Paul Rosolie: preference

Transcript context

…What advice would you give to young people on how to do that? Those young Pauls sitting there, and your life story’s just incredible in that way. You’ve taken a leap into adventure— …into the unknown. What would you recommend they do? I think the thing that I try to communicate to them—and again, my inboxes are filled with people from Finland, Spain, Georgia, saying, “How do I get your job? How do I get out there and do it?”—and it really is just that: you throw yourself headfirst into adventure. You just do it. And I remember hearing people say that, like, “You know, if I can do it, you can do it.” And I remember how hollow that sounds because I’m like, “Yeah, you’re on a talk show or you just wrote a book.” These titans of their industries and innovators saying, “Oh, if I can do it, anybody can do it.” But now that we’re protecting all this rainforest and that I’ve lived with the animals and met the tribes, and it’s becoming this global movement—you know, I didn’t have a PhD. There’s that quote that someone less qualified than you is living your dream life and has your dream job right now, and I am the poster child for that because I failed out of high school and started taking unmatriculated college classes and going to the jungle with my friend JJ and just doing it for the sheer love of it for years, almost a decade, before anything surfaced. And the other thing is there’s not even a path. There was no path ahead of us. There was no, “Okay, you go to school, you get trained in this, and you’re going to become this.” I went there and it was like, “You’re never going to be a conservation biologist because you don’t have the grades. You don’t have a PhD.” You don’t have family money. You’re not going to be able to protect rainforests.” So I said, “All right, well then, selfishly, I just want to see it.” And then I ended up getting trained by the indigenous people, and like what happens so many times—you could use a restaurant example—where you might start washing dishes, but at least you’re in the restaurant, you know? And then at some point, the manager’s going to need you to help with restocking and so on. And at some point after a few years, you’re going to be helping the new guy, and at some point you might end up being the manager, and at some point you might end up in a position where you’re starting your own restaurant. That’s the only way to do that. You can’t just search it on a computer. You have to go sweat and bleed and do it. And that said, especially if you fall in love with the journey that you take on, it is full of difficult periods. I think you said somewhere this just seems to be the nature of it. That there’s going to be pain, there’s going to be suffering along the way. You have a really nice post… …That I recommend people watch about just this. When people ask for advice, that the hardship, the suffering— …and I’ve seen how much you care. I’ve seen it in your face when you see a tree being cut down or you see the fires. There’s real pain there in your heart and you have to carry that. And so the post is, “How honest can I be? What do I tell these kids who message me asking how they can do what I do? It’s not David versus Goliath. There’s no sword or sling that can hold back a dragon this big. You’re going against the current of global economic entropy and human apathy. Swimming against the current is tiring, a great way to drown. Every day, we don’t win, we lose, and when we do, worlds burn. The more you know, the more it bleeds. The heartbeats all stop when the flames come through. Constellations of species turn to ghosts, and we’re the only ones saving them.” “Cupped our hands around a candle in the howling darkness. And people want to be inspired. Keep that social media going, keep it up. You’re doing great. They want to know we’re winning, and we’ve done a lot of winning, but not right now. We’re getting slaughtered. We’re at that part of the story. We’re almost at the end game. We can think as positively as we want. Thoughts and prayers won’t stop a chainsaw, and the motor that’s carrying us against the current towards the miraculous goal only works when there’s gasoline in it. As soon as that stops, we drown. We can take the warm light from all of those who help and not let it bother us that there are people who could buy a planet’s claim to care.” At some point you realize what’s really happening.” “As a kid you’d rather be Aragorn. You don’t want to actually carry the ring, not when you learn what it’s going to cost, even if you make it. How can you explain to Sam why you can’t get on the boats? Whatever it takes, whatever it takes. It’s that time of year again. Here come the flames. Whatever it takes, it’s coming.” And people should watch the video that goes along with this. But that speaks to the pain, the difficulty, the challenge, the suffering involved— …when you’re faced with the possibility of destruction. And that’s the other side of the sword of caring for something deeply.…

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