Are you “there” yet?
If you are not, have you asked yourself why…or have you continued on into the void, anxious and lost?
…
At 18, I broke my first bone riding motorcycles. A great way to start adulthood…
At 24, I became a journeyman electrician.
At 26, I had two cars, my first home, and a partner I wanted to spend forever with.
At 28, I lost her, got medicated and went to therapy, sold everything, and went to find myself.
I got obsessed with powerlifting and went to nationals, I started clothing companies, a coaching business, attempted graphic design, and rode a motorcycle 8,000 + miles around the US, went vegetarian, argued to the ends of the world about human diet, purpose and god.
Then I started writing around 33.
Now, at 36, I’ve failed at all those different careers/businesses, and fight everyday to make myself happy and be great at my “thing.”
Becoming is not easy.
And I’ve found that this crazy thing called life, has a lot more to do with our action than our plan.
…
Adventure may be everything.
If you wanted one thing in life that made sense more than anything, wouldn’t that be your answer?
Wouldn’t all else be trivial?
It answers a lot, if we know what it means.
To do what we can’t stand not doing, what we love, what makes us feel alive, is crucial to what most of us will call, “a well lived life”. And the simplicity of that it seems makes everything easier.
But…
The call to adventure is one thing, to act on it is another.
And here lies my point.
I say this from a realization I’ve had about my own sidelining.
We have to realize that our fears are almost always irrational, and that purposely shedding our fear hardens that underlying raw layer we’ve exposed. It solidifies the next, new version of us.
However, so often we won’t peel back that layer. It’s what we’ve become comfortable with. It’s how we identify. It’s the safe space we look out from.
Because we’re confusing observation with operation.
We’re constantly trying to put a glass behind us and the tiger.
We’ve wandered out of Eden…but are we courageous enough to face all the monsters and pitfalls and storms?
Hold up in a tree and watch the seasons go by?
Adventure and wandering are not the same thing.
…
Adventure is not just what changes us, what makes us stronger, but also what leads us to getting to an inevitable end of life without regret.
Wandering, being lost on purpose, is an intentional effort to find something.
To identify with something.
To find the parallels to our own character in which we best find our work, our craft, our peers, our most authentic selves.
It’s definitely important to wander out, even aimlessly in the beginning, driven only by courageous curiosity or desperation to remove ourselves from the maddening monotony.
We get “lost” in order to get away from filtered conditioning: family mindset and lifestyle, unproductive habits, meaningless entertainment.
We can tell there’s something larger than where we are.
If we do the same work, attend the same weekend events, have the same arguments, avoid the same discomforts, we don’t actually become better people but worse.
Concreted in mind and body.
It will become infuriating.
So, we can’t stay stuck behind the castle walls.
…
I’ve caught myself in a weird state.
I underestimated the importance of discomfort and excitation, and overestimated research and mental processing.
I’m not saying those are not important…
Study of nutrition and philosophy and human behavior have made me such a better, wiser person.
What I am saying though is that there’s something insanely wise about being on the edge, making a call we don’t want to, jumping a precipice that looks just impossible.
I felt so alive racing motorcycles, competing on platforms, driving fast cars, making controversial videos and podcasts, even just flirting with women I had no chance with(I had one miracle though).
And now I find myself barely being able to do my work, stick to my habits, or even talk to my father.
I’m a different person, but not ultimately better.
For me, I let the pendulum swing too far.
I didn’t realize that what we are isn’t necessarily just innate.
We can lose our spark, our confidence, our edge, our liveliness.
…
We have to lean into leaving Eden.
It’s a typical, honorable rite of passage.
We leave our homes, our jobs, our friends, our bad habits, so that we can find ourselves unconditioned, hopefully growing into something new.
But can become addicted to our curiosities outside of Eden.
We can very easily keep ourselves shielded, even on the outside.
We let our fear make us spectators.
Adventure itself is the potential byproduct of wandering, but just because you know the map, doesn’t mean you know what the land actually holds.
…
To me…
Adventure is what we truly are after, more than the end of our wandering. More than identification with some ultimate dream life.
I think we want to be the Ranger more than the King.
As uncomfortable as it may seem, we actually seek the romance of those fight or flight moments. We’re curious on whether we will survive those battles, whether physically, intellectually, or spiritually.
We seek the heightened states of risking life for love, for reverence, for membership with those around us.
We fight ambitiously for anything, for the sake of the feeling that comes with it.
Sometimes we just settle with the feeling of apprehension before that fight.
The bastard brother of the actual fight itself.
And it’s in this that we need to be wary and vigilante.
We just got sidetracked in observation.
We need to step back onto the path, raise our shield again, find something to fear, and fight it.
We have to be willing to push past the apprehension and actually act on that thing we truly want: experience.
I think that’s what separates so many of us from actually attaining our goals.
Truth and Love, Reader.
…
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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