000 Hours Outside podcast. My name is Jenny Urch. I'm the founder of 1000 Hours Outside. And New York Times bestselling author Alex Hutchinson is here. Welcome, Alex.
- [03:16]
Alex Hutchinson - Guest, Science Journalist and Author
Thanks so much, Jenny. It's awesome to be here.
- [03:18]
Jenny Urch - Podcast Host
I love your books. I love books that are written by journalists. I just think they're the best books. You're like, how is this person? Like, the in depth writing that combines, like your own story with other people's story, plus the current information. And then also, it just woke open so well together. I have learned over the years. I'm like, any book that is written by a journalist, I want to read. So you have these books. The Explorer's Gene is the newest one. This is about why do we go do these things that we do. Why do we go seek out big challenges and new flavors and blank spots on the map. And then you also have this book, Endure, which is all about, like, athleticism. I learned so much. You know, I was like reading an Endure, and it was like, there's machines that can figure out how much, how many carbohydrates are stored. Jordan, your legs like, oh, this is a whole world I've not been exposed to at all. But I learned so much. So I would love if you would give a little bit of your backstory, because you are the type of person, I think that gives people hope for their kids. You had a bunch of career swerves and I think it's good to hear, like, you don't have to just be on one linear path. You can train for the Olympics and you can get a PhD and you can be the endurance guy and then you can do a different type of book. You have given yourself permission to try a bunch of different things. Where does that come from?
- [04:41]
Alex Hutchinson - Guest, Science Journalist and Author
First of all, thanks so much for having me, Jenny, and thanks for the super kind words. I really appreciate it. Yeah, I had a very swervy career path and as a parent now I have to remind myself, it's like, yeah, the kids don't have to know what they're going to be like right away. It's okay to change. And it's actually, it's funny, I was having a conversation with someone recently who was asking me about. It was a podcast about being a dad. And the interviewer asked me, like, what. What did you get from your dad? And I hadn't really thought about that very much. Like, what did I get? Like, what, what are the lessons I carried away from him? And I realized after, you know, in, in the course of trying to, trying to answer that question, it's like one of the big things in my dad's life is he was an engineer from a farm in, in small town in rural Alberta, became an engineer, and then when he was 28, he realized being an engineer was not what he wanted to do and he went back to university to study divinity. He decided he wanted to be a minister. And so he, he studied that for several years, finished that degree and decided that actually what he wanted to be was an ethicist, you know, studying religious studies in an academic. And so he did a PhD and ended up with a very fulfilling career teaching ethics at a university. And so, sorry, this is, this is a meandering way of answering your question, but, you know, where did my willingness to explore come from? Well, it's, I don't think it's a coincidence that when my older brother was 28, he left his mathematics graduate school program and realized he wanted to be a librarian or archivist and went back into library school. And when I was 28, I left my job as a physicist and went back to school to study journalism. So, um, you know, I had the advance, the, the, the, the example of my parents and my dad in particular there of like, you know what, you, you follow one path, but if you decide at a certain point that it's not the path that you want to be on, you, you, you've tried a different path. And so that, that's, that's what I did.
- [06:34]
Jenny Urch - Podcast Host
Yeah, it's such an example, it's such an example to people and also helps you to be, like you said, a little more calmer with your own kids because, like, they could do something for 10 years and totally change it and then change it 10. But I learned in your book this is brand new the Explorer's Gene why We Seek Big Challenges New Flavors in the blank spots on the map about this Explore Exploit dilemma. I've never heard about this, but it makes a Ton of sense. And you said once you started to learn about it, you see it everywhere, which I feel like I would be the type that's the exploit. I'm like, I just want to leave everything the same. But you talk about this explore exploit dilemma like who you're dating. I mean, it comes up so much. But even for your own. This is what I'm saying about your books. It's like you're going to talk about the concept, you're going to give all sorts of examples in other scenarios, but then you're also going to talk about it in your own life. And what you said was, you could have spent the rest of your life exploiting the fact that Endure became a New York Times bestseller. And immediately all of these doors are opening for you. You're, like, getting speaking opportunities and you're the guy who is the expert on endurance athletes, and instead you chose to continue and do new and different things. So could you explain the explore exploit dilemma, the concept of that and what that means for adults, for business people? Like, I guess, like you said, it can show up in all sorts of different scenarios.
- [08:04]
Alex Hutchinson - Guest, Science Journalist and Author
Yeah. Yeah. So first of all, so the explore exploit dilemma is. And is when you face a choice and you have to decide whether to keep doing what you're doing or. Or launch into something new. And the classic example that. That researchers used to explain it is like, you go to a restaurant that you've been to before, and you have to decide, like, you know, last time I had the burger, it was. It was pretty good. Should I get the burger again? It's. It's what I always get here.
- [08:28]
Jenny Urch - Podcast Host
Yes. And I'll be like, yep, that's what I'm gonna do.
- [08:31]
Alex Hutchinson - Guest, Science Journalist and Author
But. But do you sometimes feel the pull of, like, oh, I wonder if I should try the special? Like, special.
- [08:38]
Jenny Urch - Podcast Host
You know, I've done it a couple times in my life, and I'm like, I should have just gotten the burger.
- [08:42]
Alex Hutchinson - Guest, Science Journalist and Author
Well, that's the thing, right? Like, we. You even. So I'm a. I'm a person who always likes to stick with what I know, but feels the pull of like, oh, I wonder, maybe the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. Maybe I should try this other thing. And then if I order the new thing, I'm like, and someone else at the table orders my usual dish, I'm like, oh, my God, I can't believe I didn't just order, you know, the thing I knew I liked. So, you know, we're all familiar with this dilemma. But when you Zoom out. It's like we face these decisions all the time. And whether it's a career decision like I was facing, I spent 10 years as a physicist. Should I, you know, I invested a lot of time and a lot of energy into this. Should I keep pursuing, you know, this sort of sunk cost or should I try something new? And yeah, like you said, you know, it can be like, should I stick with this with my current boyfriend or girlfriend who I think is pretty good? Or like, maybe there's someone better. Yeah, exactly. Like, we might not want to put it into words, but we all face these sorts of dilemmas. And even on a corporate or societal level, it's like if you're a company or if you're an entrepreneur, do you double down on the product that has been successful for you or do you invest your money into R and D to build the next product? And it's like you might say, well, you need. Both are important. Well, of course both are important. But you can't do everything to the, to the maximum of your ability. You have to decide how to allocate your energy and your resources. And so it turns out there's a whole like field of science of scientists actually in multiple fields who study this is in biology, study it. Because how does, how does a bumblebee decide when this patch of flowers has given all the nectar that it's going to yield and that it would be better to fly off across the meadow and try and find another patch of flowers? It's like animals have to be making these calculations all the time. So we have this like, there's neuroscience, there's behavioral science, there's psychology, and trying to figure out how do we make the best decision. And the short answer, let me just fast forward to the end of the book. Is there's no right answer. We can never guarantee that it. In this situation you should explore, in this situation you should exploit. But we. It's a safe bet that if you're always in all parts of your life only exploiting or only exploring, you know, you're not going to find the right balance of trying new things, but also pursuing, you know, carrying. You don't want to only try new things. You don't want to never pursue something to as, you know, to as far as you can take it.
- [11:10]
Jenny Urch - Podcast Host
Yeah, it's fascinating. Is a fascinating book. The Explorer's Gene. And you actually talk about there are genes. I mean, when you talk about the science, there's a gene. It's like D4D something, you know, there's a certain gene that people have studied, like, that some people are going to be a little bit more bent toward. I mean, we're talking about, like, one of the examples you give in the book is like, do I continue with my Netflix show, or do I change to a new Netflix show? In the book, you're talking about people who, like, went off the map. They're like, I'm just gonna take this river wherever it goes, or I'm gonna go across this ocean. And you're like, my example's, like, lame. Am I gonna stick with the hamburger, or am I gonna try the fettuccine Alfredo? But it is remarkable to really be reminded of people who have explored in these grandiose ways. And I would say that in your life, you have done similar. I mean, you're talking about. We have a lot of parents that listen in and a lot of kids that listen in, and a lot of people who are trying to get their kids outdoors. And so you kick this book off. It's such a great opening. So, Alex, you're like, all right, you're on this path. You're like, there's the biting flies, and you're behind the schedule, and you're like, try. It's raining, and where are we going to stop to sleep? And, like, I don't know if we're going to make the schedule. What about our food? And then you turn the page and you're like, and our kids, who are eight, six, you know, you're like, I think not expecting that at all, but this affects how we raise our children. And so you've got this sort of bent toward. And you had it from the beginning toward kind of like adventuring and exploring off the beaten path. Can you talk about how your kids respond and react and their growth through not being like. There was this quote that was like, 98% of people come to the national parks in vehicles, and 98% stay within 400 meters or something of their car. They don't actually go off the beaten path. So what has this actually been like? You know, you're doing it with your wife, and now you're doing it with young kids, elementary school age.
- [13:17]
Alex Hutchinson - Guest, Science Journalist and Author
Yeah. So trust me, I. I agonize about this a lot because, you know, I don't want to be written up by the Children's Aid Society for, you know, forcing my kids. But, look, one thing I think it's important to say is, you know, when I. When I would tell people I was working on a book about exploring, a lot of people would say, oh, that. You know, that sounds interesting. Personally, I'm not much of an explorer myself, and I understand. I understand what they're saying. What they're saying is, I don't want to go, like, parasailing to the North Pole, and lots of people don't want to do that. I don't want to do that. I don't want to die. But exploring is a broader concept, and it's separate from the idea of do you want to put yourself through misery or, you know, risk your life or whatever. So, you know, we. We joke about exploring in the context of a restaurant or, you know, reading a familiar book, but these are forms of exploring. These are forms of trying something new and getting off the beaten path, and they're legitimate and they're important. So. So I think we can see exploring in a broader context now. I do think getting outside into the real world is a particularly important form of exploring that, you know, in this modern world, we have all these devices that are basically designed to hack into our exploring circuitry. We're drawn to explore, and swiping the screen on our phone or whatever is designed to give us that sense of, who knows what the next TikTok video will be. I better explore and find out. So there's a rise of virtual exploring, which is not, to me, the same as getting out into the world. And the world is not an algorithm designed to please you. So if you choose the wrong path, the world, you know, you might get lost. Like, there are consequences to being out in the physical worlds, which is why I think that getting outside is so important. So I haven't actually answered your question yet, which is how. How do my kids respond to this? It's mixed, right? Like, if my approach was, every time my kids complain, I'll view that as a sign that we should go back home and get. Go inside. We would never go outside, right? Like, if every walk we went on, if, if they were like, well, if they whine, I know I've pushed the too far. Kids complain, I complain. You know, like, so, so, so it's, It's. It's a real. But at the same time, like, I don't want to be a. Like a. I'm not like a drill sergeant. I'm not trying to, you know, put them through, you know, military training at the age of six and eight. So it's always a real judgment battle battle or a judgment call of trying to figure out what's just outside their comfort zone. That's going to be exciting. So that when they finish they're like, that was awesome. I can't believe we did that. As opposed to I can't believe dad made us do that. I can't believe. Or dad and mom. Because it's not just me, it's me. It's my wife and I together making these decisions. For sure.
- [15:59]
Jenny Urch - Podcast Host
Yeah.
- [15:59]
Alex Hutchinson - Guest, Science Journalist and Author
So it's, It's. It's tricky, but I would overall, like, my kids love these adventures that we go on. And so we were just, before we started recording, we were saying it's a snow day here in Michigan and in Toronto. And snow days mean one thing for me and my kids. It's like we're going to go down to the river and we're going to snowshoe. Because you can get into some. When the snow is deep enough, you can go up these slopes that are otherwise totally impossible. And it's fun and they value these things, but they. We also get cold fingers and, you know, slip down the slope and stuff. And so, yeah, it's a constant push and pull and trying to. Trying to listen to them and respect, you know, when I'm pushing them too far and understand that, hey, look, it's it. At the end of the day, it's supposed to be fun.
- [16:42]
Jenny Urch - Podcast Host
I love that. I think that it comes across in the book. It is inspiring. It is an inspiring read. When you're reading that and then you're like, oh, the young kids are there because you're interested in these places where there's no trail. You know, the trail had already been formed for you. But then you say, like, ideally, I would love to have no gps, or ideally, I would like to have it be this or that. But you're always adjusting. You're adjusting to whatever the circumstances are so that you're still pushing the boundaries. But also, it's not too much because you say the kids haven't signed up for this, but I love this phrase where you talked about their expanding abilities. This does expand their abilities. When you take them to the Bruce Peninsula and they've canoed in the Algonquin park and they've hiked in the Rockies. This is expanding their abilities in a way. That technology, which is also hacking into our exploring circuitry. I love that wording is not. It's not expanding their abilities at all. So this is a great read for parents because you talk about what actually is exploring. So you say you have this question about, is a hike through a national park really exploring? You know, what is the difference between someone who does Mount Everest? Is a really interesting question. I'VE never considered it. Alex, if someone goes up Mount Everest and they've paid $65,000 to have a guide, is that exploring? You know, can you talk about what your view of meaningful exploration is?
- [18:08]
Alex Hutchinson - Guest, Science Journalist and Author
Yeah, I think I wrestled with this a lot. You know, you write a book on exploring, you better have a definition of exploring. And then I, you know, halfway through this process, I realized I don't really know what I'm talking about here. I need to really nail down what I'm talking about. And one of the themes that really emerged for me was the difference between active and passive exploration. And so that's where this idea of like, what is the difference between, you know, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay climbing Everest for the first time? Like, you know, they're obviously exploring someone, a modern climber going on a guided expedition, or like lying on the sofa watching a National Geographic documentary about climbing Everest. And so, you know, because one version of exploration is like, we want to learn stuff that we don't know before. And it's like, well, actually, you're probably going to learn a ton watching the National Geographic documentary. If your goal is to learn about the world, you're going to probably learn more about Everest from the documentary than you would from climbing it. So then I'm like, but, but that's not. So there must be something more to it. There must be something more that makes meaningful exploration. And so for me, yes, it's about learning about the world and learning about yourself more, just as importantly, learning about what you're capable of. And it's, it's about being faced with decisions and making those explore, exploit decisions with your, you know, the best, to the best of your ability, seeing what happens, learning that that was the right decision or the wrong decision and following your own interests, saying, I want to go up this side trail in the national park because I'm really interested in what would be in that canyon over there as opposed to just going to the. You've got a checklist. Here are the eight most beautiful things. Let's check off the list that I've saw those things in the national park. And so this idea of being able to follow your own interests and make your own decisions, I think is what the reason we're wired to explore is that it's guiding us to learn about the world and about ourselves. And the way we do that is not by, by passively being fed new information from an algorithm. Even though there's lots of information, even though artificial intelligence can tell us lots of things, it's by following our. Our own interests. So I think that's what makes, to me what makes a meaningful exploration. And that will be different for everybody because we all have different backgrounds and different contexts and different experiences. So there are people for whom it's boring to climb Mount Everest, and so they have to go and climb K2 or something. And that's not me. Right. Like, it comes back to this idea of also, we live in a world that's totally mapped. So what, what does it, what does it really mean to explore? Everyone has been everywhere. People have been everywhere. And I. And I think it comes back to exploring is about making your own decisions. So that's why. And discovering things that are interesting and new to you. So I can go down to the river. That's near my house on snowshoes with my kids. You know, this place has been inhabited for 5,000 years and was explored by Europeans 500 years ago. It's new to us. It's new. And it's exciting to us to go up that slope and to make those decisions. And it's, it's, it's far more exciting to do that than to watch a documentary about something. Not that I don't like documentaries, but. But you know what I mean, like.
- [21:08]
Jenny Urch - Podcast Host
Yeah, no, I think it's important, like, what is exploring? And you say, because if you were to contrast that with the guide, because you say, look, you've done trips with guides and without guides, you know, and you say the one you did with the guide was passive. And the wording that you use here in this book, the explorer's gene is meaningful. Exploration, I will argue, involves making an active choice to pursue a course that requires effort and carries a risk of failure. A bold beginning of uncertain outcomes is such great wording. It's the active choice, and that's what is the opposite of the dopamine hit from social media. That's not an active choice. You're being fed, you know, you're not going to even look for it. It's just coming to you. And that would be the difference of the guide versus the. I'm going to take my kids on this hike and there's no trails, you know, hopefully we get to the other side or just the snowshoeing. So you're making an active choice for this new outcome that you don't really know what's going to happen.
- [22:08]
Podcast Host - Sponsor/Intro Voice
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- [25:32]
Jenny Urch - Podcast Host
So there's this, like I said, such a mix of, you know, learning about the DRD4 gene that there's this connection between that gene and hyperactivity and novelty seeking. Like it's called the explorers gene and, you know, your own personal stories. I learned this new word. I'd love to talk about it. Thigmotaxis.
- [25:51]
Alex Hutchinson - Guest, Science Journalist and Author
Yeah, that's a, that's. That was a new word for me too. I mean, the origins of the word, it actually means touch. Do you want to be touching something? But what it means in the context of exploring is the way we tend to explore is to stay around the perimeter of spaces. So you always want to be able to touch the boundary so you know where you are. So if you, if you put mice or rats in a maze, there's a classic maze called the Morris Water Maze, which is basically a big circular swimming pool, and they have to find a hidden platform in it. So they go in to explore it. And the way that they'll circle around the perimeter because they never want to get too far away from the known perimeter. And then they'll make forays into it. And it turns out that this is kind of how we explore. You can zoom out from like this little maze with mice and rats and look at continents. Like, how did Europeans first explore Australia? Well, they went around the perimeter and they did little forays into the interior gradually. And it took them hundreds of years before they could cross the interior because we like to stick to the. The boundaries. And if, you know, if you, if you look at game trails in the forest, they'll follow along the edge of a. If there's a fence, they'll follow the fence. If there's a boundary between a field than a forest, they'll follow the edge of the forest. So it's like, it's like this orienting thing and it's a. It's a way. And you can even like, not to get too far afield. But the way we explore ideas is similarly similar too, because we map ideas and concepts in the same part of the brain that we map the physical world. So we'll have various ideas and we'll stick to those known ideas and then try and look for ways to bridge from one idea to another. But we, like. It's natural to feel most comfortable in the places or among the ideas that we're most familiar with.
- [27:37]
Jenny Urch - Podcast Host
I love this. And you talk about, in this book, you go and do a whole chapter about adventuring into new thoughts. In yours, you're talking about, which is so great about qubits and quantum computing, because I've read a little bit like, there's a book called the Singularity by Ray Kurzweil. Anyways, when I got to the quantum computing part, I like, stopped reading because I was like, I do not understand what's going on. But the quantum supremacy is like. I love that phrase. It makes me think of quantum supremacy, you know, but you're. I don't even know. Like, that's how someone would say it. Someone came up with this quantum supremacy. So you're sort of skirting around the edges. It's kind of connected to maybe what you already know. And then there was another word, incursions, where you would kind of like go into the interior but come back, go, you know, so you're going to try something new and come back. And there's just these different ways that people explore. And I had never heard of any of this. So it was fascinating to learn about. The book includes a ton about kids, all sorts of studies that have been done on kids and how they explore, and also a lot about play, a ton about play and fun and how fun can guide our learning. So can you talk about this concept of how we. We want to explore like a child? They really explore in different ways than we do and often are inefficient.
- [28:54]
Alex Hutchinson - Guest, Science Journalist and Author
Yeah. So this is actually really surprising and interesting to me. So kids are kids, right? Like, you ask them to do something, and they don't always do it in the most straightforward way. Like, I just asked you to pick up the clothes and put it in the thing. Like, why are you upside down hanging from the couch right now? And so there's a scientist named Alison Gopnik who came up with this theory that basically the whole point of childhood is as a species. It's our solution to the explore, exploit dilemma. Because how do we balance exploration and exploitation? They're both important. Well, there's an argument that when you're in a new situation, you should explore as much as possible to find out what the options are. And then as time goes on, you know what the options are. You pick the best ones, and then you should exploit those. So. So that leads to this idea that you explore early and then exploit late, well over the lifespan of a human. That's kind of what we do. We humans have an unusually long childhood, and children are really good explorers. And as we get to become adults, we become better at exploiting. We become like, okay, we know what the good options. We're able to stick with what the, you know, based on our prior experience, what we think the best option is that's good for exploiting, but it's actually not good for exploring. And so Allison Gotnick runs these studies where there'll be, like, a puzzle that you have to solve, and, you know, there'll be a pattern. Let's say there's. You have blocks of different colors and shapes, and you. And some of them are called blickets, and some of them aren't. And you have to figure out what's the rule for what determines whether something is a blicket or not. And when the rule is complicated and unexpected, kids are better at picking it up than adults are, because adults make some assumptions. Oh, it must be based. It's just like, based on the color or a combination of the color. Whereas the kids are able to figure, oh, it's actually based on the color of this one plus whatever one you tested previously. Like, it's a combination. So kids are uniquely good at exploring. They're bad at explaining. So they gain this knowledge. They don't know how to. What to do with it. But that's because kids are Wired to discover, to learn about the world. This is their time to learn as much as possible about how the world works. And I would say what I'd like to say is that this has helped make me a more patient parent, that I understand that kids are wired to not do the most efficient thing possible. And because they're learning about the world in practice, I still get impatient and frustrated or whatever, but. But it's something I remind myself that this is. This is what they're supposed to be good at. I've told them the simplest and most efficient way to load the dishwasher or whatever, and they're doing it the completely opposite way. Well, that's how they're discovering how the world works. And they have to, they have to go down some blind alleys to do this. But to pick up the other thread you mentioned this idea of play, one of the delightful things in researching this book is that I got to talk to people who are like theorists of play, people who study play and the theory of it. And one way of thinking about it is that the. The point of play is to. To guide us to learn about the world most rapidly. That our sense of fun is triggered by actively, not passively, following our interests to the things that seem fun, because that's our brain signal that here's an area where you can learn about the world.
- [32:00]
Podcast Host - Sponsor/Intro Voice
Yeah, it's so good.
- [32:02]
Jenny Urch - Podcast Host
It does have so many implications for parenting because you talked about how when they did some of these studies, it was like, well, they would they give it even end or the kid would figure out what the answer is. But then they're still messing around and that's what they're supposed to do. They're supposed to mess around. You talk about this link between our time, the wording is so cool, our time horizon, and exploratory behavior that when the clock is running, exploration is the most valuable when you have plenty of time left and it declines in value as time runs down. So for our kids, they have got a long time horizon. I want to read this quote in here from Allison Gopnik. Her book is called Or. I don't know if she has more than one, but I've got one of hers called the Gardener and the Carpenter. And she says many of the traits we associate with young children, they are noisy, they're variable, they're unfocused, they're unpredictable, they are impulsive, are in fact, features rather than bugs. They help children explore the world around them with remarkable efficiency. And in some cases, they pick up clues that Adults.
- [33:07]
Podcast Host - Sponsor/Intro Voice
Miss.
- [33:07]
Jenny Urch - Podcast Host
Here's the situation though, similar to what you were talking about earlier with technology and technology hacking into our exploring circuitry. Dr. Jean Twangy, who I've, she's been on the show, she's got phenomenal books.
- [33:19]
Podcast Host - Sponsor/Intro Voice
Okay.
- [33:19]
Jenny Urch - Podcast Host
She talks about how when students come to college that a lot of them can't make simple decisions without calling their parents. She says exploration is down. So that's one of the things that you talk about in this book too, the four generation shift of the eight year old who would go six miles. I think it was. Yeah, six miles at age eight. I mean, can you imagine, Alex, six miles is, I mean think about how long it takes to go six miles. And especially if you're eight years old and you're kind of middle meandering, that's hours away from home. And 100 years ago, exactly in 1926, that was the range of childhood.
- [33:58]
Alex Hutchinson - Guest, Science Journalist and Author
Yeah, it's crazy. I mean it's, it's hard for me to comprehend. And you know, reading this study, one of the details was like the family they were studying was too poor to. So he couldn't take the streetcar. He had to, he actually had to walk because he was going fishing at a fishing hole six, eight miles away or whatever, or six miles away. But yeah, it's, it's, it's this idea of, of interest they talk about. They call it the home range. What's your home range if you're a kid, which is where do you go, where do you wander when you're outside wandering on your own? And the answer these days is like, what do you mean? My kid doesn't wander outside alone. My kids home range is like the kitchen, the living room and the, the dining room. But you know, there's been a sort of linear decline and in that, you know, in that one study of four generations that, you know, eight years old, you know, the great grandfather was like, I can go six miles. The grandfather was like, I was allowed to go one mile to the forest and play there. And then the mother was like, I could go half a mile to the local swimming pool. And the kid is like, well he's allowed to go 300 yards to the end of his street. And he doesn't do that much because there's nobody on his street. Everyone's inside playing video games. So that's what he does too. So it's hard. You know, there's probably a mix of chicken and egg. It's like people explore more because they're not allowed outside and they're not allowed outside because they're, they're exploring less anyway. They don't want to explore and it's this kind of circling the drain if you don't interrupt that, that cycle.
- [35:13]
Jenny Urch - Podcast Host
Yeah, what a difference an 8 year old is a third grader, you know, so you consider them going 6 miles to go fishing, that then you're like, okay, can they at least go around the block? Like, can I stretch myself a little bit? You say that there are consequences here. So spending a little time extra, spending a little extra time exploring your options and acquiring divers skills is more likely to pay off these days than it might have even a few generations ago. Because we're in this rapidly changing world. What's interesting is ideally actually the, the things that this larger home range that is going to contribute more beneficially to an age of AI where things are really rapidly changing. You kind of got to be on your toes and you got, you're probably going to have to explore more than exploit.
- [35:59]
Alex Hutchinson - Guest, Science Journalist and Author
Yeah.
- [36:00]
Jenny Urch - Podcast Host
You know, there are people that would have a career, right Alex, for 30 years and, and then they would retire. Like they were able to live a life of explo. But I think in this day and age you're less likely, you're less likely to be able to exploit one thing for 30 years or 40 years than in generations gone by. So you say the decline of play both within our lifespans as we have become curmudgeonly adults and across generations as we tether our children to low risk activities and high tech screens has serious consequences. Can you talk about the consequence to creativity?
- [36:34]
Alex Hutchinson - Guest, Science Journalist and Author
Yeah, so I mean, yeah, just, just picking up quickly on, on, on something you were just saying about the careers, it's like, yeah, at the, at the top of the show we were talking about, oh, Alex made a, you know, a big career shift like for people of my generation, you know, I'm 50. I was like, oh yeah, that's a big leap. I have the sense that for the kids of today it's gonna be, oh, what, you changed career when you're 28? Like I changed career seven times before I was 28. Like, because that, that, that's the nature of the world. That changes fast. But yeah, so this, this decline in play I think is tightly connected to the, a broader sense of decline in innovation and creativity. And you can, you can look across a whole bunch of different indicators. So I think the one, the most relevant for parenting is, you know, there's a standard test or a set of tests called the Torrance tests which test creativity. Now look Testing creativity is really hard. Right. So there are some critiques of, you know, how effectively the Torrance tests really test creativity. But it's a way of, you know, it's the type of thing where you, you know, you. You look at a picture and you have to think of different uses for something or. And, and so it gives you some sense of how flexible the mind of a young person is. And every once in a while, just like with SATs and IQ tests and stuff, they have to renormalize the test. They have to say what is a normal, what is absolutely average on this test? And if you look at the ways they've had to renormalize the test over the last 50 years, starting in the early 90s, they had to keep renormalizing it downward. In other words, the scores were going down, so they had to change. Change what the scores they were giving. And, and then starting around 2012, that decline got even, even steeper. So the, in the, on this test, in this measure at least, it looks like kids are a lot less creative than they were in the 80s, let's say. And then if you zoom out to sort of more societal markers, you can say, well, let's look at patents or let's look at scientific papers and let's measure how. What sort of impact they've had. How many papers are genuinely new and linked together different areas versus just continue. How many. How many papers are essentially exploring rather than exploiting familiar old ideas. And what you find is that there's a decline across all these indicators. Patents are less likely to be disruptive. Scientific papers are less likely to create, to offer new theories. So there's this kind of sense that we're kind of getting locked into the exploit mode instead of the explore mode of how we go through life as kids, as adults, as a society. And that does that. Ultimately, you would expect that that's going to make it harder for us to grapple with whatever challenges we're facing as a society over the coming century.
- [39:22]
Podcast Host - Sponsor/Intro Voice
Yeah.
- [39:22]
Jenny Urch - Podcast Host
You even talked about it in terms of movie sequels.
- [39:25]
Alex Hutchinson - Guest, Science Journalist and Author
Yeah, that's a great example.
- [39:26]
Jenny Urch - Podcast Host
I can't find it in my notes, but I was like, oh, my gosh. Yes.
- [39:29]
Alex Hutchinson - Guest, Science Journalist and Author
Yeah. So, and this is. There's a book, a great book called Algorithms to Live by by Brian Christian. And I'm forgetting the second author's name. Anyway, that came out about a decade ago and they first pointed this out. It's like, if you look in 1982, I think one out of the top 10 grossing movies was a sequel Might have been the Star wars one. I think in 1992 it was three. I'm estimating the numbers here, but basically it was something like three in the early 90s. A decade later it was like five. In 2012, it was eight. In 2022, all 10 of the top 10 grossing movies were either reboots or sequels. And so this is the idea that like, let's not come up with a new story. Let's just, we know that this other story made money, so let's, let's do another version of this same old story. And so we're, we're just telling us more versions of this, of an ever smaller number of stories.
- [40:23]
Jenny Urch - Podcast Host
Yes, you said this question. Without original new movies, where are the sequels? Where are tomorrow's sequels even gonna come from?
- [40:32]
Podcast Host - Sponsor/Intro Voice
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- [41:48]
Jenny Urch - Podcast Host
But this is all related. It's a very important read for parents because the creativity is tied to play and there has been this incredible decline in play. Creativity is not the same as intelligence, you write, and that the Torrance tests Which are the ones that predict adult creativity or they predict creativity. They measure creativity that they predict. Okay, I'm just watching this. The Torrance tests are the ones that measure creativity. You write they predict adult creative achievement three times more accurately than IQ tests. Problem solving skills are important, but so are problem finding skills. Problem and 85% of children in 2008. Now, this is before the iPhone. So this is what's so wild to me. I wonder what the numbers would be now. 85% of children in 2008 were less creative than the average child in 1990. So the difference there is not the iPad.
- [42:42]
Alex Hutchinson - Guest, Science Journalist and Author
Yeah, yeah.
- [42:43]
Jenny Urch - Podcast Host
The difference there is the shrinking of the home range, I would imagine.
- [42:47]
Alex Hutchinson - Guest, Science Journalist and Author
And there's, and there's a sense that, that if anything, that has accelerated in the age of the, you know, the iPhone and the iPad. But yeah, this is something that's been going on for, for decades. And I think that you start to see the signal in the Torrance test starting in the early 90s. But, you know, these. And it's really hard to know exactly what you know if you. What's causing this. One of the, among the theories, like in the 80s, is when you start to see newscasts saying, you know, it's six o', clock, do you know where your children are? Like, you know, someone was abducted 5,000 miles away from your home, therefore your kids should not be allowed to walk home from school by themselves. And look, I don't want my kids to be abducted either. Like, so I get it. But there were various different factors that were coming together to that. For whatever reason, society just sort of converged on this idea that kids needed to have less. Less freedom to roam.
- [43:50]
Jenny Urch - Podcast Host
Yeah, and it all goes back to this active, passive thing you wrote. Kids who roam widely around their neighborhood, spend more time outside and are physically active. They're able to pick up stronger navigation skills, which, that's one of the things you talk about, helps grow the brain, have greater knowledge of their surroundings, may even end up being less anxious as adults. In countries around the world, that home range has been shrinking steadily. There is a clear link between the skills you pick up playing freely and the skills you need to navigate the unknown. And that's the point we are going to be. They in particular are going to be navigating the unknown. Our kids are older than your kids. So we've got kids that are on the cusp of graduating and graduating from high school. And the conversations with all the parents center around. We have no idea how to guide them. Yeah, we don't Know, you, you no longer are in a situation where you can say, this would be a really good career choice, or, you know, why don't you go into law, why don't you go into medicine, why don't you go into teaching? You're like, you just don't know. And so to know how to navigate the unknown is such an important thing to have in this day and age. And you really touch on that in this book. It's called the Explorer's Gene. There's a quote that says, playing games is our highest calling. And some of the most innovative people were known, you know, in, in history were known to be famously playful. So you talk then so much about this active versus passive, passive entertainment leads nowhere. And I love this phrasing, Alex. You talk about endings that aren't yet written. What's going to happen if you kick that, you know, if you take that penalty kick, you know, you're the one at the soccer game. What's going to happen if you perform that concerto? And kids are not necessarily having the opportunity to do these things because they are spending six hours a day on screen time by the time they're eight years old.
- [45:41]
Alex Hutchinson - Guest, Science Journalist and Author
Yeah. And, you know, there's, there's a really maybe important point to pick up here, which is that these days it's very easy and very convenient to blame screens, to blame video games, to blame, you know, iPad and social media and all that stuff. And I think it's absolutely true that these things are all very attractive and they play a big role in how our kids spend their times. But one of the key, one of the points that, that one of the researchers I spoke to really tried to emphasize is like, yes, the screens are attractive, but what's the alternative? What are we offering them instead of, you know, it's like, you should go play outside, but you have to wear a helmet and stay on the front lawn. And it's like, well, maybe I don't want to go play. You know, part of the reason kids don't want to play outside is, is that we've made the outdoors much less attractive because we've, we've, we've out of a good, out of a, the purest of intentions and trying to protect them. We've, we've made, we've taken away their opportunities to explore. And so like, there's, there's research on, I can't remember the name the phrase they use, but basically you can score kids on what their independent mobility permissions are. It's like, so you ask at different ages like, are you allowed to go to the end of the street? How are you allowed to cross the street? Are you allowed to by your, you know, with kids, by yourself? Are you allowed to cross at a stop sign? Are you allowed to cross at a light? Are you allowed to take the bus by yourself? Are you allowed to ride your bike by yourself? How many miles? And you can. So you come up with this score, and then you can look at the kids who score higher on this, what they're allowed to do, and it's like, oh, well, let's see. How active and how fit are they going to be two years down the road? Well, not surprisingly, the kids who were allowed to do more, do more because it's more fun to go outside instead of go on your iPad. If you're allowed to go to the park by yourself, if you're allowed to go meet your friends and do things and just. Sorry not to ramble, but the active versus passive thing I think is so important. And the analogy that I sometimes use is like, if you're riding in the passenger seat of a car, you can drive through a city and you're seeing everything that's the same as the driver. Like, the windshield is the same. But you get to the end of that drive and you ask the two people in the car, how do we get back to where we started from? The driver is going to have a much better idea because they've had to pay attention to the world. They've had to. Whereas the passenger can just sit and chat and doesn't have to worry about, oh, okay, here's where we're turning right. Here's where we're turning left. And so I think the idea of being outside and playing actively is also a forcing function that makes you pay attention to the world and learn about it instead of just gliding through like you're on a Disneyland ride where things go past you, but you don't really have to pay attention to them.
- [48:18]
Jenny Urch - Podcast Host
Yeah, these are all incredible concepts for families to read. I, I just, I thoroughly enjoyed the book. As a page turner, I learned so much. You, you talk about how the. Actually, this has been a problem for a long time. In 1986, the, the home range had already begun to plummet.
- [48:35]
Podcast Host - Sponsor/Intro Voice
You told a story about a, a.
- [48:37]
Jenny Urch - Podcast Host
Kid who is on a trail. He gets lost. And they're like, well, he's six. How far could he have gone? You know, probably only two miles or probably. But it was like this huge range because the sort of physicality and the ability of children was different. But it was already dropping. You talked about the book Bowling Alone, which I'd heard of, but didn't realize it was written a while ago. You know that these societal changes, like you said, we tend to blame screens, but, like, this is already happening before the iPhone even came out. But you did. You did say screens are all the more attractive because exploring the real world is more boring than it used to be. What a statement, Alex. So it's on our shoulders. You know, you are. The real world in your world is not boring. You're gonna go snowshoe where you've not gone. You're gonna take your girls on these trails where you know there are no trails, and you're trying to figure out where to go. And it is inspiring to do things differently. You say, what does it mean to explore in a world where the urges that once drove us across oceans and into the unknown can be satiated, if only superficially, with the swipe of a finger? The primary way we are exploring today is our tech, and these algorithms are taking away our autonomy. So a lot in here about passive versus active entertainment. It is very inspiring. Talk to us about your athleticism. This kind of goes in line with both books. So you're the endurance guy, the science of endurance guy. And I just didn't even know there was this world that existed, Alex, like, where they're, you know, like Nike. They're trying to find, like, who has the highest VO2 max and who. Who can we bring in and can we get this marathon under two hours? And, you know, like, it's just all of these. This world, to me, that I didn't know anything about because it was fascinating to read about. But you're an athlete, and you're kind of exploring, really, your limits of endurance. But one of the things that you talked about in your journey here is trying different types of sports. And one of the ones that you tried is orienteering. So you're, like, used to racing. But then I think it's cool that there's all these different things near where we live. There is this. It's called Race to the Moon, I think it's called. And I've not done it, but, like, we keep saying we're gonna do it. There's a little lake by us. It's called Half Moon, Half Moon Lake.
- [50:57]
Opening/Closing Song Performer
And.
- [50:57]
Jenny Urch - Podcast Host
And it's a chain of lakes. So there's, like, these little river connections from, like, this lake to the other one. And it's called Race to the Moon because it's called Half Moon Lake. And they do like, like a 15 mile swim and a 10 mile and a five. So cool. And we are in this little town like that no one's ever heard about. But people come in from all over the country, all over the United States. I don't know if they come from out of the country, but we just happen, I didn't know about it. We happened to be there like on a Saturday at this little lake by our house. Like, we go there and swim and there's all this stuff set up.
- [51:29]
Podcast Host - Sponsor/Intro Voice
Alex.
- [51:30]
Jenny Urch - Podcast Host
And it would be like this man, 88 years old from Texas, you know, and they're, they're yelling out their times. So it's a really cool event. And I didn't realize that there's just so many, I think that's wonderful. So many ways to like stretch your body. So you're this runner, you're like training for the Olympics. And I know all about this endurance step and you try something new. I've actually not even heard of it. Orienteering. You did your first race in 2011. So can you talk about even that's, that's a bit of exploring, right? Like, you're not exploiting what you're already good at. You're gonna try a new kind of sport.
- [52:04]
Alex Hutchinson - Guest, Science Journalist and Author
Yeah. And it, it was exploring on, on, on two levels, right? Well, one is. Yeah. So I started running in high school and I ran through university and beyond university, I'd been running for a long time and doing a lot of races and, and everyone who does that eventually has to face like, okay, like, am I just gonna keep doing the same thing over and over again? Like, you know, especially as you get older, you're like, I'm not gonna get any faster now. It's kind of managed decline. So it's like, maybe try a different challenge. I've run lots of 5ks, I've run lots of 10ks, I've run lots of miles. Let's do this orienteering race. So that, so which, which an orienteering. Basically the, the gist is right before the race starts, they give you a map. It's got a bunch of checkpoints showing on the map and you have to go. So there's. You have to find your way through the forest or, you know, you have to. And you have to make these decisions like, should I go through this, like through the, through the river and through this deep forest or should I take the path which is a longer route so it'll be easier going but longer distance. So in a sense it was exploring in the physical sense, I'm Going through like conservation areas and discovering. But it was also exploring in the broader sense of like I'm having to use different skill sets and it turned out to be skills that I'm very bad at. I was, you know, going in the wrong direction many, many times or going through. Oh, it's like, oh, so that little symbol on the map that meant that this was a field of like thorn bushes. I should have known that because this is really painful. So yeah, this, it was a way of. It's a way of. And there's lots of things that in life that we get into the habit of doing and they can be very satisfying and there's nothing wrong with that, but it's, it's a reminder that as adults, you know, every once in a while I'll do something new and I'll realize, oh yeah, it's been a while since I've been this bad at something. Like, you know, as, as a 40 year old, no one can make me do things that I, I'm really, really bad at. But there's something really invigorating about trying something totally new, being terrible at it, but knowing that you're going to get better every time you do it because you're learning new skills, you're putting, taking your body in new directions and your mind in new directions.
- [54:06]
Jenny Urch - Podcast Host
That's what I loved about it because you said this is a combination of physical and mental exercise going on the word habit. You say that you can do these things that are an anti habit. Exploration is an, is an anti habit. You're not getting stuck in a routine. You say it's easy to get stuck in suboptimal routines. So you go on this orienteering race and you said you're. This is obviously it's engaging your body, right, because you're running, it's a race but you're like, it's engaging your mind in a different way and it's this combination of the physical and mental that really allow you to really be in the moment, have this heightened state of awareness. You said you're in a tight battle with a bunch of 13 year old girls.
- [54:48]
Alex Hutchinson - Guest, Science Journalist and Author
Yeah, that was a humbling moment because you know, I, I had a very high opinion of. It was a team race, a three, three person race and we were all pretty like experienced grown up men and, and towards the end of the race we just found ourselves in this battle and, and every, you know, we, at each checkpoint we'd be like those, those girls there and so we'd take off and try and like drop Them, but we'd go on the wrong direction, and they were smarter than us, so they'd go in the right direction. And so we'd show up in the next checkpoints like, they're there in front of us again. So, you know, that. That was definitely like a. A nice signal that, hey, you can get better at this, Alex. There's. There's. There's things to learn here because it's. It's just as much about making good decisions as, you know, under the conditions of fatigue and stress as it is about just running as fast as you can.
- [55:31]
Jenny Urch - Podcast Host
Yeah. Yeah. It's very inspiring. And that was actually a really cool full circle moment, because then when you were reading later on, you're, like, studying because you're this journalist and you're looking at all these articles and you come across one that's about orienteering. And what was like, one of the girls that was in the race had written the article.
- [55:47]
Alex Hutchinson - Guest, Science Journalist and Author
Cool.
- [55:47]
Jenny Urch - Podcast Host
This is a cool full circle moment. And just. It shows. You live it. You. You know, you lived it with your wife. You know, you're going on all these adventurous things, but now you're living it with your kids. You're living it in this state of being an incredible athlete but trying different things where you're competing against, you know, middle school girls and. And trying something new, and it just gets your mind spinning. I want to hit this one last thing. I thought it was really interesting, the upper. Upper confidence bound algorithm, which is about, like, when do you stop? You talked about it in terms of. The fiance was a good one. You know, like, is this person. Or there's. Is there someone else? Should I stop now or should I keep looking? You talked about it in terms of looking for a home. You know, it's like, okay, oh, I've looked at 10 homes. If I looked at 30 homes, you know, how do you know when to stop exploring? So can you talk? And you use. You relate this to regret. So I did. I loved this. This optimal stopping. Most people settle too soon.
- [56:45]
Alex Hutchinson - Guest, Science Journalist and Author
Yeah. This is so. I mean, again, this is one of these patterns that shows up in. In all parts of life. It's like, how do I know when enough is enough? And. And I would say I tried not to make this book a midlife crisis book, but there is a little bit of a sense of like, all right, I was, you know, I spent my mid-40s writing this book, and it's a time when it's okay. My career is on track and I've got kids, and it's like, you know, am I going to spend the next 30 years trying to like, claw my way higher on the, the status scale or, you know, or, you know, am I going to give up and just retire? Well, I can't do that quite yet. But I mean, there's a point where you start to wonder like, okay, what am I chasing right now? What. And what's, what's important? And I think about, you know, the analogy to exploring is like, you look at all these explorers who discovered new continents or new places and it's like, wow, that must have been amazing. And then you keep, you flipped the page. It's like, and on his next expedition, he sailed off the edge of the earth and died or whatever. And it's like a lot of these people were so drawn to keep pushing the boundaries that they, you know, they kept going until basically they died or until they, until they made, you know, their choices caught up with them. And so there, as much as I think exploring is important, I think it's also important to think about where are you trying to get and what, what is, what is important. And you know, the ultimate cliche that we've all heard is, you know, you should value the journey, not the destination. Those are words and I've heard them a billion times. But I really came to the end of this book thinking that it, it really is. That is like, I can't imagine, like Endure was a successful book. That was wonderful. I could write a book maybe, maybe I'll write a book someday that's more successful than that. It's not going to change. It's, it's, it's fundamentally not going to. Like, I, I shouldn't mortgage everything in my current life just for the hope that something else is going to be better because things are already really good and I should appreciate that. But I shouldn't just stop exploring because that's also. And so that you, you mentioned this idea of the upper confidence bound algorithm, which is jargon for, but coming from this body of work, this sort of 60 years of people trying to study the explore, exploit dilemma and say, how do we, okay, we can't solve it, we can't give you a perfect answer, but what's the best approach? What's the best rule of thumb? And that's the rule of thumb they come up with. And another way of putting it is optimism in the face of uncertainty, which is that if you're facing two choices and you know, they both have uncertainty, you're not sure how they're going to turn out. A good Rule of thumb is to pick the one with the best upside. What's the one that if things turned out well, would be most exciting for you. It doesn't mean that if you pick it, it's going to turn out well. You might take that. Take the job that has the path that leads to the. What you think is your dream job and, but it doesn't lead there and it doesn't turn out well. That's fine. But this, what they can show mathematically, which is cool to me, is that being optimistic in the face of uncertainty, taking the option that has the chance of leading to something really exciting to you is the best way of minimizing regret, of. Best way of not sitting around and thinking. You know, the way I think about it is like there. If I think back to high school dances, I never, you know. You know, it sucks to ask someone to dance and have them to say no, but you're going to regret that less than all the times you just stood there and never tried and never asked someone. You. You want to give it a shot and, and failure sucks, but it's. It's better than not trying.
- [60:23]
Jenny Urch - Podcast Host
Yeah. Yeah. You say exploration pays off in the long run. What a book. What a book. Endured it unexpectedly well. It positioned me to perfectly brand myself as a science of endurance guy. You could have milked that role for the rest of your working life, but the spark of learning something new was gone. And so basically you have taken this path and people can follow and then done all the science about why and how to explain it. It is phenomenal and it will affect your parenting. The book is called the Explorer's Gene why We Seek Big challenges, New flavors, and blank spots on the map. I loved reading it, Alex. We always end our show with the same question. What's a favorite memory from your childhood that was outside?
- [61:05]
Alex Hutchinson - Guest, Science Journalist and Author
I think one of my favorite memories as I have a favorite uncle, my Uncle Wolf, who really, I think was the spark for me of finding ways of exploring without going to Mount Everest or the North Pole, of. In the neighborhood. And so I, I probably thinking of him because I'm gonna go snowshoeing today since it's a snow day here. He's the one who, when I would visit him in Quebec, he would take me out on these hikes or these snowshoes, and I think we were going to follow this path, but we'd be, you know, five minutes into the hike and he'd say, yeah, I think we can. We could probably just cut up the side of this hill here. Why don't we, and, and you know, there's big signs saying like no trespassing or whatever, but it's, and there's a path and oh, then don't worry about that. Let's just see if we can make, I bet, I bet if we cut through this valley here, we can make it and rejoin the path up there. And I, you know, it was terrifying to me as a kid, but, but it's like, I look back and it's like it's one of the most formative things. I, I, I loved the feeling that we were trying something new, going somewhere different and that every trip would be different.
- [62:10]
Jenny Urch - Podcast Host
And now you're about to go do it with your girls because it's a snow day. Alex, what an honor. What an honor. Thank you so much for being here.
- [62:18]
Alex Hutchinson - Guest, Science Journalist and Author
I sincerely, like, I've done a bunch of interviews. I, I really loved talking to you because you really were interested, you know, read the book and were interested in the ideas and connected with them. So it's really a pleasure. Thanks, Jenny. I love the conversation and thanks so much for having me.
- [62:34]
Podcast Host - Sponsor/Intro Voice
Thanks so much for listening today. If this episode gave you something to think about, send it to one person who would appreciate this perspective that one share is how this show reaches new listeners. And if you want a zero cost way to support this podcast, make sure you're following on Apple podcasts or Spotify. Go to the show page and tap follow. It takes a few seconds and it's one of the biggest signals you can send that this show is worth showing to more people. And a quick note, February is stacked. Every episode is already recorded and there is so much to look forward to. You'll want those episodes landing automatically in your feed. If you're looking for a practical next step after this conversation, you can grab our free Tracker sheets at 1000hoursoutside.comTrackers or join us in the 1000hours Outside app on iOS and Android. I'm really glad you're here. Until next time. May you find extraordinary moments on ordinary paths.
- [63:22]
Opening/Closing Song Performer
Get outside open your eyes Feel that sunshine kissing your skin Throw your worries.
- [63:29]
Jenny Urch - Podcast Host
Out to the wind.
- [63:34]
Opening/Closing Song Performer
Climb some trees Skin your knees Feel that grass on your feet again get out there and take it in.
- [63:44]
Alex Hutchinson - Guest, Science Journalist and Author
Oh.
- [63:47]
Opening/Closing Song Performer
It'S a beautiful world Ain't nothing on Scream is ever going to beat this view. Oh, it's a beautiful world and I just want to share with I just want to share with you this beautiful world Such a beautiful world.