A self-introduction: unhinged prose on the act of defining
I want this to be a place where I talk in my own voice and share original thoughts. There is much of the same online nowadays. Everyone seems to repeat whatever they hear elsewhere. Trends. I get it. We relate. We realise. And so we reshare. But maybe we don’t need more of the same. Maybe we need to be unduplicatable. So unique—perhaps even unhinged, that even AI can’t sum us up in a tidy little duplicated sheep.
Anyways, hi, I’m Hope. That’s how people usually start these things, right? By sharing our name, our definer. We humans love naming things. I’m not sure I agree that there is something inherently wrong with wanting to name things. As Gerald Durrell, in The Durrells tv show says, “we name what we love”. I think perhaps it's the “rigour” of the scientific institution that brings an essence of discord to the system of naming. Saying something can only have one name and that is how it will be defined, across all time and space, feels lacking. It feels rigid, limited. And not in that good “we’re humans and we’re limited—unlike AI” way.
A visit to Stanmer park with my now-15-year old sister Billie who took this photo. Forever and always a tree hugger. Taken 2025.
A photo of me in a tree in Australia on my university campus taken by a fellow student, 2016.
Well, I got diverted there. I’ll bring it back to what this long string of words is supposed to be—an introduction, to who I am (as if that were even possible to put into words). As I shared in an earlier post, “people feel drawn to what is real, to what is human”. Well, I want to be real with you. Not in an effort to draw you to me. Well, if I’m completely honest, of course, I want to be successful in business, so a tiny part of me is sharing in the hopes that I’ll reach more people. But mostly, I’m sharing more in the hopes that I’ll find the right people. People that relate. People that support all the things I believe in and adore. People that get it (perhaps you’re wondering what “it” is—keep reading and you might get a better sense of that).
That’s Cartsmell to you
So, back to my introduction. My name is Hope—Hope Nothhelfer. That’s German for ‘helper in need’, someone who provides assistance in an emergency or difficult situation. Boy, is it tempting to then say “Are you in a difficult website situation? Nothhelfer can help”. But that’s cringey and I don’t like direct selling that feels icky. My surname wasn’t always Nothhelfer. I was born a Cartmell. That’s my mother’s name she inherited from her father. It refers to a place in the north of England. Not quite as meaning-full (yes, that was intentional) as Nothhelfer and prone to the addition of an ‘s’ betwixt the ‘t’ and ‘m’. That’s Cartsmell to you—and unfortunately—was to me during my high school years. I changed my name to Nothhelfer early on in business, back in 2018 or so. As I told my mum and believed it to be: it was because it worked better for my business name. I was building a personal brand back then (I suppose, in a way, my business is still very much ingrained with my being) and Hope Nothhelfer (my father’s surname) felt like it had more of a ring to it than Hope Cartmell. It wasn’t a rejection of my mother’s side of the family, despite her fear it was. It does, however, feel more me than Cartmell ever did.
That’s me in the back doing yoga on a giant rock. This was while I was studying abroad in Australia (my 2nd year back down under) and when I became heavily invested in yoga as a bodily practice.
Sometimes, I get the urge to change my name again—but to Wilder, Wilde, or something more representative of my current and likely-forever belief system: that we are wild, nature, animal, etc (you know the spiel by now, as do most with the advent of digital marketing and adoption of “we are nature” across the board). Do you ever get the feeling that the public picks up on ideas some years after you adopt them as—I suppose, as truth? And then, all of a sudden, your family are telling you “we are part of nature” along with that billboard campaign welcoming you “back to the wild”. I appreciate Vivo Barefoot, don’t get me wrong. But something about that campaign frustrated me. It felt like repeated narrative. It felt like an overused string of words. It had lost its meaning, its impact.
Here’s why we need unfiltered, un-edited, and unhinged prose
Lately, I’ve had conversations with people about this, about how things have lost their original impact. I feel this strongly when visiting the bestsellers tables in the front of bookshops like Waterstones, or even lined on all their shelves. It seems that, perhaps, maybe (and I’m bringing it back to what I started on), we need new narratives. We need new words. We need original thought. We need unfiltered, un(heavily)-edited, perhaps even unhinged prose that explores things like being ‘part of nature’ in more depth than just a catchy, seen-everywhere tagline like “we are nature too”. I say this when, ironically, in the footer of my website lives the words “We are a part of the wild”.
A portrait of an old friend called Fe, connecting with this mossy tree, back when I lived in a small village in Yorkshire.
That’s why I named my web design business Of The Wild. It means to imply we are part of the wild. Perhaps I should add some complexity to this. Perhaps we need both catchy taglines and complex prose. For some time now, I have found such freedom in this grey space. Living in a world of maybes, perhaps. To again quote my last piece, we might be better off holding “space for two things to be true at once.” If you’re curious to hear how I came to this conclusion and my own history of being very much black and white in my thinking, read my previous blog. Yes, there was a time when I considered myself a vegan, a starseed being, and living within 5D consciousness. I suppose (how I do say that a lot: I justify this below) I’ve indirectly given you an introduction to who I am, not by what defines me, but by the unfiltered narrative that emerges and spirals up into pluckable thought.
A proper (mostly) introduction for the old fogeys
For those who want to know the box in which I sometimes stand, in my body of human doing and being, I could be defined by all of the following (in addition to this layered, unboxable complexity that makes up all animals):
I am a 30 year old AFAB (assigned female at birth)—with brown hair, brown eyes, and olive skin
I grew up on a council estate in Brixton despite appearing ‘bougie’ or upper working class to some
I likely have undiagnosed, mild OCD and spend all day counting and rearranging letters in my head
My favourite book series is Anne of Green Gables and I intend to collect a signed, first edition one day (oh, and I love old books)
(Notices this is beginning to become slightly unhinged despite my best efforts. Quickly runs to Google ‘what things do most people cover in a personal introduction’)
I also work as the Editorial Lead at the Mammal Society and am on a contract with the British Sauna Society as their Social Media Manager
I’m an avid researcher and always have been. I love to ‘be in the know’ (don’t most of us, though)
I love languages because I’m fascinated with how the world of the living communicate. I believe that this impacts our relationship to the natural world and can help us reverse the damage we have caused on a foundational basis
I call myself a mushroom bloodhound because I always smell a mushroom before I see it. I have a very strong sense of smell in general (yes, 1 spray of cologne is enough people)
Me holding a stick laden with Trametes versicolor
Me holding a worm-filled Boletus edulis
And finally: how I ended up in web design
We are not defined by our careers. As someone who thought that my career, my job, the work I do was my everything, was what defined me, this took a long time to realise. I’m also someone that is driven by strong morals and I’ve always wanted my work to be guided by offering value, by aligning with my values: to do good, to be good. This meant that for a long time, I felt embarrassed to work in web design. It felt not good enough, not worthy. It felt out of alignment with my values. About 5 years ago or so, I adopted the mentality of "it's not what you do, it's how you do it”. This felt true to me but it’s taken me the past 5 years to actually see through this lens truly. Sometimes, things need to settle for a long time to embed themselves within us. Just as some things take a long time to emerge and release their tick-like body from our skin. I still work in conservation part-time even though I am sometimes of the post-activist mindset and left thinking “what’s the point”. This, perhaps, fulfills my need for work that aligns with my values.
I’ll be very honest about the fact that I’ve tried multiple times to turn away from web design. I have tried to calm my hand in its persistent efforts to be a designer of perfection and I keep coming back to it. I love it. And I hate it. It’s a love-hate relationship, if I’m entirely honest. I’m good at it. I think I’m really good at it. It’s something I’ve been crafting for the past decade or longer. So, I’ve tried to turn away from web design many times feeling embarrassed that it wasn’t enough, that it wasn’t a good enough thing.
As somebody who’s guided by a moral compass, I want to do good in the world. That’s turned me off of it a couple of times, thinking “I should be doing something else, I could be doing conservation work, I could be doing volunteer week.” I’ve done those things. I’m still doing those things alongside web design work. But there’s something that keeps pulling me back to it. Actually, when I think about designing, I do really enjoy the design process and putting something together and working with people, actually being able to take a foreign concept of an idea in their head and being able to translate that into something that looks how they feel inside.
So, I’ve tried to find multiple different ways to make it feel more meaningful to me. One of those is the people I choose to work with, those that have the same values as me, those that care about the earth and being outside, and care about their wellbeing, and human connection to the kin all around us. It’s something I haven’t spoken openly about: hopping in and out of web design. The real reason has always been out of embarrassment for feeling like it’s not enough. I’ve scrapped that idea now. I’m going to own that web design is one of my areas that is going to be part of my life and that I’m going to contribute my time to and keep getting better at, keep working with people and keep translating these ideas.
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Isn’t it curious coming up with a limited list of ways that you’re defined? Oftentimes, we try to think of the most interesting facts about ourselves, summing our lives down into these digestible bullet-points of interest. I hope that you’ve found more in the possibly-unhinged structure of this introduction.
As always, thank you for being here. And, I promise to write more about actual websites soon: it won’t always be about the context surrounding it.
On a final note—as I usually like to add—to suppose is to ‘think or assume that something is true or probable but lack proof or certain knowledge’. Let us suppose more. To be added to the use of perhaps and maybes. I suppose that might be hepful—perhaps. To suppose is to accept that we can never know all and some things can never be proved.
