She didnât run for freedom. She ran to survive.
âšFrom rural Guizhou to the world of trail running, @yaomiao1 turned endurance into a livelihood â each finish line a chance to redefine her future.
No Life Defined. Read Yao Miaoâs empowering story in Issue 03 of New Mountain Magazine.
Photographs & original story by @cortneywhite_ & @snackfarmer âšWritten and adapted for print by @so.roge
#newmountainmag #trailrunning #print
âWhatâs the difference between living and surviving? Most of us never had to wonder. @arthurbourbon hadnât either. Until a single wave, captured somewhere on the West African coast, cracked open his way of seeing the world. It could have remained just another surf-porn image â warm water, perfect lines, a far-off promise. But something in that wave had a different taste.
There was a name attached to it: Liberia.â
Living vs Surviving [Issue 03] â read in print now.
Words by @so.roge
Photos by @arthurbourbon
#newmountainmag #surf #print
Summer 1965, California. Robin Lee Graham is gone.Â
The kid has set sail in his 24-foot sloop, Dove. Ahead of him, the ocean. In his back, a life he was already bored of. Five years and 30,000 miles later, he became at age 16 the youngest person to ever circumnavigate the world solo. He never really knew why he did so. He just wanted to explore, not much more.
Away. Elsewhere. You know this gut feeling asking us what is there? Behind this door, across the fence, the border. The sea, maybe. Some will stay and wonder, others will dare to go and see.  âYou can never cross the ocean until you have the courage to lose sight of the shoreâ, Robin Lee Graham said, one day.Â
There is comfort in home and habits. Itâs about familiarity. Quitting can be kind of scary. Thatâs probably why the rest of the world claims Robin and all those wanderers are kind of crazy. Just tramps, really. By stepping sideways they become voluntary castaways, sentenced out of society. Or safely escaped from the sinking boat that it is?
Itâs funny. The truth is, humans have lived as nomads for most of history. We are travellers. Think back to your oldest memories. Chances are itâs about itineraries. The way to school, the road of holidays. Our nature lies in movement. Just like the sun, the wind, the clouds. The birds and the tides. In impermanence life resides.
Our most ancient stories are about great journeys. Remember The Odyssey. That thick book we still get to read at school. A decade to wander all around the Mediterranean Sea and encounter so many different places and ways of being. Ulysses found his own way, from one island to the other, through tempests and sunshine, wonders and monsters.
 âHeureux qui comme Ulysse a fait un long voyageâ (Happy he who, like Ulysses, has made a great journey). Maybe Robin had read this poem. Maybe he knew the secret is there. Somewhere between the waves and the sky, the blue and the light, with salty lips and open heart.
~
A little text I wrote for @red_tour_ aka @guifurt published in Red Tour « Castaway » đ
2022 cheesy narcissistic post you said? Iâm in. Surfed my best waves, climbed my hardest routes, reached my highest summit, tried paragliding, went to Asia and on my last flight, got featured in a surf magazine, lived in a tiny house in the woods (and in my brotherâs attic), said Ate JĂĄ to my beloved Portugal and my favorite people, got adult and a loan, bought a van and fully converted it, moved to the Alps, got harassed by a pigeon for months, worked on my first movie, got paid to write poetry, made two new magazines, got to collaborate with amazing artists and people I shared values with, celebrated @lesothers 10 years anniversary, reconnected with old friends and family, finally mastered handstands and own my own driller, turned 30 and survived.
Happy new year everyone đ