Adventurer - an impossible lifestyle?

**Warning! Rant ahead.** (Tried to make the loooong post easier to read despite its length...and failed miserably. Sorry, y'all.)

Yo!

First of all, I should explain something about myself. I have, since many years back, decided to call myself an adventurer (more the Indiana Jones/Dirk Pitt-type than the Mike Horn type). I've studied archaeology in the past, I've done my military service, and, of course most importantly, I've got dreams and wanna-do's by the #load - things like mining for gold and diamonds in South America, mining for opals in Coober Pedy, Australia, working as a security contractor (some here might hate me for that part), working as a safari guide in Africa, and so on and so on.


Currently, I'm working on joining the Swedish military once again, this time as contracted soldier, where I plan to stay for a few years and work up money and prepare myself mentally and in terms of life experience, for the life I have ahead of me. In a few years, I plan to pick one of the above, or other, ideas that I want to do - and do it.


Now to the issue. The issue being - you can imagine what my family thinks about this kind of lifestyle. This isn't me whining about my family, though. They're good people, if with a wee bit lack of understanding.


What I'm whining about is, I - and many others out there like me - have a dream of a lifestyle, the kind of lifestyle that I at least believe humans were originally meant for - a lifestyle of traveling the world and experiencing it for yourself, seeing wonderous sights and experiencing great adventures, meeting great people - in short, enjoying life to the fullest.


What bothers me is this:

"So many guys have been told to put that adventurous spirit behind them and ‘be responsible’, meaning, live only for duty."

We live in a world where it doesn't seem acceptable to have dreams like this. A world where people frown on you for thinking - not to mention living - outside the box. Instead, they tell you you should "take your responsibility and get an ordinary job". They would have you, in essence, forget who you are, and instead become a mindless working zombie for the world's elite millionaires. In essence, giving up the true potential of your life to make others rich.


Now, "ordinary" people who want an ordinary lifestyle might not be zombies - but if you make a person who have a passion for adventure burning within him, live a nine-to-five lifestyle, you're going to turn him into a zombie. That is, of course, what happens every day today, simply because such dreams and lifestyles are frowned on. It's a sort of peer pressure that have ended up forcing people to conform to the "standards" of society.


Some would argue the reason society frowns on this is because it's not possible to survive in that kind of lifestyle. Some of my friends think like I do - those are my best friends. We've all been partly inspired by classical matiné adventures, movies like the Indiana Jones ones, Romancing the Stone, Sahara, and so on. My family and some of my other friends on the other hand, think I'm naîve, childish, and need to grow up - as if, in five or ten years, I'll stop being me!!! That's the kind of "understanding" a want-to-be-adventurer faces in today's brainwashed and soulless, hollowed-out society where a sincere passion for life have been abandoned in favor of being "normal".



So - let's ask ourselves this - is it possible to make a life as an adventurer today? That depends on a lot of factors. Assuming we're asking if there is work, then there most certainly is! All you have to do is look for it.


In South America, there are endless opportunities for not-strictly-legal-but-not-illegal-either mining work, be it for diamonds, gold or other treasures, especially in the Amazonas. All over the world, there's sunken ships loaded with treasures, just waiting to be found, naturally especially around Africa and the Carribbean.


Heck, you don't even have to search for treasures. Simple marine salvaging is an adventurous lifestyle in itself. Same goes for land-based archaeology. And there is Coober Pedy in Australia, the World's Opal Capital, where you can find a fortune in opals - or just live the simple lifestyle of the place surviving day by day. Heck, a simple job as a sailor, adventure tourism guide or even diving instructor can constitute as an adventure to some, me included!


These are just a few examples. Of course adventure is individual, and it's up to each one of us to figure out what is an adventure to us.


It's not going to be easy. It may take money to get started. It takes courage to take that step into pursuit of adventure with reckless abandon (the only way it should be pursued in my opinion), and it takes the courage to ignore the frowns you get from other people. It also makes it difficult to keep an ordinary, romantic relationship with anyone, unless they're of the same adventurous spirit as you. Even if you have a girl- or boyfriend, they might not understand what drives you on to such extents in the search for adventure.


I'm not going to lie. There IS a lot of problems with this choice of lifestyle. But nobody ever said life would be simple - only that it should be lived to the fullest! That does not include spending fifty years of your life at the same conveyor belt in the same factory with the same hourly wage. That's what this world would have you do, of course.


But damnit, I'm an adventurer, and if I can't dedicate my life to this search for adventure, and for fortune and glory - then my life isn't worth living. And if this world has no room for adventurers, then damn this world! I will never change who I am, nor will I ever hide it or stop heeding the call to travel the world and experience it first-hand. These decisions and this lifestyle doesn't make me "irresponsible" or "egotistic". It just makes me - me.


And that's all I have to say about that. It was a rant and a thread I've wanted to write for a long time now, but I hope the point got through just the same.

[edit on 22-8-2010 by David_Reale]

[edit on 22-8-2010 by David_Reale]

Not if you are Daniel Craig...

Yea, but British government assassins don't count.

I say go for it!!!

As the saying goes "Freedom lies in pastimes that are a bit odd and slightly illegal!"

reply to post by nick_napalm


Amen to that! And I will go for it, thanks!

In the end, the only person you answer to for the kind of life you've lived, is yourself. Better do your best to please that person, or you're going to be in a world of trouble when it counts.

The simple response....

"Different strokes for different folks"


should help. Seriously, who is anyone else to tell YOU what YOU want out of life?

Sounds like an interesting life you've got planned....and more power to you friend...


For me, I did some crazy stuff while younger...faced off with a Kodiak Brown Bear (or two), had swords pointed at me while in a Saudi bedouin camp, climbed treacherous cliffs, etc. all before I was in High School, so I tend to be a bit more reserved these days, hehe...(and more mindful of my own mortality)....

reply to post by Gazrok


Sounds like you have some great stories to tell. If you ever feel like telling them, I'd be a very interested listener.

And thanks. I agree with you. It's my life, and all that. Some people just piss me off with the whole, "You need to grow up", or "You're just naïve" stuff. It feels like people just don't have the guts to go for their dreams these days. Well, I do, and I will.

reply to post by David_Reale


Hehe...most was just me being a stupid kid. My father was in the military and then later government contract work, so we moved around a lot, including some more exotic locales such as Kodiak, Alaska, and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in addition to more mundane locations. (so easy to guess where those examples were)....

The nice thing was, we got to visit some cool places....London was a favorite, and Amsterdam, for example. (though I'm sure Amsterdam is a LOT more fun as an adult, hehe...)

All of my travel as an adult has been limited to the US (I've been to all but a handful of states), Canada (all West coast), and the Caribbean (Jamaica, Bahamas, Antigua), sad to say.... One of these days...

Hoping to take the wife with me to Antigua sometime soon...I was there on business, and it was a beautiful place...

I think you might like this (from british TV) a city dwelling nerdy guy goes around trying out some of the most strange and dangerous jobs in the world
This episode is about Opal mining in the Australian outback, looks like a pretty fun life to me, and not illegal.



[edit on 26-8-2010 by davespanners]

reply to post by Gazrok


Sounds like you had a really cool childhood, dude. The bedouins with the swords sound like a pretty good party story, hahaha.

I'm hoping to go to Africa within the next few years, too, especially the Sahara and Saudi Arabian region, but Mozambique and South Africa are pretty high on my list too. Of course, the Caribbean is on the top of that list, right next to Australia. Mmmm...diving for treasures. That's my kind of living.

reply to post by davespanners


Hey, man, thanks for the link. That was an awesomely cool show! Especially the end. Haha. And I could totally dig living that kind of life for a few years. A tough, rugged but simple and relatively fun life in the middle of nowhere, doing hard, manly labour. That's the way a man is supposed to live.

Personally I have always wanted to try Alaskan Crab fishing, Firstly to escape this damn computer where I seem to spend most of my life and to test my whole macho credentials and secondly because you can earn a ton of cash in quite a short amount of time.
I've heard that it's the job with the highest fatality rate in the world.

Seeing the size of the crabs, I can totally believe it's dangerous as hell.

But, you know, jokes aside, all kinds of fishing are extremely manly jobs in my book. All jobs at sea are, for that matter. Some more than others, like crab fishing as you mentioned, tuna fishing, and (though illegal, it's still manly) whaling - and all jobs on boats heading to the poles. Brrr....

It makes me miss the good old days when you didn't need an education to sign up for this stuff. Just write your name on the contract and welcome aboard. Today, it's difficult to get an internship on a ship (at least here in Sweden), which is a shame.

[edit on 27-8-2010 by David_Reale]

You might find this link informative, an Alaskan crab fisherman gives a first hand account of how he got into his jobs and what kind of life he has

Thanks. I'll check it out.

reply to post by davespanners


I completely forgot to tell you, dude, that link was awesome. Looks cold as hell doing that kind of work, though. Those fishermen are now somewhere on the top of my "manly workers"-list.

On another issue, I'm going to northern Sweden in September 29, for physical and medical tests and an interview, for the Army. Hopefully, after that, that's where I'll be moving, and take yet another step in the direction of becoming a full-fledged adventurer. I gotta say, though, right now, I'm so excited about joining the Army that I've got no particular wish right now to rush it to become said adventurer.

I'm even rolling around the idea of making a slight career to become a specialist officer ("NCO") in the military, or (try to) join one of the various elite units, before putting my teeth at those other jobs I wanna try. We'll see which I decide to do.

Buuuuut, most likely, either way I'll call it quits in a few years (ten maximum).

From a professional adventurer (now retired)

I want to encourage you; do not be dissuaded by the programming that your culture spews at you. You obviously are listening to the sound of an inner voice that beckons you to fulfill your calling as a "Gentleman of Adventure."

I lived precisely the life you envision for over a decade. I think the calling needs a "FAQ page." Let me think what questions you'd ask:

How to get started?

Begin by building up skills that may not pay well but are anonymous and portable. I grew up in the rural USA, and learnt to handle farm equipment. The pay is not the greatest, but it usually comes in the form of untraceable cash. And since America is a leading exporter of farm equipment to the developing world, I eventually discovered that most of the world still farms with the obsolete equipment used by teenagers in America. Other avenues I would recommend are the following:

-Coast guard, merchant marine, etc.
-journeyman certificate in a building trade, especially welding or masonry
-jewelry and watch repair
-bookkeeping

I have had traveling companions who parleyed each of these into paid work overseas, which in turn provided a launchpad to adventure.

-the US merchant marine used to be a great way to see the world; I had an impoverished friend who took his wife on a european honeymoon---by working their way across the Atlantic on a tramp freighter (!!!!)

-In the Americas, you can walk onto a lot of jobsites with a journeyman-equivalent welding certificate; set your own hours, and pay for your adventure. I worked on a ranch where we later learnt that "our" welder was secretly working a placer deposit (on government land) during the winter when the ranch work slacked off, and after heavy rains. He lived in a travel trailer on the ranch, and had his mail delivered to the barn. One day he got a package and asked for a week off. We never saw him again. But subsequent packages were from a metallurgical laboratory in the capital, confirming the presence of gold in the samples he'd sent in....

I myself later worked a bureaucrat job with low pay but extensive paid time off. Everyone thought I was a fishing enthusiast, but I was actually following up on the welder's soil samples, and investigating his movements before he disappeared....

I had a colleague who repaired old jewelry and watches. No one does that kind of work any more. He had a route of shops where he picked up old wind-up watches and clocks, and repaired them for a fee. The jewelry stores were glad to have him. Most people thought he dealt in jewelry on the side, which was true. But I eventually learned that he was a wholesale dealer in bullion. Gold sales are supposed to be reported (this was in the US), but he dealt in cash, "off the books" and across state lines.

I was once offered a job as bookkeeper/paymaster for a freight ship that sailed between the middle east, greece, spain, the low countries and the americas. The offer was to keep the books for 8 months; low pay, but free travel, and five days off in every port of call. My traveling companion took the job, and as far as I know was happy with it. (I stayed behind, because of a girl... see my fiction work: www.abovetopsecret.com... )