July/August 2000
Articles on the theme "Exploring and Adventure"
The Way of the Adventurer
by Bob Gonzalez
The inspiration of the classical Greek
adventurer, Odysseus -- whom the Romans called Ulysses -- as portrayed in
Tennyson's poem "Ulysses."
Exploring with Wonder
by Kathy Houston
The adventure of life. Exploring it
with the wonder and imaginings of a child.
A Spiritual Adventure
by Rev. Pat Cross
Making a new start at any age -- an
exploration and adventure in consciousness... the ultimate eternal adventure.
Exploring the Adventure Within
by Ron Graham
The adventure of becoming One with
the universal mind of God.
Life's Adventures
by Linda Bothwell
From birth to falling in love, to Self-realization
Exploring Body/Mind Healing
by Ernesto J. Fernandez
An approach to healing that helps define
the best 'road map' and the best forms of treatment.
Exploring God as Process
by Rev. Pat Palmer
God as not only the source of everything
that is but also as the unfolding of every event that occurs.
Why Explore?
by Patrick Plaskett
How exploration helps us see the world
and ourselves differently -- and get more out of life.
Exploring the Self
by Edwina H. Holloway
The greatest adventure of all, the
excavation of our true Self.
A Learning Adventure
by Rev. Cydné Battreall
The story of a mother and daughter
in the adventure of a lifetime.
The Lure of Adventure
by Charles Larsen
What exploration and adventure consist
of. Achieving a state of mind to experience them.
Other Feature Articles
Natural Health Q & A
by Kim Gillespie
Concerning cocaine and drug abuse.
2000 & Beyond!
by David Findlay
What is... Sustainable/Organic Agriculture?
by Robert Roman
What sustainable/organic agriculture
is and why it is superior to commercial agriculture.
Minerals from Mother Earth
by Judy Power
Features stones for July and August:
jade and charoite.
The Lure of Adventure
by Charles Larsen
Prior to the advent of television, I recall sitting next to the radio and eagerly anticipating the resonant voice of an announcer saying, "And now, the next chapter of the Adventurer's Club." What new place would the club members explore? What dangers would they face? I was hooked. The adventures were, so the announcer said, based upon truth. In my young boy's imagination, as fertile then as now, I envisioned a club room with trophies on the walls, leather furnishings, dashing but reflective types (all of whom looked like Clark Gable or Humphry Bogart) planning their next adventure.
I was not alone in feeling the lure of adventure, else there would not have been a club, nor would there have been such a radio program. It seems that we in Florida have a Titan's ability to simulate experiences with theme parks, often including the term "adventure" in their name - certainly in their advertising. The very word seems to have an ability to excite and entice us. It is, perhaps, the verbal equivalent of a wonderful culinary aroma - it makes the mind water for the dangerous and exotic, the spices of living that, once experienced, are retained for a lifetime.
In Webster's dictionary "adventure" is defined as "an undertaking involving danger and unknown risks." Exploration involves examining new frontiers of one sort or another. By those definitions we would have to write off all of those created artificially, since customer safety is a major consideration, and most certainly no new frontiers - unless they be marketing innovations - are being explored. If we reflect on an event most humans have experienced, perhaps we can see some shared roots of adventurousness in all of us.
Let's examine an adventure in exploration that most of us have experienced. How about learning to walk, when you performed those oh so difficult rubber-legged beginning steps, small fingers grasping parental thumbs, then progress as you moved on steadier legs from one item of furniture to another. Falls resulted, you felt danger, yet struggled to stand up and try to walk over and over again. Then the smile as your first teetering free steps were accomplished and the movement toward independence truly embarked upon. And more falls. This is high adventure, exploration, intense awareness of danger, and repeatedly trying this new and seemingly impossible task. And so it is with all of the new things we learned to do as children, those sometimes terrifying challenges we faced and overcame.
Adventure is the antithesis of boredom. I was recently asked, after swimming a half mile in the pool, if I didn't find such an activity boring. My answer was that, although it might be boring at times, I'm never bored because my mind is always going and writing and musing about one thing or another.
However, a lack of boredom is not synonymous with adventure and exploration, nor does it have to be. The lack of boredom is due to the ability to amuse the self by external or internal stimuli - the bored person cannot be cured from without but only from within.
One would suspect that most who read this magazine are not bored, because they are examining new ideas. Of course, reading might be considered a vicarious activity by many. Certainly my radio show was a vicarious experience. The young boy listening so intently was not in Africa or some other far-away place. However, it whetted my appetite for other adventures of body and mind, some of which have completely fulfilled the dictionary definition. Having sought them, they became part of my life, of the total pattern of my being, as they shall always be.
Adventure is not always about the new, although a quote from Mae West comes to mind here. "Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before." The joy of a new experience is surely, as Miss West stated, full of excitement.
Many people in this area scuba dive - me among them. Interestingly, some do not dive in the Gulf of Mexico once they have been certified, stating that they have done that. It would be boring. The expression, "been there, done that," is based on this notion. They travel far and wide to seek the new. Certainly there are many interesting dive sites to explore all over the globe. It is equally true that the dives here are never the same, since different phases of the day, of the year, of the ever-changing sea make it an exploration and an adventure each time you go into the depths. Perhaps all experiences are new.
Achieving a state of mind to experience exploration and adventure is not always easy, but it is possible. Perhaps the first thing needed is an awareness and acceptance of the premise that not every activity will generate the terror and excitement of sky diving. Recalling my brief venture into the sport, it seems that very little in life has equaled the incredible rush of stepping out of an airplane at thirteen thousand feet with only a flimsy canopy and the wits you are scared out of to safely return you to earth. Not all adventures are so exciting.
However, if you can accept that premise, you may be able to look at many activities as exploratory adventures, realizing that they involve the new and the dangerous. For most of us, after all, the most pure fulfillment of the definitions of exploration and adventure would be found in a rush hour drive to work. It is full of unknowns and is very dangerous. That, in itself, might be a very good argument in favor of seeking pleasureful adventures, of adding spice to our lives, in spite of the risks, which are usually those to our ego.
After all, if you had not seen walking as exploration and adventure, you would still be crawling around on the floor.
Charles Larsen L.C.S.W. has been practicing psychotherapy and hypnosis for over thirty years. He is in private practice in St. Petersburg FL. (727) 323-4222
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