When Lauren Hough set off on a road trip across America with Woody, her husky mix and extremely excellent constant companion, it was partly because there were always reasons not to take the trip. Always reasons not to sit by the redwoods, swim in the creeks, see the ocean.
Sometimes people wait so long, they never see the places they always wanted to see, and then it’s too late.
It was partly because Texas Highways kept sending her out on the road to cover stories, and Lauren likes to drive. But also, it was because the internet had “broken her brain.” In Monster of a Land: On the Road in Search of Modern America, Lauren captures the experience of being chronically online, and what it’s doing all of us. Things you can’t do while driving: scroll on your phone, answer texts, check Twitter.
It’s easy to dehumanize people on a device, we all know this. It’s another thing to be on the receiving end of a wild lack of compassion when you’re going through a tragedy — personally or collectively. If you live in places like Texas, Florida, California — any state with extreme weather that is also hated by “the left” or “the right” — then you know exactly how it feels.
It was brutal to be in the midst of wildfires in California, for example, watching them devour entire neighborhoods overnight, while people online were saying, “Whatever, those celebrities will just buy new mansions next week.” Haha, super funny. Let me check the app again to see if I need to evacuate with my kids and my dog, and the artwork from their childhoods and the photographs I can fit in my trunk.
We’ve all had our less-than-compassionate moments, though, it’s a sign of these times. I’ve had so many conversations with the kindest people I know, and that is the worst lament of all — “I’m a good person, I’ve never wished ill on anyone, I don’t want to be this enraged all the time. I don’t want to feel hate in my heart.”
Lauren crosses America with Woody in tow, and meets people along the way, because Woody. People you might dismiss or even disparage online, but in person, everything changes. In Monster of a Land, you see the country with Lauren, and the people in it, and realize maybe all this rage is misdirected. The ideas you might have had about how a place would look when you got there, or how the people would be if you stopped to chat…what if they were all wrong? What if the enemy isn’t who you think it is?
What if we could solve everything by being a lot kinder to one another … and maybe opening some local pubs? Checking on our neighbors? That would be crazy, wouldn’t it?
We had such a great conversation. Lauren very generously read four passages from her incredible book. I hope you enjoy the talk. I know you’ll enjoy the trip. Monster of a Land: In Search of Modern America comes out June 16th, but you can order it now! It’s the road trip for our times.
