The Monday Media Diet with Dave Fielding

On Nepal, Balvenie, and the Northeast Regional

Dave Fielding (DF) is a friend of WITI. He joins us for a Veteran’s Day edition of MMD. We’re happy to have him on the page with us. Buy his memoir here.

Tell us about yourself.

I am a former Green Beret and intelligence officer. Author of the book “Into the Darkness: A Journey of Love, War, and Emotional Freedom.”

To put it simply, I love hard things and being outside. There is a lot of growth in challenges, so I tend to seek it often to get a taste of it. I also want to remind the spirit of my grandfather that I am coming for him. He set the bar pretty high, as a former WW2 prisoner of war involved in the Great Escape. As a kid I did stuff he did, like winter ascents in the White Mountains. Those experiences came chock full of character-building moments and I think those near brushes with death made me seek out “fun” things as an adult. Fun things like the Special Forces and espionage. Special Forces for the danger, espionage for the thrill of getting away with shit. The intelligence world was very different from Special Forces, but something familiar. I grew up living a double life, by day I was a varsity gymnast, Eagle Scout, solid B student; by night I was running beer, dropping in house parties with turntables and microphones. The job requires such a dichotomy of spirit, but that’s true to who I am.

Describe your media diet.

Most mornings I start with the NYT, first the email digest, then go deeper into the headlines.  Mid-morning I’ll see what the vibe is at WSJ and ascertain whether or not my horoscope is giving me a green or red day. And of course Instagram which my algo is loaded with Ski reels that cause me to relent on the status of my knees after all those years of “running and gunning.” 

What’s the last great book you read?

“Make Peace or Die: A Life of Service, Leadership, and Nightmares” by Charles U. Daly. This man is a kindred spirit, I missed him by two or three generations, but a solid reminder at 97 years old that we still have a lot of life to live… so get living!

What are you reading now?

“The History of Cranmore Mountain” by Tom Eastman. Cranmore’s history is deeply intertwined with Hannes Schneider, the Austrian ski great who pioneered the Arlberg technique. For the record I’m still working on carving.

What’s your reading strategy when you pick up a print copy of your favorite publication?

I like to highlight words that inject bias or tone, vying for my emotional response and my cortisol. It’s having some self-awareness and asking “what are they trying to convey?” It’s a habit I developed in the intelligence community. Towards the end of my career I was overseeing global clandestine operations for our small eccentric pool of spies, and with that came a lot of reading. I was the first chop on the details of a clandestine meeting happening in some unsuspecting European town, or the results of a cold bump on the Shinkansen. Not many people understand the idiosyncrasies of the clandestine world, but it involves a lot of writing…for a hypervigilant audience. In the high stakes game that it is, being objective, even about yourself, is a necessity. We are presenting information to be digested, and in most cases, it is done rapidly, requiring surgical level precision in what you are saying. So this habit of reading cables, intelligence reports, scanning for things that are “fluff” or “clickbaitey”-  has given me a heightened sense of awareness when reading the news.

Who should everyone be reading that they’re not?

My memoir is enmeshed in a forbidden romance, betrayal, and espionage. It comes with a heavy dose of mental health too - so you are in for a good ride. You’ll experience some world events, but those professional highs were mired by my own personal lows. Despite that, I am grateful for the lessons that it taught me, because I can now impart them upon you. The darkness is something we can easily slip into, it’s getting out of it is the real bitch. The hard learned lessons in these pages are some ugly truths I had to face in order to begin the process of letting go. “Owning my shit” to get on the path to emotional freedom - and I implore you to do the same.

What is the best non-famous app you love on your phone?

Notion.so I use it for everything, my favorite Ai thingy I have played with thus far. I can’t go a day without using it. Co - Star for all its astrological guidance and validating a bad day, even I need to blame something else from time to time. 

Plane or train?

TRAIN! I wrote my book on the Northeast Regional bouncing between DC, New York, and Boston. I am a cafe car extraordinaire, but don’t worry I am always open to share my table. But be warned, I am an intelligence officer, you are going to have to talk to me!

What is one place everyone should visit?

Nepal. Back in 2015 I did a short one-month deployment there with my Special Forces team. Our hotel was at 6500 ft above sea level, and I’d wake up every morning to the sunrise over the Himalayas. We didn’t get to venture out to bag any peaks but the whole experience left me pining to go back. The food is great, “Lentil Power” baby! 

Tell us the story of a rabbit hole you fell deep into.

Every month, moon cycles or mercury retrograde… I can’t explain it - I find myself a few Balvenies deep and reading the latest and greatest on quantum physics, black holes, dark matter, etc.. This started back in 2008 when I read Leonard Susskind’s “Black Hole War” - a war that he unfortunately lost against the famed Stephen Hawking. The man knew Hawking’s work better than anyone else. (DF)