Death of Adventurism...

"Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look

behind the ranges-"
Rudyard Kipling

Perhaps it's merely me, or my human brains own ability to create links between unrelated events, but I think part of the decline of society as of late stems from a few things. Of course the obvious one is that the economy is in the dumps, then there's Fox news asking that we plunge a stake into Obama's heart because he is a vampire coming to take our guns (no lie, their words, not mine). then there's the surveillance and internet censorship...I could go on for days about all the manifest ills that plague the West and modern society. But maybe, just maybe, this is all because we have colored in the map all the way.

Perhaps once satellites went circling and the last of the explorers returned home to their societies is when the nervous energy started building in us. There were no more monsters, or ruins to be found in lost places, untouched, unseen in jungles or deserts. We were asked to look skyward and in the deep oceans for uncharted expanses. The problem with space is that once you're in it there is really nothing there, no ruins, no animals, no sound. Every planet we reach is dead, and all the places we can see are beyond our grasp or intellectual facilities to fathom. Also, as with the deep, we cannot go there. Less than a handful, a fingernail sliver of society can go either to the stars, to sit idly looking back at the completed map, or into the deep (more satisfying I'd say). But the common cannot do this, we can't set our sights on a distant place spoke of in rumor and shrouded in a fog of mysterious talk, they no longer exist. Now when gripped by that need to venture far from home, or seek new shores we turn to media, or worse yet we bottle the need and redirect it towards our fellows unexpectedly.

That is to say that exploration, mapping, true Adventurism is dead. It was natural for people to want to learn more about their world, and the things within, but how sad it is to know that when the last photo was taken on a flyby that the world shrunk, and shrinks still.

How cloying it must be to all who want to read the exploits of an explorer, or if we have the resolve to, explore ourselves. I'm of course not implying that we look inward for vast unexplored areas, you can only explore those by interaction with your fellows. Nowadays when you think of nature or the wild it is painted as quest of man versus his own demons. Hiking, climbing, kayaking are all sold as therapy now, they are for us to look inward and connect with that part of us that wants to explore. What then arises is an industry and an ideology around it, with expensive gear, GPS navigation, pole-less tents and the like, sending businessmen off on weekends to exotic places so they can be back to the gold course on Monday and tell of their "adventure". Adventure isn't like that, it's going where you don't know what's behind the next turn, and bringing back the information for others to follow in your footsteps, it's the pursuit of illumination to lost secrets. Today we have tarted up adventure to sell pick up trucks or energy drinks.

Or I'm probably just rambling, but I know what I want. I want there to be sights unseen, I want there to still be blank spots on maps and ruins in the jungles. I want to explore, and show the world what was once missing is now found, but I can't, because mankind has moved on. We don't care for stories like that now, we have our internet and can connect with any place we want, sate our needs with photos or videos.

I want to go on an adventure again, to outfit myself with a means of transport and a loose idea of what lies on the other side of the mountains and go for a little while. To pick up ideas and memories, holding myself to no schedule but my own, and stopping at my whim to see what is out there. But can I is the question that is most troubling, for at some point a persons life is traded out and replaced with a new one whose sole responsibility is to be responsible. Everyday I hear about the accumulated wealth of my neighbors and fellows, I hear about their doctors appointments and concerns about whether they'll be back from lunch or dinner on time. They talk about short vacations and weekends as if those were the only thing to live for, two days here and there for however many years they have before them. How then does someone weigh their life against this, when afraid of such a life a person lashes out and pursues adventures and irresponsibility to escape or to retain their identity.

I however don't know, I am uncertain about all of it. Perhaps I would be dead in a jungle somewhere if born earlier, more than likely I would. That is part of the adventure, to move past fear and keep going, battling against a world set on killing you. Weekend adventurers never have to fear about going this far, neither do I, because there is no point and no place to push oneself that way, or at least if there are there's no actual purpose to do so.

So perhaps in no short time I will gather my resources and disappear for a week and explore the countryside on my own, perhaps then I won't feel as though I'm not putting my youth to good use. We only have a single life, and death waits around every turn, if you can't do what you want in life why are you doing what you're doing?