Do you long for adventure?

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Do you see an exciting movie, read an exciting book, and start thinking about how dull your own life is? Do you ever wish you were more adventurous? Do you find adventure in smaller ways?

And do you think men and women differ in this regard? I know we're supposed to, but I'm not sure it's true. What are your thoughts?

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2000

Answers

I enjoy the concept of adventure, but have a difficult time with the real thing. The truth is, I am just too high maintenance to consider the possibility of stranding myself in the wild - I would have to kill myself (or others) by the 2nd or 3rd day without coffee. And you don't see alot of adventurers smoking either. I certainly couldn't make it up Mt. Everest, I can barely make it up the stairs.

I suppose if I had a truly adventurous nature I could quit smoking and terminate my relationship with coffee, but there are still a number of factors which would discourage me from setting off on any sort of wilderness adventure- like not being able to shave my legs, or read a newspaper or take a hot bath.

You know what? I get plenty of adventure navigating the New York subways and dodging junkies and gangs in my neighborhood. I should probably stick with that.

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2000


I don't really crave adventure in a way where I want to BASE jump off of a skyscraper, but I crave the adventure of new experiences.

What usually happens to me is that I watch the Travel Channel and learn about all these facinating places in the world, then realize that it'll be years before I have the money to go to these places. Essentially, my problem is the lack of money to have these adventures. Few things seem more adventurous to me than escaping with my boyfriend to some far corner of the world.

Do men and women differ in respect to this? Perhaps, but I think its due to each sex tending to have its own version of what adventure is.

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2000


I do think about how dull my life is, but not as a result of seeing an exciting movie or reading an exciting book. It just is dull.

I long for something that would challenge me, physically and otherwise. I could see myself in a Survivor situation if it were set somewhere cold -- Alaska, maybe. (I'm better suited for that climate.) Drop me off somewhere in the middle of a snow field, with a backpack and the proper outdoor clothing, and let me see what I can do.

I'd love to just pick up and go someday, without a word of warning, and go wherever the road takes me. My overdeveloped sense of responsibility has prevented me from doing that so far.

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2000


Why does everyone automatically assume that "adventure" involves wilderness or remote corners of the earth? For me, adventure involves places like New York or Paris, traveling alone, with plenty of cash. I crave adventure, there's just no time for it when you have children. Before I had them, I was too afraid to take off & be free. Childbirth tends to render your deepest pre-birth fears silly & laughable. After children, however, adventure was simply not an option for a number of reasons, one of which involves energy. Maybe when I'm 50 I'll revisit the notion.

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2000

Beth, I thought your entry today was awesome. I am a worrier too (I tend to worry I'm neurotic) and I have done some adventurous things in my life, and I don't regret them, but I am not a consistently adventurous person. I always spend time meditating on the bad stuff, just in case, so I'm prepared. I do love to read exciting books though. And I especially love to read about women who passed as men and then did adventurous things like move to Morocco or start Jazz bands! Or are foreign correspondents. I think I think of adventure as "that which does not kill you makes you stronger". Or as my grandmother would say "Why would you want to do that? You might get hurt!" when my mother suggested that they go out to play.

I try to make myself feel better by stressing that I am "intellectually adventurous and voracious". That sounds pretty good, doesn't it?

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2000



I used to like to read ethnographies.

Brenda and I went on several archeological digs together. We thought we would teach at a small school in the Southeastern United States and take students into the field, in the summer. She ended up at the house, out of the workforce, for five years, while she gave birth to, and nursed, Owen and Balder, until Balder was old enough to wean, when she put them in nursery school and kindergarten and went back to work.

When I became a writer we moved to the mountains and lived with another couple. I worked as a laborer and clerk for five years. That was an adventure.

Brenda went into Big Cypress Swamp, swinging a machete, packing samples of bone and shell out, to analyze in the lab. Taught herself zooarcheology. To maintain the comparative collections, she macerated road kills in drums of water, which she siphoned off, until the skeletons were defleshed. She would also put them on the roof, with dermestid beetles, and cover them with hardware cloth, to keep the raptorial birds off.

Brenda taught herself to install, troubleshoot, and repair a telephone switchboard, and taught the class at the factory where they were manufactured. I was the houseperson in the home, and drove around barnstorming for poetry, taking the boys with me to crafts shows and street fairs, to man the booth. They saw small press publishing from the inside. Owen produced his own fiddle tape, when he was 16, and on the road with a bluegrass band.

Brenda taught Spanish and French in the high school Balder was a junior in. That took guts.

She worked in a prison that was being built, maintained the computers, and installed the phone system, with the help of inmates.

Nothing humdrum about our lives so far. We support each other. If she wants to try something, I back her up, and vice versa.

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2000


One way to read Hemingway is as an adventure writer, like Jack London or Zane Grey.

He fished for billfish, he went on safari, and killed big game.

He went to the bullfights, in Spain, and wrote about it, and he was a war correspondent, in the Far East, and Europe.

He lived in Key West, and outside Havana, when they were great places to live, and write.

He lived an examined life, and A Moveable Feast was about a writer, learning his craft. So was The Dangerous Summer.

At the end he was old, sick, a drunk, and crazy. His wife was a drunk too, and they fought like cats and dogs.

When the electric shock treatments affected his memory, and he couldn't write anymore, he killed himself. A last adventure.

He hadn't been able to edit himself for some time. Other people did it and put his name on it.

I think that hurt as much as the memory loss.

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2000


"He hadn't been able to edit himself for some time. Other people did it and put his name on it. "

--Jack. I'm just saying.

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2000


I, too, long for adventure but am a big chicken. I really would like to hike in the great outdoors, but I get really nervous about meeting up with "critters", 4 legged and "varmits", 2 legged! Thus I have joined the Sierra Club so that I may do my adventures with other likeminded people.

However, in the last year I feel that I did undertake 2 adventures by myself that perhaps not every 59 year old woman might tackle. I drove to California from Indiana by myself camping along the way. Well, ahem, if one can call staying in KOA Kabins camping. But I did have some tingly, scary adventures along the way....walking down Scott's Bluff by myself among the rattlesnakes, driving some really frightening (to a flatlander) non-interstate mountain roads. The one that made me cry, however, was when an accident up ahead caused traffic to be re-routed off the interstate in Salt Lake City. I didn't know it was due to an accident, though, and was quite upset at finding myself lost after having so carefully studied the map so I would know exactly how I was going to navigate Salt Lake City. (Their roads were a mess due to preparations for the Olympics) A kind lady at a K-Mart gave me simple directions and I was soon on my way. My other adventure in the last year was going to Spain by myself...no Spanish....no recent travel experience. The trip was successful, but a little scary at times, but I did it so I do feel a sense of pride. The middle part of the trip, though, I was with my daughter, and actually that was an adventure too......sleeping on the ground under a tent of plastic sheeting in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada in Southern Spain... So, I'm ready for more adventures....whatever they may be.....

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2000


I so majorly want to be able to go out to high desert... or go to the steppes...

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2000


(please shoot me for this, but I have to . . .)

Just do it.

That's it.

That's all.

Take too much time to work up the courage and wherewithal to do these things will all of a sudden find you buried in student loans, mortgages, or other less than exciting things.

As mentioned, adventure doesn't have to be a $10K expedition though the Darien Gap, or sailing around the Horn. It can be taking five days and driving by yourself to somewhere you've never been, stopping any time you damn well please. It can be finding a space available fare to Scotland and staying in the hostel on the Royal Mile and drinking with a bunch of drunk Aussie's all night, then playing a North v. South football match in the Queen's backyard in the morning (just for reference, that trip cost me something like $400- at least a quarter of that was for beer . . .).

Point is, adventure can be had by anyone, any time. I've (not infrequently) bitched and complained about how I spent the past three years cooped up in a building doing jackshit for the world (i.e., higher ed.). I was upset that I couldn't just take off for Venezuela or find the time to go back to Seoul.

But then (somehow), reality slapped me and I realized I can find adventure right here in DC, in little snippets. Go try hashing (see e.g., www.dchashing.org). Or bike from West Virginia through MD to DC to VA (only takes a day!). We've *all* got access to something like that (unless you live in Iowa- then you're just fucked). I can't just take off like I used to, but I could, with a little bit of patience and planning. Anyone can.

Lack of adventure is a lack of will.

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2000


Curtis is right. There's nothing stopping any of you from having adventures. Live cheaply for a year, save some money, take a long unpaid holiday and go somewhere different.

I had a conversation about this with somebody earlier in the week - he was lamenting how much he'd love to live in Australia, but couldn't think of a single reason why he wasn't able to go and just do it. Down at the bottom of the world in Australia and New Zealand we're raised with a urge to see the world, and so the idea of packing up and relocating doesn't seem like much at all to me. Maybe it's something you need to do first when you're pretty young - otherwise it's too easy to convince yourself it's difficult and scary. But it's not - I moved to England with only 1000 pounds to my name and nowhere to stay, and things worked out just fine.

-- Anonymous, July 14, 2000


Hear hear! If you want to venture out into the great wide open, just get out and do it. Don't count on me coming along for the ride, though. I'm a wuss when it comes to adventure trips. I prefer visiting historical monuments, wandering around old cities and the like. I'll be off to the south of France in a short while for a few weeks and I'm planning to visit Avignon for the annual theatre festival. Not that I'll visit many shows - too expensive - but there's a lot of street theatre happening as well. You really should see it, all those artists wandering around that beautiful medieval city. You're likely to encounter something weird or different on every single streetcorner. That's my kind of adventure.

-- Anonymous, July 14, 2000

I'm not at all interested in the kind of adventures that involve mountain climbing or being in the wilderness or anything where I wouldn't have access to a flush toilet. I've camped in Yosemite by myself so I know I can do stuff like this. I'm just not very interested.

I do read books and think how dull my life is. But what I long for is parties where people talk about books, and going to night clubs or raves and dancing for hours, and stuff like that.

-- Anonymous, July 14, 2000


I had tons of adventure when I was a navigator in the Air Force, and my "retirement" life as a computer programmer is pretty tame by comparison. I do miss the adventure sometimes.

-- Anonymous, July 15, 2000


I don't know that travelling in Africa can really be considered adventurous if you've lived on the continent most of your life as I have. Mostly it is like a very slow-moving obstacle race with non- working phones and hotel bookings that get lost and car parts that can't be found and spiders in wash basins. But for what it's worth I have travelled around Malawi, Kenya, Namibia and Zimbabwe in recent years and I just wish I had more of a spirit of adventure. (Miriam Nadel's travel journals put me to shame.) I worry constantly about contracting malaria or going psychotic from taking anti-malaria medication. Or needing a blood transfusion from a rural clinic. Or getting amoebic dysentery from eating fruit at roadside stalls. It's what somebody once called 'the imagination of disaster' and to be always anticipating the worst makes me a nervous and irritable traveller. When I get back home I heave a sigh of relief and then wish I'd relaxed and enjoyed myself more at the time.

-- Anonymous, July 16, 2000

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