A Lost Soul
Recovering from burnout through nature, writing, and a small sailboat
New Beginnings
Hello and welcome to my Substack “Writing to Save My Soul”. A year ago I quit my job to rediscover who I am after an extended fight with burnout and depression. I felt my soul had withered away and I had lost myself. So I quit and set sail around Scotland to spend time in nature and let myself heal. I thought of that journey as a sail to save my soul and this writing project is the continuation of my attempt to heal and rediscover who I am and what I want to do. Over the last year I’ve written a memoir about the journey I’ve been on. The following is a short excerpt from my work-in-progress memoir, “Sailing to Save My Soul”:
I step off the bus into a piercing wind, damp and salty, down by the harbour on the shores of the Firth of Forth. As I walk along the dimly lit waterfront I think back to my past, of moving from Sweden to the UK in the pursuit of an education, always chasing the next achievement. I begin to wonder if I’ve always been adrift. I feel as if I’m searching for something that I can’t quite conjure into mind: a shadow of a feeling that something should be different; the ever elusive sense that life should feel more palpable, more meaningful.
I suppose I thought ambition would eventually lead me to a place of clarity. Now, I no longer know. I don’t know what the shape of a life is; I don’t know how to find a way back to myself and to find some contentment in this short existence. So I’ve quit my job to try and do something else. I can’t bear the thought of going through life following a formula and then eventually getting to the end of it all, only to look back and ask what was it all for?
It’s time to try to purge this damp November in my soul. It’s time to go to sea.
From “Sailing to Save My Soul” by Alexander Gunnarsson
Writing this memoir has been a transformative experience. In future posts I will share more about what that has been like, but it has made me remember how much I love writing and storytelling. I’ve realised I write to better understand myself and the world, and by sharing my own writing—the ideas that drive and shape it, the joy and difficulties in putting pen to paper—I want to connect with others to better understand my place in this world and to gain a richer experience in exploring it.
Goal of this Substack
This substack will be a creative outlet for personal writing exploration. This is where I will post glimpses and snippets of ongoing projects (currently my memoir) but also other things including collections of poems, essays and short stories that I am working on for my own enjoyment. As I get closer to publishing I also want to share the failures and successes along the way to getting published.
Additionally I will probe my own writing process, how I think about and understand structure, prose, rhythm and storytelling as a whole. I am infinitely fascinated by the subtle and constant decisions that shape and mould the stories I write, and also the stories I enjoy reading. To explore that I will share reflections on the quotes and narratives that have shaped me and become part of who I am; the words that fuel my imagination. Even in the excerpt above you can perhaps sense the resonant echoes of Herman Melville. The last two sentences are directly influenced by Moby Dick, one of the stories that has shaped my brain and sense of rhythm in prose and in beginning this journey.
I would love for this Substack to create a space where we together can explore the mesh of words and stories that have contributed to the way we write and see the world.
I would love to hear from you: What works have shaped your writing? How has your storytelling has been moulded by what came before? What are the quotes that are on loop in you subconscious and fuel your prose?
Ultimately I want to create a space here for all of us who love the written word so that together we can explore life, joy, mental health, purpose and everything else through writing. Thanks for stopping by.
Alexander Gunnarsson
May 2026
