Adventure was never meant to necessarily have a beginning, middle and end with the chance of a podium appearance if it all went perfectly well. It was never intended to fit into plans, in fact conversely, plans were made to fit as the adventure unfolded.
You can have your contingency plan, your back up, your go-to if things go wrong as the adventure reveals itself within your plans. That's the very intrigue of the element. But the surprise, excitement, fear, joy, pain and sometimes disappointment that adventure brings just happens. Nature does a fine job of behaving in an authentic way. Your model and mentor is all around you when you go out to play.
But somewhere along the way, the sight of someone sipping Gatorade with a side of chips on the sofa became less visually stunning and more a part of standard living room cuisine. I will arbitrarily tag this as the point at which spontaneous adventure ended for most of middle America.
We turned some proverbial corner and stopped playing outdoors, and it had little to do with age and something to do with being told to wear a helmet and pay an entry fee to do this as a group and pedal there in a line. Then stop there.
Alternately, at age 10, I was building clay, cow dung, and acorn dams in the woods, and being chased by the farmer with a 12 ga., which he did indeed shoot into the air, I suppose because the dams were so effective they were ruining his ponds. I had a step on him this one particuliar day, only to make it to the safety of my home to be met by my mom, who would not let me inside due to the products listed above that were all over me. She saw the farmer coming. She used a Hungarian word that she used in times like these, always in reference to things smelling bad or going terribly wrong. This was both. It certainly felt like an adventure as I started running again.
(editor's note: the word may have been southern WVA Hillbilly in origin, or a blend of linguistic adrenaline that included the Magyar Dynasty and Almost Heaven. I never could tell the difference, but I learned quickly enough not to use these words, or say things a certain way, if I intended to be understood by a classroom of my peers. I was sent to speech therapy in first grade. This lasted one session, and I assume it was determined I was just using a playbook of word choice and pronunciation that was not quite ESL before it had a name. I tried to sound like the others. I did. I do. And when I travel I can spot a central Piedmont NC accent by mid sentence.)
Since then though, adventure became packaged like a frozen TV dinner, albeit a manly size. You're supposed to know the contents before you open the package, as if you could read the label and know what you were buying or trying to achieve. The element of mystery, of beginning the day and not knowing what could happen, had passed as the default. I call foul on this. Yellow card.
Instead, you are now planning to go on an adventure trip as advertised. How did this planning person know in advance what would happen? You can't subcontract this to someone like a deliverable due next week. Have I begun confusing adventures with agenda items? Big difference; and if so, I was in more trouble than that day with the farmer. I'm not sure how I would pack for such a trip of promises. Oh wait, there may be a required packing list.
Then Gatorade developed a low calorie option, I suppose, for this sofa sitting purpose, since its original purpose was for avoiding dehydration for intense athletic events lasting more than 40 continuous minutes in humid conditions. I guess it's possible to dehydrate while watching TV and eating chips, especially if you live in the desert, but we can now rest easy this won't happen. Thank goodness someone in a lab was thinking of those of us in deserts who worry about electrolyte replacement while avoiding hyperglycemia.
The fear of the unknown is the element of adventure that makes it appealing, and it's the very thing that tests you, teases you, focuses you, and may make you come back for more. Or learn to stay away. You prepare for it. You train for it. You pack for it and repack for it.
Your imagination is given the keys to the kingdom, and for this you have to prepare your mind as well:
Fear of the unknown must be the most unrelenting fear that we can give credit to our higher thinking. Animals only fear what they already know. Desire of the unknown must be the most unrelenting desire of our higher thinking. When these two are combined, for some the calling is transcendent.
How can you plan adventure? You just can't; you only plan for it in the same way you plan for best and worst case scenarios. You can only hope to meet it where it lives and be open to the possibilities in whatever environment you've chosen. Go where you are intrigued; its best habitat. It's your energy, your desire, your willingness to make what could be bad luck into a situation that challenges you. The outcome has as much to do with attitude as skill.
This day will be different from yesterday, that much is certain, and that's why you go. Imagination has been given a day to roam free, and possibility is never far behind. You may not even know you're having an adventure until you are immersed in it, this thing that has gripped you and makes you use your ability and mind and body to fix it, find it, wait for it, or out run it, whatever it is that has made your day come to this moment. But it has made this one different from all the others in some way.
And you will come back for more.
You can have your contingency plan, your back up, your go-to if things go wrong as the adventure reveals itself within your plans. That's the very intrigue of the element. But the surprise, excitement, fear, joy, pain and sometimes disappointment that adventure brings just happens. Nature does a fine job of behaving in an authentic way. Your model and mentor is all around you when you go out to play.
But somewhere along the way, the sight of someone sipping Gatorade with a side of chips on the sofa became less visually stunning and more a part of standard living room cuisine. I will arbitrarily tag this as the point at which spontaneous adventure ended for most of middle America.
We turned some proverbial corner and stopped playing outdoors, and it had little to do with age and something to do with being told to wear a helmet and pay an entry fee to do this as a group and pedal there in a line. Then stop there.
Alternately, at age 10, I was building clay, cow dung, and acorn dams in the woods, and being chased by the farmer with a 12 ga., which he did indeed shoot into the air, I suppose because the dams were so effective they were ruining his ponds. I had a step on him this one particuliar day, only to make it to the safety of my home to be met by my mom, who would not let me inside due to the products listed above that were all over me. She saw the farmer coming. She used a Hungarian word that she used in times like these, always in reference to things smelling bad or going terribly wrong. This was both. It certainly felt like an adventure as I started running again.
(editor's note: the word may have been southern WVA Hillbilly in origin, or a blend of linguistic adrenaline that included the Magyar Dynasty and Almost Heaven. I never could tell the difference, but I learned quickly enough not to use these words, or say things a certain way, if I intended to be understood by a classroom of my peers. I was sent to speech therapy in first grade. This lasted one session, and I assume it was determined I was just using a playbook of word choice and pronunciation that was not quite ESL before it had a name. I tried to sound like the others. I did. I do. And when I travel I can spot a central Piedmont NC accent by mid sentence.)
Since then though, adventure became packaged like a frozen TV dinner, albeit a manly size. You're supposed to know the contents before you open the package, as if you could read the label and know what you were buying or trying to achieve. The element of mystery, of beginning the day and not knowing what could happen, had passed as the default. I call foul on this. Yellow card.
Instead, you are now planning to go on an adventure trip as advertised. How did this planning person know in advance what would happen? You can't subcontract this to someone like a deliverable due next week. Have I begun confusing adventures with agenda items? Big difference; and if so, I was in more trouble than that day with the farmer. I'm not sure how I would pack for such a trip of promises. Oh wait, there may be a required packing list.
Then Gatorade developed a low calorie option, I suppose, for this sofa sitting purpose, since its original purpose was for avoiding dehydration for intense athletic events lasting more than 40 continuous minutes in humid conditions. I guess it's possible to dehydrate while watching TV and eating chips, especially if you live in the desert, but we can now rest easy this won't happen. Thank goodness someone in a lab was thinking of those of us in deserts who worry about electrolyte replacement while avoiding hyperglycemia.
The fear of the unknown is the element of adventure that makes it appealing, and it's the very thing that tests you, teases you, focuses you, and may make you come back for more. Or learn to stay away. You prepare for it. You train for it. You pack for it and repack for it.
Your imagination is given the keys to the kingdom, and for this you have to prepare your mind as well:
Fear of the unknown must be the most unrelenting fear that we can give credit to our higher thinking. Animals only fear what they already know. Desire of the unknown must be the most unrelenting desire of our higher thinking. When these two are combined, for some the calling is transcendent.
How can you plan adventure? You just can't; you only plan for it in the same way you plan for best and worst case scenarios. You can only hope to meet it where it lives and be open to the possibilities in whatever environment you've chosen. Go where you are intrigued; its best habitat. It's your energy, your desire, your willingness to make what could be bad luck into a situation that challenges you. The outcome has as much to do with attitude as skill.
This day will be different from yesterday, that much is certain, and that's why you go. Imagination has been given a day to roam free, and possibility is never far behind. You may not even know you're having an adventure until you are immersed in it, this thing that has gripped you and makes you use your ability and mind and body to fix it, find it, wait for it, or out run it, whatever it is that has made your day come to this moment. But it has made this one different from all the others in some way.
And you will come back for more.
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