Episode 14

• Do you have a sense of guilt about satisfying your own adventure desires?
• Isn't adventure an entirely pointless and self-indulgent pursuit with no value to society?
• Plus: scroll to the bottom for a question about why I'm Vegan... 🌱

Back when I was young and free I experienced zero guilt about going on adventures. Today the sense of guilt about satisfying my own adventure desires is linked entirely to my family and has two prongs: guilt about reckless risk, and guilt about time away. Leaving a young baby at home to go and row across the Atlantic Ocean in a very small boat ticked both those boxes magnificently! 

My attitude to risk changed with fatherhood. I still craved difficulty, but now I abhorred danger. Rowing across the Atlantic, I was filled with overwhelming guilt knowing that I had left behind my toddler, baby girl and wife.

It would be a magnificent jape if all went well, an excellent story for the grandkids; but what a stupid, selfish escapade driven by vanity should it leave my children fatherless.

You cannot go alone into the wilderness for months and also be a stay-at-home dad. You cannot teeter across a crevasse field without feeling somewhat reckless. (I wrote about this a lot in My Midsummer Morning.)

Since then, my interest in dangerous expeditions has waned considerably. Dying on an adventure feels inexcusably selfish to me nowadays. (The dark side of extreme adventure is explored thoroughly in the excellent book Dark Side of the Mountain, which I found somewhat uncomfortable reading!)

The second prong of adventure guilt is the amount of time it requires. Time you could be giving as a volunteer. Time that your better half might believe to be better spent in the dirge of DIY, the ennui of IKEA, or the care of children. (All of which have the compounding effect of making me yearn even more for the empty hills!) 

This is not new, of course. 2000 years ago Seneca wrote on the shortness of life, "It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it."

This backdrop of masses of adventurous souls yearning to breathe free out in the hills is what made Microadventures my most helpful book. That is not accidental: the entire concept grew out the conflict between the adventures I yearned for and the guilt I felt. 

The conundrum is not exclusive to adventure: I have not played a single cricket or football match since my kids were born, and hobbies from aerobics to Zumba, band practice to yoga all suffer at the shortness of time. 

It makes me sad and frustrated that my road bike, packraft and 100l rucksack are all gathering dust. But I also accept it and work hard to squeeze in my adventure fixes around the margins of my days. In reality these are often substitutes for adventure as I live prohibitively far from any true wilderness. 

I lift weights in the gym at 6am to get the endorphins of exercise before taking my kids to school. I swim in rivers to taste joy and fun and vitality. And I climb a tree at least once a month to keep connected with nature.

All of these things are important to help me be a better, kinder, calmer, more interesting person, husband and father. 

Seneca again: "So it is: we are not given a short life but we make it short, and we are not ill-supplied but wasteful of it… Life is long if you know how to use it." 

I suspect he would be happy to join me for a cup of tea in my tree! 

• Isn't adventure an entirely pointless and self-indulgent pursuit with no value to society?

Before I try and justify my existence (in a no-doubt flustered fashion), let me briefly zip through the various purposes that adventure has fulfilled in my own life. 

As a teenager, adventure was fun and character building. In my twenties it was a mission to prove myself to the world (and to myself) [see: Moods of Future Joys - I reckon I can plug most of my books before the end of this section! 😂]. It was also core to my search for a rich, worldly, educated, vibrant life [see: There Are Other Rivers 😉].

The lessons I learned whilst travelling the world formed a big part of me wanting to try to share that with young people; adventure as education. [see: The Boy Who Biked The World 🤪]

Adventure had such an impact on my own life, horizons, opportunities, awareness of my potential and self confidence that I began wanting to evangelise about all this; adventure as a transformational experience. [see: Microadventures 🙈]

From physical journeys and expeditions, my perspective on adventure began switching to the creative side of things, and the critical importance of beginning whatever journey you are dreaming of. [see: The Doorstep Mile 🤯]

Most recently –and belatedly– I have come round to what the wonderful Shane Winser has always called Adventure with Purpose: using adventure, travel and expeditions to create positive change in the world. [listen: Series 2 of Living Adventurously 🎧]

Regardless of my own adventures, I strongly believe that many expeditions have made a terrific, positive contribution to society: think Jeanne Baret, Magellan, Apollo.

• The Role of Adventure in Society

Some jobs do actually have value in society. Doctors and nurses. Teachers and librarians. Bin men and grave diggers.

Other people go to work each day and make the world a bit worse. Factory farming, slash and burn forestry. Soft drinks and cigarette makers. Donald Trump.

Most jobs have a more vague impact on the world. If 90% of office jobs disappeared would the world be a better or worse place? What about the musicians and athletes who bring us joy and hope and inspiration and escape? An alien looking down might deem their work pointless, but I certainly would not.

And then –tiptoeing out onto thin ice– what about Adventurers? are we entirely pointless and self-indulgent, as this week's questioner posited?

My defence:

• I'm not selling people things they can't afford on credit. I'm not promoting vacuous, harmful lifestyles.
• I feel comfortable that my damaging footprint is small, all things considered. But pity help me if I can't do better than that...
• Adventure in itself, done responsibly, is no less pointless or self-indulgent than doing crosswords or watching telly.
• As a job it can, if done responsibly, transparently and fairly, encourage a greater appreciation of (and therefore caring of) our planet. Broadening the levels of participation is a vital part of this.
• Adventure is good for physical and mental health, for self-development, teamwork, communication and humility. Adventure is the best education I have ever had. And that feels worth shouting about to other people.

What do you think? Do I pass the test or should I return to being the teacher that I once was?