Adventure or Security.......is it a choice?
These are two things that cause a real conflict in the lives of people who feel they just need a “little more” out of life. Many are
not content to stay at home, living the sedentary life. Others are perfectly content to go to work every day, eat, sleep, watch
television and plan for their retirement. True adventure requires some element of risk, (whether planned or not) and often
doesn’t seem like a whole lot of fun when it’s happening. On the other hand, those seeking security tend to want to eliminate
as many risks as possible. It seems we can’t have it both ways; a choice must be made. Can the risks be justified?
This is a question which for many is impossible to answer without a bit of self-examination and thought. In truth, the feeling
of adventure and a sense of security are both simply a state of mind. A man who feels he has everything going for him and
whose future seems assured may find his secure life in a shambles six months later due to unforeseen circumstances. A man
who climbs the tallest mountains on earth or walks unsupported to the South Pole may scoff at the idea of the feeling of
adventure experienced by average weekend warriors. The man afraid to take risks may feel the adventurer acts irresponsibly
by putting his safety in jeopardy, and deserves what he gets when things go badly. And the adventurer may feel that security
doesn’t exist or the price to pay for it is intolerable.
Are we afraid life is just passing us by?
Or do we just have a normal need to be different than others? I don’t know what motivates others, because we are all
different, and everyone has different priorities, but personally I have many reasons for being an Adventure Freak; the first being
that I refuse to die before I've really lived. I can't tolerate the thought of being just another lemming in the gene pool,
obediently and dumbly following the desperately mediocre and well-trodden path of those who think they know best. Living
the way we're expected and told to by the dullards who consider themselves the Pillars of Society is not an option for me. No
one has the divine responsibility to save me from myself, dysfunctional as others may feel I may be. Thinking about nothing
but going to work for forty hours a week, paying a mortgage and worrying about my health and retirement is about as
appealing to me as getting run over by a bus.
I've found my own way, and I march to a different drum than the one heard by the mainstream. I have a need to continually
push my personal limits; to up my own ante and live as close as I dare to the unknown, and to hell with what anyone else says
or thinks. The world is flat and the edge is my home turf. We all owe it to ourselves to live the fullest lives we can, meet our
challenges head-on and to do it our own way. For Non-Conformists like myself, it's just called living. Non-participants and the
uninitiated might call it something else.
I was just living my life and a wild thing happened….
During the course of living my life, I've taken long, uncontrolled falls down steep, frozen peaks; I've been narrowly missed by
avalanches; I've come face to face with bears and a huge, hostile bull elk; I was nearly trampled by a panicked bull moose. I
was stalked by full-grown adult cougar high above tree line on a remote mountain. I have been pummelled by rockfall, and by
a hail of falling ice hundreds of feet up the North Face of Mt. Athabasca, suffering a blown out knee in the process and
resulting in a "tactical retreat under fire.” I've rappelled on frozen, slush-covered ropes in darkness on wet ice routes and icy
rock walls; I've been injured several times while solo climbing high on alpine peaks far in the backcountry during the dead of
winter, and I've been lost several times bushwhacking in remote areas, sometimes while descending heavily treed mountains at
night.
I 've experienced the reality of lying awake all night in the open, thousands of feet up on freezing alpine ridges in howling gales
during winter, without a sleeping bag or a tent for shelter, shaking uncontrollably from the cold, and I've been blown off high
ridges and knocked flat by savage winds that sucked the breath out of me, seemingly bent on tearing my clothes right off, and
all the while sounding like I was being run over by a freight train. I've found my way up and back down mountains in storms
and whiteouts as thick as pea soup, in spite of the fact I possessed only a compass and rudimentary navigation skills, and
nearly stepped off a thousand-foot-high knife-edged arete in a complete whiteout on Nigel Peak as a cornice at my feet
collapsed, shattering to pieces as it fell into the void, nearly taking me with it. I have been flattened and nearly carried out to
sea in the darkness and fog by sudden rogue waves while hiking the narrow, cliffed beaches of the Pacific Ocean at high tide
while exploring California's Lost Coast And I've survived a host of other totally whacked scenarios that wiser men would have
avoided for the safety and security of the living room couch and the remote control. I've endured the Consequences of my
quest for adventure and lived, because I must. And no one has ever had to send in the cavalry to rescue me, either.
Above all, I've had friends who perished in the mountains, which was a sudden brutal end of innocence in itself. But there's
nothing better than the clean, crisp alpine air on a mountain and the view you get on the journey to a high summit, or the
exhilaration you feel knowing you reached it on your own. Only those who have been inches or moments from certain death
can know how alive and aware you feel at a time like that, or how the mind remains lucid and clear as your experience guides
you deliberately through situations and places that might scare the living hell out of a less adventurous person. I made it
through those gripping times because I had to, and because I trusted my instincts and judgement, figured out what I had to do
and went for it, knowing I could. I may have frozen half to death lying on mountains with no way to keep warm during open
bivouacs, but the sunsets were unforgettable, the stars and the universe on those nights never looked so infinite and amazing,
and the sun's rays the following morning never felt so warm. Those are the moments I will remember all my life.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Read the short passage below, written in 1955 by my favorite author, Dr. Hunter S. Thompson,
when he was seventeen. This man, the father of Gonzo Journalism, who would evolve into one
of America's most articulate, outrageous and vitriolic writers, was clearly years ahead of his
time, and his analysis of Security strikes me as profound, explaining the question “Why do we
do this?” These words may serve to help us poor deranged adrenaline freaks to grasp what it
is that motivates us to live in direct contradiction of the sage advice and traditions of Wiser Men.
“SECURITY”
Security . . . what does this word mean in relation to life as we know it today? For the most part, it means safety and freedom from
worry. It is said to be the end that all men strive for; but is security a utopian goal is it another word for rut? Let us visualize the
secure man; and by this term, I mean a man who has settled for financial and personal security for his goal in life. In general, he is
a man who has pushed ambition and initiative aside and settled down, so to speak, in a boring, but safe and comfortable rut for
the rest of his life. His future is but an extension of his present, and he accepts it as such with a complacent shrug of his shoulders.
His ideas and ideals are that of society in general and he is accepted as a respectable, but average and prosaic man. But is he a
man? Has he any self-respect or pride in himself? How could he, when he has risked nothing and gained nothing? What does he
think when he sees his youthful dreams of adventure, accomplishment, travel and romance buried under the cloak of conformity?
How does he feel when he realizes he has barely tasted the meal of life; when he sees the prison he has made for himself in pursuit
of the almighty dollar? If he thinks this is all well and good, fine, but think of the tragedy of a man who has sacrificed his freedom
on the altar of security, and wishes he could turn back the hands of time. A man is to be pitied who lacked the courage to accept
the challenge of freedom and depart from the cushion of security and see life as it is instead of living it second-hand. Life has by-
passed this man and he has watched from a secure place, afraid to seek anything better. What has he done except sit and wait
for the tomorrow that never comes?
Turn back the pages of history and see the men who have shaped the destiny of the world. Security was never theirs, but they
lived rather than existed. Where would the world be if all men had sought security and not taken risks or gambled with their lives
on the chance that, if they won, life would be different and richer? It is from the bystanders (who are in the vast majority) that we
receive the propaganda that life is not worth living, that life is a drudgery, that the ambitions of youth must be laid aside for a life
which is but a painful wait for death? These are the ones who squeeze what excitement they can out of the imaginations and
experiences of others through books and movies. These are the insignificant and forgotten men who preach conformity because it
is all they know. These are the men who dream at night of what could have been, but who wake at dawn to take their places at
the now-familiar rut and to merely exist through another day. For them, the romance of life is long dead and they are forced to
go through the years on a tread-mill, cursing their existence, yet afraid to die because of the unknown that faces them after
death. They lacked the only true courage; the kind which enables men to face the unknown regardless of the consequences. As
an afterthought, it seems hardly proper to write of life without once mentioning happiness; so we shall let the reader answer this
question for himself: who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on the
shore and merely existed?
Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, American author and journalist 1937-2005
Conclusion
Ask a hundred people why they climb vertical rock walls, kayak down raging whitewater rivers, explore unknown frontiers or
put themselves in danger during a host of other extreme activities and you are likely to hear a hundred different reasons, each
one valid and important to the person answering the question.
As for security, some find their security in large bank accounts, material possessions and the comforts of home. I draw my
security from an ice ax, crampons and the experience that has taken me through some epic adventures I’ll never forget.
Henry Timmer, copyright climbwild.net/ 2006 All rights reserved
