**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]