Life Advice from a Man in the Mountains – Martijn Doolaard (Ep. 04)

Ahead of me lies a project unlike anything I've ever done before. I now must learn an entirely new set of skills. This spring, I left my life in the city in search of a new home in the countryside. After a few months of looking, I found a house. And while my search has been wildly beautiful and exhilarating, it has also been a big leap for me into the unknown. Make no mistake, I'm also scared because I don't know what I'm doing. Being afraid and feeling alive seem to be inextricably linked for me. I cannot seem to separate the two. Maybe that's why I'm so drawn to these changes. I like pushing myself and learning. So here I am now, with a mission. I want to learn to live out here. To make this space my own. Now, there was one man's work that I stumbled across that really inspired me to go all out with this project. The thing is, he lives deep in the mountains, but I knew I needed to ask him for advice about this new chapter of my life. What he told me has really stuck with me, and now I want to share it with you. When you're young, a lot of things are scary, but scary and exciting is like they go together. That's how life needs to be. You want to do the things you're a little bit scared of. As you might recall, I spent a lot of the spring unable to drive because I didn't yet have my French driver's license. Freezing being out here in the countryside without a car even with a bike very very challenging. I do not recommend it Well, I've got good news I got that license and it was going to come in handy because I needed a way to get up into the Italian Alps So I'm here with my good friend Lucas who has been in a couple of previous videos About to head up a mountain to meet a Dutchman by the name of Martijn Dullard who about three years ago bought a couple of cottages up in the Italian Alps and I think using the word cottage is a little bit generous it was more like two ruins and he's had to do everything and for him I think this has just been part of the adventure learning a completely new way of life learning all the skills you need to repair and live in a place like this he has his own YouTube channel that i'll link to that you can check out maybe the most inspiring part of martin's story for me is like just one day he decided i'm going to live in the mountains with no previous experience i mean he's from the flattest country in the world and now he lives on a mountain yeah but it's almost like it helps me dream big about the things i want to do you know and that's what i'm hoping to get out of this as well with each snaking turn it slowly dawned on me just how far up the mountain he lived wow this is insane oh my god i don't want to think about the cars that have potentially fallen down this mountain he drives up and down this every time he wants to go home this is gnarly holy smokes oh my god the reactions he must get every time Martin welcomed us into his home and quickly our conversation touched on the topic of embarking on something new. For context, he often references the two year-long bike trips around the world that he did in his 30s, which were the focus of his life prior to this latest project in the Alps. It's not only that you have space to think, like you were just saying, it's also when I was thinking about doing this and you live in the city where there's a lot of things going just on a mountain you're gonna be bored you know people but the thing we just talked about just noticing all the details of nature changing yeah that is all that's all happening you don't know that's there you're in the city what was going through your mind when you were thinking about this project was it scary yeah it was but it also wasn't because I had busy these long bike journeys before this project so a lot of traveling and a lot of camping but even that was a big leap into the unknown yeah so before that I'd say that was a bigger leap than doing this but it's also steps I think nobody just quits their full-time job they've been doing for years and then the next day they'll do this huge adventure there's a little a few steps in between i think for me was i had a full-time job and i started freelancing a bit more free time right saved some money because with freelance i made more money so i just saved some money at some point like all right i have some money i want to do this i want to do a bike journey kind of figure out the costs costs are quite low bike travel if you camp a lot you know and i was just looking at the situation i thought yeah i think if i'm ready now i can do it But I was 32 already. I was not super young, you know. I think a lot of people now, like 20-somethings, are feeling that pressure. I need to do something with my life, but I had a bit of a career. Like, I started working quite early, 21, out of school. Yeah, from my 20s, I just had to work a lot. I mean, my first job was at a design firm in Amsterdam. So, it was my first time living in the big city. So, when you're 21, that's super exciting, you know. international firm there were English firm there may not want to belong them so that's my English is very bad oh really I was scared of everything you know and so it was a scary leap into city life and super exciting all of your adult life has been a series of scary leaps yeah but I mean when you're young a lot of things are scary yeah I just move into a new city yeah like oh wow but scary and exciting is like they're they go together they need to go together that's how life gets to be like you want to do the things you're a little bit scared off and then when you do them we think all right I'm all right do you think at this age now you just have this kind of built-up tolerance to just be able to take on a new project and even if you don't know what you're doing it's just like well I've gone through that before yeah yeah I think so I mean in your 20s you're a bit more like you want to go for it and now it's kind of like alright I did I've done all these things you know what you want now and also I feel satisfied because I've done those things like I like traveling making books writing stories about it it feels like something nice to look back on but But I'm still keeping going, I'm making videos every week, right? Dude, I was gonna say, slowing down? The amount of work that is still going on right now. Yeah, it's a lot of work. And commitment. It's a good pace for me. I mean, maybe I mean slowing down is I don't feel restless about what I want with my life. Because I'm just now living my life and it's a good life. So restless is part of being young. of like all right who am i in this world and what i can what can i do but it can eat you up as well so you have to kind of find a balance that it doesn't do that that it that it gives you sort of an energy to undertake things and at the same time you need to take it in day by day of like all right it doesn't happen overnight you know you need to build things up things take time and you don't know if it's gonna be successful i do like the idea of something needs to be scary because that's how you come further you know to make a choice like i'm not sure if i can do it you can probably do it if you just figure it out and just take take the leap have you ever thought about where you got the confidence to do scary things i think later in life um after the bike journey after the bike journey i felt like someone that did something because I went back to my sort of graphic design jobs as a freelancer because you can't come back and you know come back and see what you're gonna do us maybe make some money because I was broke and then he's step in the office and you don't need that I wasn't even talking about it was felt like walking to a middle in a meeting you feel like all right but I stood on mountains with that bicycle you know makes you feel confident yeah stupid little things and but you're not you know you don't have to boast about it but it just makes you feel I mean I've done scary things I mean I've crossed rivers in Argentina like border crossing Chile in Argentina the worst day of the year was just pouring rain and all the rivers were high need to go through rivers I almost like drowned lost a bike there's like video footage of that it was crazy if i look back on it i think like why do what but you're in the moment on that day in that location far away from everything that's funny you're saying you found the courage to do scary things after the bike trip but the bike trip itself was like an insane project yeah it sounds like you just have to do hard things and the confidence will come later yeah well yeah it will grow no but like that situation i just described you have no choice like i started from my front door in Amsterdam where the roads are paved and it's all flat and the Sun is shining it's very easy to travel by bicycle in the Netherlands and you come in Germany and it's all the same and some slowly the hills are starting you think oh wow that bike is very happy what am I doing it you got first gears up on those hills and they have the downhill and like oh wow that's nice why and then slowly you know you go through Eastern Europe you get further things get a bit rougher and in bulgaria and turkey dogs are chasing you you know those big white dogs and whoa some hairy situations with dogs whoa like legitimately chasing you yeah no you have a pack of dogs even on a beach like that it was yeah it was rough it was on a beach in on a salt lake to school in the center of turkey it's not like you picked scary situations they just kind of crept up on they happen if you go yeah if you go on such a big journey that's all these kind of things so i guess once you go through stuff like that this doesn't it's not as bad anymore because you know you can do it it shapes you yeah and if it happens again you're not scared anymore with anything it's like that but you wanted to do this because it was a little scary right it had a little bit of that excitement factor you were saying fear and excitement come together yeah so a part of you was like wow this is this is ambitious yeah this was yeah it was less scary i would say than the bike trips fair enough but um still exciting enough and there has been scary moments there's wolves here in the mountains and i remember the first time i encountered them uh not visually but you hear them howling with the moon it's like it's the cliche really like yeah when the moon is out they they howl and you're alone yeah i couldn't sleep i was sleeping in the cabin i was kind of camping in the cabin was at the beginning when it was not restored yet. I couldn't sleep so I thought I'm gonna go for a walk it was like 2 a.m. or so so I remember I walked up here and then I hear them like whoa quite close like we were just on the other side there whole pack of wolves and if it's the first time you hear wolves howling and you're not in on the grid but just far away here in the mountains it's it's epic wow how does it work if if you're filming every week and like making a video every week does it happen sometimes where I feel like okay actually I really don't feel like it I'm not gonna do anything this week or is that kind of erased because that purpose that you came into this project with at the very beginning is so strong that it actually helps you push forward the video making and all that yeah because there's only a negative road if you start there I don't want to you have to go people go to work if you don't go to work you lose your job it's almost like you don't let yourself think about it right yeah just ignore it if you really need a holiday just plan that in or you live towards it or a weekend could be that you know so but there's a lot of times we don't want to do the thing we need to do after our conversation with the Sun setting we had a little barbecue a lot of what Martijn said resonated with me. Made me think that any journey truly worth embarking on will have scary moments. And you need those moments to grow. In some ways, that's why you embark on the journey in the first place. Martijn, Lucas, and I would end up having several more really thought-provoking conversations during our time in the mountains that I want to share with you. But before we get to that, I want to thank the sponsor of this video first. And that is Storyblocks. And I have kind of an insane story to tell, actually, because I very nearly couldn't actually make this video about my time in the ops. What just happened? On the very last day just as we were saying our goodbyes, Martin started driving away and accidentally drove over Lucas's camera bag. It was a total accident of course, but still I was having a little internal meltdown because while Lucas and I were both shooting the experience up there, his camera was still in the camera bag and none of his footage had been backed up yet. Luckily we didn't lose the material. The SD card was fine. But the one main thing that broke is your This is my ND filter that was there. No, a glimmer glass. Fortunately, if you ever do lose some footage, or no longer have the chance to capture what you need to tell your story properly, there's a solid alternative, and that is Storyblocks. Storyblocks has a huge library of stock footage, images, music, sound effects, and motion graphic assets. And you can get access to everything in an unlimited amount of downloads, all for the same subscription cost. That doesn't change depending on how much material you use. It's really convenient to lean on tools like Storyblocks to help tie things together and make a great video. If you're interested to get started with unlimited stock media downloads at one set price, you can go to storyblocks.com slash NathanielDrew or click the link in the description. Thanks Storyblocks for funding this project. It was honestly a bit of a dream come true. And now, back to the mountains we go. In the morning, it came time to begin helping Martijn with his work on the property. Help is maybe too strong of a word. I don't suspect I'm the best worker Martijn has ever had over. It's pretty obvious, I don't know what I'm doing. But you don't feel life is short? No, life is pretty long, I'd say. Yeah, it's a big project, you just take it day by day. But work isn't the right word to describe it. No, it's just time well spent. Yeah. I'd say. I enjoy the work. And if I don't enjoy the work, I'll make sure I have a nice lunch, I watch a good movie in the evening. So you make your day nice. if your work is a bit rough then you just slice it up so it's not too much in one go some people go to the gym it's not nice work either but you do it if you want to feel healthier it's kind of pointless go to the gym you can pick up some rocks and build a house yeah because then you have something to show for it afterwards you build something Martin showed me how to scrape the bark off the wood logs in preparation for a new fence he was planning to build. You need to see the wood, the white, the lighter, this. Okay. This is harder than it looks, at least for me. I'm slow and I don't have the stamina built up yet for this kind of work. Just because I am that way now, doesn't mean I have to be forever. I've lived enough life now to know that if I'm determined in what I'm doing, things that were not possible before become possible. The key seems to be in finding your rhythm, which I know I will need time to figure out. So Lucas and I toiled away preparing the materials for this fence. Life is a long distance run. No point getting worn out in the first hour. When he puts up this fence, I'm going to feel so proud. I'll be like, that's the most beautiful fence I've ever seen. Looks like it took a lot of work. and I had the privilege to talk with Martijn as we shared meals together, and over breakfast I asked him about his thoughts on loneliness. So this is like a pancake you made? Pancake with milk, though, instead of water. Dutch-making with water. It's like a crepe. So I just wanted to ask you about what you were saying yesterday. Maybe not that you see more people now than when you were living in Amsterdam, I'm not sure that's possible, but like there's a sense of community here, even out here. Yes, the sense of community is probably bigger the smaller the amount of people right that's funny enough because you feel connected More because it's less choice what I find out here is like yeah There's just a few neighbors and you know all of them and it's really up to you If you want to use that as well, I mean you can enjoy your solitude here if you want There's a fear of Moving to the countryside and being lonely. That's I think like a genuine fear for a lot of people I know, but loneliness comes in so many versions. I mean it's easier here than in the city, I think people in the city feel more lonely quickly. Pair yourself less with other people if you stay off your phone. And homesteading is just a lot of work, so what gives purpose to this kind of life here and doesn't make you feel alone is like there's so much things to do, constantly cleaning things up, cutting grass, a lot of little tasks. this is a topic it's it's very complex you know I think it has to do with a lot of things with longings and wanted to be in a place in the world or a place in your life and you're not there you're not there yet it has to do with expectations and life goals it's complex what makes you feel alone it's not necessarily a lonelier life out here in the mountains no it's not I mean I'm lucky with a few nice neighbors that's one thing and how many friends do you need I'm with it's not many right a few good people around I think you like two or three is like an amazing amount already here because all those communities a bit more smaller and close-knit it's like you have more connection with these people yeah loneliness is not an issue for me at all here you have to try that out just go for a walk in the forest and go a little it further than you plan to do and do it on your own and then you say yeah I'm scared of that well that's why you have to do it fear is not real you know it's just feeling in here yeah it's not I mean some mechanism that is the useful kind of like don't do very stupid stuff you know but fears can be overcome eventually our conversations drifted towards endings project endings and their role in the evolution of a person this project meets and it needs to stop as as well. Every good thing has to end at the right time, not too late. You can milk a project like this. When all the building is finished, I would be still making the YouTube videos and I would just be reading books here. Only chicken shots. It needs a start and it needs And it will come in a few years, not soon, but it will come there. It's nice to celebrate an end, you know, and be sad about it, but knowing like, all right, this was, this is reaching its sort of end point and then you move on to something else. It sounds like you hold two tenants. The first is that you see a project through and two, there's an art almost to picking the right time when something is done. Yeah, it's very, very tricky with something that's successful. People want to drag it out. Like TV shows, with Seinfeld for example, you know, they're like, I don't like Seinfeld at all. They stopped when they were very popular. And then everyone's memory is like, ah, Seinfeld, it was a great show. Because it didn't linger on too long. Same with a band. If a band is not that good anymore, it's better to stop. Yeah. Almost as a visual metaphor for what he was talking about, Martijn showed me how a dying tree that had been cut was now exploding out with new sprouts for a new tree. And because of all the juice that's still in the tree, it's still shooting, you see? It's becoming a new tree. It's amazing that it shoots like that. You understand living in nature also that death is as important as birth, you know? Birth is always celebrated and death is always like, oh, it's sad, but it's also very necessary. Yeah. Kind of a, it's kind of a paradox. it's like six months of death kind of yeah there was a winter yeah death starts in uh end of summer you can see it i mean i can see it now so the lily of the valley is um comes out in end of may it's a beautiful lily you can still see them there they're already dying and those are dying too there's little leaves on the ground wow but you don't notice it because that's a replacement yeah these are coming through this is also the last week of these ones they're dying too they have short life do i like what oh raspberries yeah i do can i try one out yeah last year's growth here these are raspberries from last year you see it it's totally dried out yeah when you finished the bike ride how long did you celebrate it before you were on to the next thing well celebrating the making the book is a way of celebrating it's kind of like go back in all of those memories finishing the bike trip was no celebration at all it's like a it's like a fade out arriving in Ushuaia on a cloudy day there was like no emotions it was nothing like all right we're done all right okay i have to find a book of flight find a box for the bicycle and store it's not a very exciting place i think people that have done big projects when it comes to an end it's not exciting this is over it's usually a little bit sad but after that i mean you look back and it's been a good experience and you've grown personally you look back at it all right yeah that was something that i did it was good it's a bit like watching a movie too i think most movies have not a very good ending i find when a movie ends like and it's a good movie i think like ah it's too bad i enjoyed watching that movie but now it's finished it's funny how we have this bias towards final results things turning out a certain way and yet like 99.5 percent of the whole thing is just getting there and then that is a special moment maybe yeah and then it's done martin's philosophy on what he's doing in the mountains was for me a reminder of a basic truth that i still sometimes forget. It's really not about where you end up. There's no point rushing to the finish line. It seems like Martijn is in the middle of his latest project, his latest journey. As for me, well, I actually don't know how long this latest project of mine will go for. This, like all things, will end. I try not to look at the finish line though. I just know that right now, when I wake up every day, there's work that awaits me. I have a lot to learn. And it's that last lot more than anything that energizes me. Because I'm excited to see where all this goes and what I will discover. I'm excited to see who I will become.

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Timestamps:

0:00 – Intro: My leap into the unknown
0:54 – A man in the mountains
2:49 – Getting up the mountain
3:33 – Part I: Doing Scary Things
13:40 – Sponsor
15:04 – Part II: Doing Good Work
17:48 – Part III: Loneliness