Posting From Empty

Another letter to safari guides.

Some of the most beautiful sunsets you have ever double-tapped were posted by people running on empty. I know. One of them was me.

I have posted a sunset from inside my tent on a night I was not okay, and let everyone who saw it believe I was living the dream. That was the point. I put up the beautiful thing, the sky going orange over the bush, and I watched the comments come in. You live the dream. So lucky. Every one of them made the mask fit a little tighter.

A while back I wrote a letter to guides. Somewhere in it I said the world sees the curated posts and misses everything behind them. I want to walk you inside one of those posts now. Mine. Here is the part I left out.

There were evenings I got back to camp and did not want to be there. Tired in a way sleep does not touch. And I would still pick up my phone and post the lion at golden hour, the fire, the drinks with the guests. Not for them. For me.

To convince the world, and mostly to convince myself, that it was as good as everyone kept telling me it was.

That is the trap. The better you hide it, the louder the applause. The feed does not reward the truth. It rewards the mask. So you get very good at the mask, and every notification is proof it is working. You are congratulated, in real time, for the exact thing hollowing you out.

For a lot of guides, posting is not even a choice. The lodge needs the content to fill beds. The freelance and private guides know next month’s income, next year’s income, rides on the feed staying hot. So the days you have the least to give are the exact days the machine still needs you to perform. That is the job asking you to sell the dream on the days you can barely feel it.

I once wrote that we are better at reading spoor than reading ourselves. This is what I meant. We can read a track in the sand from a moving vehicle at thirty kilometres an hour. We struggle to read the one person we carry everywhere.

There are guides doing exactly that right now. This season. Posting the best sightings of their careers and holding a lot more than anyone can see. That is a strong person carrying a heavy load well, and it deserves to be seen for what it is instead of dressed up or explained away.

The problem was never the guide. The problem is the unwritten rule that says you are not allowed to admit this is hard when your office is the river at first light.

Do not hate the player. Hate the game. The guilt gets loaded on twice, once by you, and once by an industry that hands it over for finding the dream difficult.

There is a way to do this well. I know, because I found it. So here is the plainest thing I will say. I am at peace. Not happy. Peace of mind, which is worth far more. At peace with what I am doing and how I am doing it. Not because it got easier, but because I did the work, and the work was the hardest, sharpest thing I have ever done. Sorting out the inner game is not going soft. It is the most tactical move a guide can make. Burning out is not a badge of honour. It is a tactical error, and I was done making it.

The proof shows up in the exact place the wound was. I still post. But now when I put up a sunset there is nothing behind it. No proving. No convincing you, no convincing myself. I saw something worth sharing, so I shared it. Same app, same sunset, a completely different man holding the phone. The tool was never the villain. The emptiness behind it was.

I built something for this. It is out in the field already, quietly, with real teams, and it works. I am not going to turn this into a pitch, because that would cheapen it. I will just say the thing I could not find when I needed it now exists, and I built it on purpose.

They say you should not set yourself on fire to keep other people warm. I finally understand it.

I am not setting myself on fire to keep anyone warm.

I am setting myself on fire to light the way.

G.