- What is the true meaning of Adventure? -
In the last years, the term adventure has been often overused, usually for activities that could not really be claimed to be proper adventures. This was obviously on one hand an effect of social media, where some users through their content promoted outdoor activities. On the other hand it was also due to the expanding consumeristic market that hit the outdoor world.
Often we see on social media like Instagram people doing apparently crazy stuff or going in seemingly wild places calling a hike or a travel an “adventure”.
On tv we see famous tv hosts that claim to be adventurers doing survival stuff in super remote places, but then discovering through backstage images them to be just in their backyard faking it, with a whole crew of assistants, stunts and doctors ready to get them out of troubles.
What is the meaning of ADVENTURE?
Quickly asking to Google, the meaning of adventure is:
“An adventure defines an exciting or unusual experience. It can also indicate a bold and risky undertaking with an uncertain outcome”
The first part of the quote only mentions enthusiasm and unusual. But if for me a hike in the mountains is a usual thing, for a person not used to hiking, a walk in the mountains on a beaten and well-marked path can be defined as an adventure, because that’s something unusual to them.
But still, is it really an adventure? Can something unusual and yet safe can be defined properly as an adventure?
Looking at social media, anything done in an outdoor space behind the house is now defined as #adventure and the people who promote that call themselves #adventureaddicted.
It just takes a bit of research looking back at our recent history to realize that the term adventure shouldn't be misused for every new experience we make. Adventure is not only going out of the comfort zone, but doing it risking out something or everything, leaving space for the unknown.
Just think of mountaineers like Reinhold Messner, Walter Bonatti or Sir Albert Frederick Mummery, who were fathers (Mummery) and prominent exponents of a certain alpinism. People like them were facing the unknown, without support and mostly without technology. All of their deeds were mostly done without really knowing the outcome.
“Adventure is not only going out of the comfort zone, but doing it risking out something or everything, leaving space for the unknown.”
Another huge example of which I’m in fond with is the Endurance Expedition.
Conceived by Sir Ernest Shackleton, it is considered to be the last major expedition of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Expedition. Held among 1914 and 1917, it was an attempt to make the first land crossing of Antarctica.
The ship, named Endurance, got first stuck and then destroyed and sunk in the ice of Weddel Sea. The primary objective failed. But what makes this story a great adventure story is the survival story of Shackleton and all of his crew of 28 men. After a long journey on the ice pack, eventually Shackleton and five men of his crew did a 1300km boat trip from the inhospitable Elephant Island - where they held a camp - to South Georgia Island, where at that time the whaling station of Stromness was inhabitated.
After getting to the island, facing an often rough sea and temperatures as low as -20°C, they had to traverse the inland covered in ice and snow to reach the station.
Eventually they succeeded to save all of the crew.
The Endurance trapped in the ice ©Frank Hurley
So what is adventure? Is it necessary to risk one's life to be able to define an action as adventurous?
Maybe not. But with such examples given, if you want to use the term in its purest meaning, yes, going on an adventure requires a risk factor.
Wanting to be more forgiving, going on an adventure, nowadays that we are super equipped with hyper-dry, waterproof and super warm garments, with the lightest gear and traceable (almost) everywhere, adventure means leaving the traced path, avoiding the spasmodic use of GPS and mobile phones, and starting to feel and rely on your senses again. Whenever you succeed doing that, a walk in nature can feel more like an adventure.
“The outdoors are the playground, it’s on us choosing how to play in it.”
Do you need to go to exotic places to have a proper adventure?
Not at all. Adventure can happen also in the outdoors just behind home. Even if traveling surely helps when it comes to have an adventure, it’s not essential. A proper adventure can happen almost everywhere. The outdoors are the playground, it’s on us choosing how to play in it. Here you can see an example of backyard adventure.
Is life an adventure?
Writing this won’t be very popular, but be aware of those gurus who tells you that “life is an adventure”.
In our western modern society it isn’t. We don’t have to hunt or look for food in order to survive. We don’t have to fight with animals or humans for our territory. Diseases are being defeated thanks to science. Life is way more simple now than it was centuries ago. That is, in my opinion, one of the possible causes of depression and mental illness. We have put ourselves in a cage and tamed ourselves, calling that “modern society”, and then we struggle to understand why we feel meaningless and miserable.
Today what we are told to do is to study, work, produce and die. Is that what we are truly made for? To me it seems more like a robotic kind of life instead of a proper human life.
My opinion is that life has no meaning apart from what we create for ourselves. There’s no one out there writing our destiny or giving us a path to follow like sheeps. Sure, the idea of a God (or Gods, depending on your beliefs) can be reassuring and comforting, but eventually we are the authors of our own story and destiny. Some events can let us down and make us change paths, unexpected can happen all the time, but still, we are what we decide to be.
It surely takes a strong will to look inside us and understand that, accepting the unexpected and improving who we are. It can feel scary, demotivating and sad looking at life like so, but it can become a strong point in your life whenever you see that just the other way round, understanding what you are capable of, overcoming your fears and taking control of your life.
In the end, if you succeed, you will surely go down the path that will lead your life to be an adventure.
