# About Me — Nathan Borson

By [Nathan Borson](https://paragraph.com/@nathan-borson) · 2021-10-10

---

Counting my privileges, wishing everyone had them
-------------------------------------------------

Hello, my name is Nate. [My home](https://medium.com/@nathanborson/my-cabins-ears-77ab5a3dc32d) is in [Gustavus, Alaska](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustavus,_Alaska), in the [Tlingit Huna Kwan homeland](https://www.nps.gov/articles/aps-v13-i1-c7.htm), on the edge of a [vast wilderness area](https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/72), but I am writing this from [McMurdo Station,](https://www.usap.gov/videoclipsandmaps/mcmwebcam.cfm) where I am applying my computer skills this austral summer in the service of the US Antarctic Program. I’m an [IT Pro](https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathan-borson-77987426/) by trade, having worked as a computer specialist for [Glacier Bay National Park](https://www.nps.gov/glba) for 23 years and having co-owned a tiny computer and communications consulting business for nine years. Before I lucked into this line of work, I guided sea kayak trips (I co-founded [Spirit Walker Expeditions](https://seakayakalaska.com/), still in operation under new ownership more than 30 years later), processed fish and crab at a seafood plant, washed dishes, cooked, drove, installed burglar alarms, worked as a ranch hand, and installed solar hot water systems.

![Wilderness adventuring with good friends in my big back yard is my favorite pastime. Photos by Nathan Borson](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/0f12851c34411d2fe7ce316217252eb58f2decafdc150bc6d38620bcdec6beae.png)

Wilderness adventuring with good friends in my big back yard is my favorite pastime. Photos by Nathan Borson

But I work to live, not the other way around. Even before my semi-retirement I arranged my life to spend my (boreal) summers sea kayaking, camping, hiking, and backpacking in my big, wild back yard. I love the sense of personal discovery that comes from finding something special that I did not expect. I seek out destinations I have not heard about, and I have often been where I felt I might be the first person to set foot. I treasure my time in habitats teeming with wildlife, my perception zooming out to take in the vast web of life in which humans are just one strand.

![Pondering. Photo of and by Nathan Borson.](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/56519bd48037782fc4fc2d6c2786ecdbbce3c767bcf7e88b46f257624c13832f.png)

Pondering. Photo of and by Nathan Borson.

I am a [systems](https://complexsystemstheory.net/complexity-explorer/) thinker. I deeply ponder reality and “my” part of it. I have become highly skeptical about self, free will, consciousness, individuality, and duality. Once proud to be independent and self-reliant, I am now grateful to be an infinitesimal but very lucky part of a \*whole \*so great I cannot conceive it.

> What is so special about you? What do you have that you were not given? And if it was given to you, how can you brag?[1 CORINTHIANS 4:7](https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/1%20Corinthians%204%3A7)

I have surrendered any concept that I deserve or earned my great fortune — my freedom and leisure, my physical and mental health, my financial security, my great friendships and community, and my awesome family. The truth is I hit the jackpot in the birth lottery, and my luck has compounded ever since. It’s not that I haven’t worked hard or given back, but the very fact that I am \*able \*to do so is a result of my nature and nurture, gifts for which I can take no credit.

It pays to be a “[white](https://medium.com/message/how-white-people-got-made-6eeb076ade42)” male born in America in the early sixties to caring, respectful, mentally healthy middle-class [parents](https://medium.com/family-matters-2/sayings-my-father-shunned-5ddde0e74541). It also pays to be lucky. I wish my success derived less from historical and continuing racial injustice and from a lottery system that rewards good luck while further impoverishing those who suffer a bad break. I wish my privileges did not arise in part from others’ subjugation and loss, notably the dispossession of the Sioux who had lived on the land my family farmed in Minnesota. I believe there are fairer systems that ultimately result in greater prosperity and happiness for everyone. I believe with privilege come obligations. I hope to explore some of these topics in my writing.

![Another selfie by the author](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/e88d78c4b7a66b14477a113b40e48d8a4b12f38d8070431f9c64f7cd6a8e6ea4.png)

Another selfie by the author

---

*Originally published on [Nathan Borson](https://paragraph.com/@nathan-borson/about-me-nathan-borson)*