In 2015, a 26-year-old, heavyset refinery worker from Houston named Joseph Scott started uploading videos of himself pursuing his new hobby, skateboarding. Despite his late start and atypical build, his clips were a hit. He was pretty good! And he would do little narrations about why he crammed so much skateboarding into the hours between his gruelling shifts at work. About how happy it made him, how every trick was like a dream he could chase. He tagged his posts #dreamchasing. The videos were filmed by his wife, who could be heard off camera, badgering him like a personal trainer about making his next trick and keeping his style in check. “Keep them hands down!” she would remind him, because they couldn’t abide the arm-flailing most skaters do to keep their balance while they roll away from a trick. The videos became a minor phenomenon, and he started tagging them with #handsdown and changed his username to J. Scott Handsdown. They came to my attention when my son’s fav...