About ten years ago I was totally obsessed with George Mallory. Who is George Mallory?, you may ask. Mr. Mallory was part of the third British expedition to try to summit Mt. Everest in 1924. He and his climbing partner Andrew Irvine disappeared on that expedition and were last viewed about 100 meters from the summit. No one knows if they were the first to reach the summit (they would have beat Edmund Hillary by 29 years) or if they died going up. In 1999, a team from National Geographic discovered Mallory's remains bleached alabaster white by 75 years in the snow and sun. His femur was broken and jutted from the other bones at an unnatural angle, the back of his red woolen sweater torn open to reveal a perfectly smooth, ivory colored back. His name was painstakingly embroidered in his sweater. When asked before the expedition why he was going to climb Everest, he retorted "because it's there."
Other obsessions of mine have included Everett Reuss (he disappeared in the canyons of the Escalante of Utah in 1934), Chris McCandless (who died while living in the wilds of Alaska) toupees, and mullets (but that's for another blog). My most recent fix has been on Aron Ralston, who amputated his own arm after having it pinned under a chockstone for 127 hours in a slot canyon outside of Moab, Utah.
McCandless and Reuss probably have the most in common (although Ralston fits the description; he quit a lucrative job as an engineer to work at a bike/ski/climbing shop to free himself up for climbing adventures): young men who gave up most of their possessions and professions to go out in the unknown wild and escape society and its expectations. McCandless and Reuss perished. Rather than being put off by these books, I wax romantic over the notion of turning off my cell phone, ditching my computer, make-up bag, and huge assortment of cute boots to put a few belongings in a backpack and hit the road.
I gobble up books by Edward Abbey, Jon Krakauer, Terry Tempest Williams and watch The Deadliest Catch and Man vs. Wild with great interest (you never know when you'll need to eat bugs or how to make flotation devices out of your jeans). What these books bring very pointedly to my attention is this need, this human yearning to escape our societal constraints, test our limits, and get out of our heads. Ralston mentions in his book Between a Rock and a Hard Place the notion of Deep Play. The basic idea of deep play is that surviving dangerous circumstances that are beyond your control creates a very pleasurable feeling of relief. However, even though the voluntary acceptance of fatal, uncontrollable risk is a totally irrational act, it happens. Of course, according to deep play theories, the pleasure can only exist if the risk is real. Jeremy Bentham, and 18th and 19th century philosopher, legal and social reformer defines "deep play" as a game with stakes so high that no rational person would engage in it.
What I want to know is why have we, as a group of human beings, constructed a society that we are all trying in some measure to escape? There are the extreme cases of people like Reuss and McCandless, but how many take refuge in a bottle of booze, fall into a hole of drug addiction or take up gambling, extreme video gaming, trading on the floor of the stock market, take mistresses, have multiple irresponsible love affairs or take on extreme religious views? What happens when the lovers get caught, the floor trader makes a billion one day and loses it the next, the guy playing roulette in Vegas wins the jackpot? We crave, hope and live for that elusive "maybe," for the momentary relief we have from minutae.
The Bravery sing, "So give me something to believe 'cause I am living just to breathe. And I need something more to keep on breathing for, so give me something to believe."
I think that we are all desperately seeking escape! We are banging on the prison walls with our tin cups, our ids screaming "Get me the fuck out of here!" I have passed by many opportunities for fun because I have been afraid of something...I didn't want to look stupid, didn't want to push myself to a physical limit, and mostly because I didn't want to fail.
What can I learn if I don't fail? How will I know if I don't try? I'm not saying that we all should go out and try to scale Everest, I mean, my brand of danger is Aron Ralston's idea of a snore, but maybe I should try something "because it's there." Because it might be scary. Because it could really be fun.
5 comments:
Amen!!! Speaking of which, I just posted a link to a secret subway stop in Brooklyn. Wanna go find it?
I think your blog is introspective, brilliantly written, and at its best, profound. I'd totally buy your book.
But . . . I have no idea what you're talking about wanting to escape. Me? I mean, I'm so happy with minutae. Really. I am. Okay, stop laughing. I am . . . kind of.
Whatever. See you Tuesday.
But your idea of minutae could be someone else's idea of exhaustion! : ) That's why the world is so perfect, because all the billions of people fit in somewhere.
Tuesday will be fun! Super stoked!
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Great men all, pushing the limits of what we know to be the standard for human beings level of physical endurance! My only issue is with Chris McCandless.....when he entered the wild with few supplies and a sense that he could survive in the wild. He chose to leave his map on the dashboard of the man who had driven him to the entrance point of the Alaskan park. If he had the map he would have known that there was a bridge that would allow him to cross the river so he could make it back to civilization. I can't really see him in the same sentence with Mallory who at the time, prepared as best he could!
But again, I am off topic! There are so many things we do in this society simply because we are told to. We easily accept traditions passed down by those who came before us. No one seems to ask why? why do I go to a 9-5 job. So I can buy things, a flat screen t.v.? So I can make payments on an iphone. Why Do I accept the standard american diet of milk (stolen from cows) and processed meat?
I understand exactly this feeling to escape, the banging against the walls. I think in our heart of hearts all of us feel the bars of the veritable cage we are forced into.
That being said...I also feel there is a way to live above these rules without walking off a cliff. Running into the wild with no map, or shark wrestling.....(fun as it may be). Through soul searching and some deep listening to the heart , I think we can find something that inspires us, and go for it...all the way....whether it be theater (nerd), being a nurse or ditch digger... whatever you feel speaks to you.
Freddie, I totally agree. What all of these young men had in common (with the exception of Mallory and Irvine) was this extreme hubris. I mean, I am a Ralston fan. I think his will to survive is absolutely extraordinary. McCandless in particular was arrogant as hell and he paid for it with his life. Mother Nature will ALWAYS win. Always.
I have dabbled a bit in deep play completely unintentionally, but there is that moment afterward of realizing, "I forgot everything I ever feared, anticipated, and mourned in that one moment." And then I can think of that time and understand that for one moment, I was free.
If you are interested in poetry, check out Gary Snyder. He is an amazingly beautiful poet (won the Pulitzer for Turtle Island, my particular favorite). He studied Buddhism in Japan and many of his poems contain Buddhist thoughts. One in particular, and I can't remember exactly how it goes, was something along the lines of this: If we do everything (sweeping, dishes, reading, loving) with intention, then every act is sacred and good.
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