Adventure Is Medicine

There comes a time when that beautiful monotony actually turns into aimlessly drifting through life, when you’ve had your head in the weeds for so long that you forget what it’s like to take a breath.

What happens when you do the same coffee run from the same place? Wear the same outfits to the same gym or workplace. See the same people at the same places. Have the same conversations and drink at the same overpriced pub?

At first, we love it. We love the routine. We know what we’re getting with each passing day.

And then?

Slowly, we get irritated. Bored. Restless. Whether we realise it or not, we feel like we’re running on a hamster wheel. We end up with a Grand Canyon-sized hole that we can’t quite seem to fill.

We get weird.

We dream.

We accumulate a bunch of peculiar hobbies or obsessions in an attempt to fill the chasm that we don’t know needs filling. We try new diets, new clothes, take up pottery, cold plunge in a wheelie bin each morning, brew beer in your bedroom or start fermenting vegetables in jars.

This year alone, I’ve become obsessed with rugby (again), oyster farming, Komodo dragons, surfing, survivalism, smoked meats, elephants, HRV, and back in love with bowhunting (which oscillates with how I’m shooting).

Whilst all this isn’t the worst thing in the world, it may also be a sign of something bigger.

Somewhere along the way, you lose your ‘je ne sais quoi’ for life. You lose the sparkle.

The Mismatch

Modern society is great. Despite current fuel prices, right now is perhaps the best time ever to be alive. We won’t die from a cold, we don’t have Genghis Khan potentially coming over the hills, we have a ridiculous amount of resources at our beck and call, and there is a level of equality that has never been had before. YTG.

And yet. Evolutionarily, we evolved in uncertain environments. We didn’t know where we would find food, what was over the next ridge, what was going to eat us or who was going to club us in the head.

We evolved with adventure, low-stress environments with occasional spikes, constant problem-solving, and regular novelty at a reasonable scale.

Our ancestors explored mountain ranges while we explore endless scroll. They navigated wild rivers, while we navigate traffic. They hunted wild animals, while we hunt the best deal on Uber Eats.

And we’re stressed as fuck.

Ancestrally, our bodies developed for short, acute bouts of stress followed by recovery. Think about running from a tiger, fighting Grok from the next tribe over, or hunting a deer. Fight or flight, then it’s over.

The stress was physical, purposeful and had a clear resolution. You’re dead, or you’re alive. Then came recovery.

Modern stress is different. Rather than the acute stress we have developed with, modern stress doesn’t stop. It’s low-grade, chronic, and has no endpoint in sight. Emails. Rent. Kids’ bags. Homework. Traffic. Lining up. Your mother-in-law.

Ancestrally, stress came in short, sharp, violent bursts.

Now, it hums 24/7 in the background, like an annoying mosquito you can’t squash.

Even those who live their best lives, we still have the everyday, unrelenting, ever-present stress of life buzzing on our nervous system.

“Do not be afraid of work that has no end” is a quote from Avot de Rabbi Natan. In the current economy, we may have to work until we’re 80 – why not put a pause on the endless work occasionally to maintain our marbles?

The problem isn’t the stress.

Its the lack of resolving it. No release. No outlet. No finish line.

So the body does it for you.

Have you ever got sick on the first day or two of a holiday? That’s the body saying ‘stop’.

All those random hobbies? That’s the body looking for a mental break.

Finding novel new hobbies is the body’s way of looking for what we’ve lost. Uncertainty. A challenge. The unknown.

We don’t need more comfort.

We need adventure.

We don’t need the Instagram version where we sit on a cruise or take a tour.

We need the type that will test you, even just a bit.

You don’t need to take a horse through the mountains of Mongolia – maybe just a hike in your local bushland?

Adventure gives us a goal, an endpoint, and replaces the endless noise with focus.

I love to spearfish.

When you’re face down in the water looking for fish, nothing in the world matters.

You’re focusing on your breathing, you’re looking for holes or potential habitat for your prey. You’re exploring reefs and rocks in a foreign world. You’re seeing animals that you really look like aliens to us landlubbers. The only sound I can hear is the movement of the water, my gun’s ‘whoosh’ and the occasional asshole on a jetski.

It’s paradise.

It’s not an escape. It’s alignment. I have never experienced presence like I do when I spear.

You don’t need to change your life.

You just need to interrupt it.

You don’t need to go spearing and risk headbutting a shark.

You don’t need to escape to the Alaskan wilderness for 14 days.

Do something accessible. Go for a bushwalk. Surf. An early swim. Take the long way to work. Ride your bike.

A bit of adventure isn’t a luxury.

It’s medication.