This question has come up a lot in my internet world recentl,y so I thought I would have a go at tying to define it. I am not 100% happy with what I have written, I would like to try and produced a bit more of a polished answer, but if I did that, this would probably be another draft that would never see the light of day!
I encourage you to comment and critique this, tell me what you think!
One of my favourite definitions of adventure is ‘a journey with an unknown outcome’. Now some might say that this is a little broad and that every day has uncertainty to some degree and as a result every day could be classed as an adventure. Well I would agree with this. I think what separates adventure from every day life is the amount of uncertainty or change we can expect and our state of mind.
Uncertainty and change will often lead to feelings such as fear or excitement. Depending on our state of mind we will either; strive to explore these feelings to see what the outcome may be, or strive to limit the uncertainty by staying in our often unconsciously, self created safe environments where change is rare or minimal.
Our state of mind is affected by just about everything you can think of. Our upbringing, culture, experiences in life, education, the stream of ideas from books, films, advertising, TV, radio and internet, what you had for breakfast, the weather, the book you read on the train to work, the film you watched 10 years ago, how someone smiled at you on the bus. Everything.
So depending on our sate of mind, we will react to the change or uncertainty by exploring or limiting.
I believe in balance, so a combination of limiting and exploring is important to a balanced life. The amount of exploring or limiting each of us do or need varies. We are all unique individuals so what is good for me, might not be good for you. This is why some of us are happy and balanced with a small amount of exploring, while others need lots of it.
The more exploring you do, the bigger your safe environment becomes so you need to continually push the boundaries to continue to explore and have and adventure. Unless that is, you have a bad experience, often called misadventure, that could result in you retreating back into the middle of your safe environment. However I really do believe that always staying in your safe environment is bad, and that a little adventure is good for you.
No adventure in our lives, can lead to an almost constant sate of certainty, where our feelings of xxxxxx are kept very close to a central point. As time progresses this can lead to an increasing fear of the unknown and possible depression. Why am I here, what is my purpose?
Don’t panic you don’t have to go and climb Everest to have an adventure, as we are individuals and adventure to one person is normal to another.
Adventures come in all shapes and sizes and are not limited to extreme outdoor activities. Going to a restaurant and trying something that you have never had before, is a food adventure. Talking to that person you like could result in a new friendship. Anything that takes you slightly out of your safe zone and could lead to something different or new, is an adventure.
You might find that the experience was not be good, but that does not matter, we can learn from this. Equally the experience might be great and leave you with a good feeling. I firmly remember being told to try a kiwi fruit aged 6 and that it was nice. The strange looking fruit appeared disgusting to me, but when I actually tasted it, I was pleasantly surprised, it was yummy.
My main source of adventure is outdoor based adventure. Currently I am cycle touring so I know I am going to get up and cycle but I have no idea who I am going to meet, what I will see, what food I will find to eat and where I will sleep. Every day has some form of adventure for me. Yes sometimes it can get a bit too much but that’s when I need a break, I find a hostel and sit still for a while.
Whatever your day to day life is, I believe that finding the right balance between adventure and non-adventure is an important part of being human. But I would say that one bigepic adventure could provide you with enough adventure to last a life time, it depends on the individual.
Aside from outdoor adventure I find social adventures fascinating, and often harder than outdoor adventures, more on that another time perhaps. I could go on, try and categorise types and styles of adventures but I think that might lose the essence of what I am try to say here.
My challenge for you is to dream of one outdoor adventure.
Match your adventure to your experience, don’t do something you are not skilled to do, I don’t want to be responsible for injury or death. Keep it simple, an afternoon, a weekend, plan a cycle ride with your kids or parents somewhere new. Go and see how many types of insects you can find in the garden, climb a tree, do that thing you always thought about doing but never got round to. Do something.
Tags: adventure
Colin Mortlock wrote a book called the adventure alternative. He spoke of four levels of adventure:
1: No adventure at all
2: very familiar very safe adventure experiences
3: Adventure such as you describe that pushes our personal limits, introduces reasonable risk and perhaps excites us
4: Misadventure, with a high possibility of serious consequences or death.
He was talking about working with children, both in and out of school. However whilst I have paraphrased him, it is an interesting 4 step model and we don’t see anywhere near enough level 3 adventure opportunities for young people.
Mr E
Hawes
Yes Colin Mortlock has some good points, this is why I was a little unhappy with what I had written. My degree was in Outdoor Studies, so I explored ‘what is adventure’ quite a bit, but seemed to have forgotten a lot of mine and others conclusions. Colin was one of the original tutors present when the degree was founded, his books were still high on the course reading list when I was there. I remember reading his first book in my first year, specificity about how the outdoors can help young people with behaviour problems. This was a great motivator in pursuing my path in working with young people in the outdoors especially those with emotional and behavioural problems problems.
I reckon to be an adventure you need a degree of having to continue. a get your self out of this phase. so a roller coaster is adventurous because once you start you have to finish. however a roller coaster is very very short lived, so a degree of longevity would come in to it. the longevity would need to be in forced by a real need. so for example cycling 500km in Mongolia knowing you have to reach certain points to resupply food and water you reach a point where failure is no longer an option, you have to make it or go very very hungry. the uncertainty could be hightend by half knowing, so you know a city has people in it, people must eat, but where are the supermarkets? I think to be and adventure you must one or more basic need so my roller coaster is not a adventure because no basic needs are at risk. cycle touring you risk, food, water, shelter, etc etc. oddly enough I think that an adventurer has to be a chance to prove one self even if it is in a small element that contributes to a team success you need to know that with out your role being done and being done well the team would fail. I guess these combin with being some where new be that environmental or with new people.
again not totally happy with my answer but some thing to think over