True Adventure Is Priceless

Today I am Mr Shackleton, Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton.

Several reasons.

First, my best friend Murat Aydin, now a Professor of Chemistry at the University of California in Irvine, is setting out today for yet another Antarctica trip (read more). He‘s been there twice already, doing research on the [history of the] atmosphere with a team of scientists. For him and many others among us this must be another dream come true, a true adventure for life.

Shackleton and his adventurous life, too, are bold synonyms for Antarctica, reminding us, how much we all dare to risk, to reach almost impossible goals and to experience unbelievable adventures, which make our lives worth living.

Second, every time I hear the name Shackleton, I think of his abandoned and wrecked ship Endurance. I think the word endurance was a role-model for Shackleton‘s life, as he never gave up on his crew and tried, albeit his poor health and huge debts (he died later with £ 40.000,- in debt, which equals app. £ 1,5 million today) numerous attempts to rescue his men, with success at the end as it turned out.

Shackleton was always well respected, but has never been „the great one“. It was Scott all along. Robert Falcon Scott, the big shot British Royal Naval officer, who earned all the sympathies, as he dramatically lost the insane race to the south pole to Norwegian Roald Amundsen, which ended in a true disaster resulting in his tragic death and of his brave crew because of a combination of exhaustion, hunger and extreme cold. This even overshadowed Amundsen‘s remarkable victory and thus ended the furious race. 

Shackleton? He might have been interested in making this a game of three, but no, he did not. He was, literally by all accounts, a man of adventure, not really of fame and glory. He wanted to be out in the wild and encounter the unknown. He endeavored expeditions of unprecedented dimensions and took extraordinary risks, regardless of possible fatal outcomes, thereby getting involved in messy business transactions, which financially ruined his life.

This alone places him in my Hall of Fame of Great Adventurers, although he did not achieve the most prestigious discoveries of our history. He was however, renowned for distinguished achievements to the geographic society of his time, enjoying a rediscovered cult status almost 80 years after his death.

In the preface to his book The Worst Journey in the World Apsley Cherry-Garrard, one of Scott's team on the Terra Nova Expedition, wrote: (via Wikipedia)

"For a joint scientific and geographical piece of organization, give me Scott; for a Winter Journey, Wilson; for a dash to the Pole and nothing else, Amundsen: and if I am in the devil of a hole and want to get out of it, give me Shackleton every time".

I thought of him this morning. Then I looked around.

In this ever-changing way-too-commercialized world, how many of us are ready to take dire risks to undertake such adventures? All taboos are broken daily, all myths get busted, if not already obsolete by now, the wonderful taste of true adventure diminishes daily in front of our eyes. 

We spend our days in traffic jams, in front of huge TV-screens, in stylish coffee shops and all we do is to daily check the facebook photo albums of our high school friends and wonder how fat they all have become. We all drive the same hybrid cars, drink the same Latté, tell the same dull stories over and over again, even in 140 characters.

Distinction has never been as precious as today, true adventure is priceless, but yet few and far between.

I am roaming.