Adventure: Experiences with Subjectivity
"How they felt and thought and talked, what they believed, and what strange things they sometimes did." - Mark Twain
Huckleberry Finn, of 2022 and earlier
Mark Twain described his 1885 novel as a collection of stories where "most of the adventures really happened." Likewise, my own adventures, related to my places of sleep, of the past few years are told below:
2019 - I wake up in a new bed, every few nights, in a land I consider thousands of miles from home. Not in familial Gers, like those slept in by Genghis Khan in distant lands, but in unknown Airbnbs.
2020 - I fold up my cot in my shared bedroom; I move back to my home of 9 years, but only for a few months. Halfway through the calendar year, I pack up at least six boxes (and three times as many as my fiancé) and take the drive a few hundred miles north, where I settle down into a studio in The Bronx; the same one my parents lived in at the same age of 22.
2021 - I move away from the studio, and a street filled with generations of my family, to downtown Manhattan. I begin traveling for my work, spending a few nights every few weeks in a new bed, in new rooms, in new hotels, in new cities.
2022 - I resign a lease for a 1 bedroom, Manhattan apartment for the next 18-months. The work travel continues; new cities, new hotels, new rooms, new beds.
Between the daily rise of my head and laying down of it, I am afforded opportunities to partake in adventures.
The Box of Daily Experiences, with us forever
As Lawrence showcases in his comic-like narrative regarding views on our lives, we view our present times as normal and mundane. We live, breathe, and act in this boundary. Sometimes, we hold desires outside of this box. If so, we dream to change our box to encapsulate our newfound desires, both material (as in a new car) or experiential (a new city to live in). Lawrence explains that moving outside our box, for example through travel, does not make us move outside our box permanently. Instead, our box gradually moves with us; a new desire slowly becomes our box of daily experiences. Therefore, to enjoy our mind and the thoughts therewithin, we must realize the box is with us (for life). From there, we can focus on increasing its health. As Warren Buffett analogizes, if we have one car for life, it behooves us to take care of it.
"…Experiences, or the excitement produced by such"
Cambridge Dictionary partially defines adventures as such. Our minds bequeath adventures in subjective manners, thanks to the concept of the box of daily experiences. Simply, adventure is different from me than for you. This post is not about proscribing adventure, rather, it is about finding an adventure for you.
Sleeping in new beds often, as I have over the past three years, could seem like the definition of adventure itself; it must mean travel to new lands and new experiences to consume. That perspective, could or could not be shattered, if I then describe my daily activities within each "new" land: visit a local Whole Foods for kombucha, labor on the same laptop for the same programs at the same company, eat Chipotle for lunch, repeat the labor, break for dinner, and repeat the labor some more.
We proscribe adventure ourselves, whether or not the activity or the emotions felt by such activity. Understanding our own perception of adventure allows us to then theorize what adventure is, and is not.
"I cannot endure that. I’ve been there before."
Huckleberry Finn states, in the closing lines of the self-titled novel.
We must not treat adventure as a panacea for an unfulfilled life. Conversely, the awareness of adventure is of utmost importance.
The awareness of adventure is self-contrived, fixating, alluring, and ultimately, necessary, to live life. It is not external, but internal. It is not unnerving, but focusing. It is not troublesome, but delightful.
Awareness of the unexpected allows us to become accustomed to unpleasantries, for the sake of experiencing surprises that come from situations.
For example, I can correlate adventure to my experiences with sleep (as described at the beginning of the post) over the past four years, such as:
2019 - Understanding the differences between local variations of "home" - whether it be a sky-rise apartment (Hong Kong), open-air residence (Singapore), ground-dusted floor (Vietnam), shared bedroom (Cambodia), shared apartment (Taiwan), or a kampung / communal residence (Malaysia / Indonesia).
2020 - Noticing the draft of air, slight movement of my cot, as I sleep miles from home, compared to my insulated, well-constructed queen-size bed at home.
2021 - Hearing cats fight, birds chirp, video games roaring, radiator humming, and fiancé talking as I attempt to sleep in a basement level studio in The Bronx.
2022 - Listening for different sounds, smelling for different smells, and feeling for different temperatures, as I go to sleep and wake, at a downtown Manhattan rental.
Reading the above, I think to myself I have experienced SO MUCH. Surely, adventure is in my life.
The box of daily experiences suggests otherwise; that's just my life, nothing more. In fact, my experiences with sleep are universal, as all humans roughly spend (or need to) 1/3 of their life sleeping (as described in Matthew Walker's "Why We Sleep").
Thinking back to the past four years, I realize my life is full of adventure, not simply with sleep, but with so many activities. Walking, eating, swimming, "working"… all of those times produce "adventure," so long as I recognize.
"The Adventures of Tom Sawyer;" the need for a sequel
The novel "Huckleberry Finn" occurred after "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer." Unlike Huckleberry Finn's "companion" Jim who "would rather live without adventure," Huckleberry Finn realized he loved adventure; he would seek it and integrate it as a part of his life. Likewise, I feel like the latter; adventure, I now realize, is required to live life. Living abroad for five and a half months in 2019 highlighted this as a maxim. However, I do not have to sleep abroad to live this maxim. Rather, I learned adventure is opportune; it is right in front of my eyes, nose, and ears - all I have to do is recognize it.
With an active awareness of the need for adventure, I can better understand and work towards activities, places, and work that aligns with my desires. This makes a life worth living, at least in the present. A related step to partaking in adventure is reliving and recollecting it. With this blog, I hope to continue doing just that — produce a sequel, by revisiting adventure.
As Mark Twain begins the Huckleberry Finn novel: "I hope that it will help them to remember pleasantly the days when they were boys and girls, and how they felt and thought and talked, what they believed, and what strange things they sometimes did."
Next Steps
Thank you for reading.
This is post 12.
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