Turn on your flashlight
Before you start reading this, picture yourself on a mountain, very far from the first house, with two people who probably live there. The sun is getting to the southern hemisphere, leaving you alone.
It’s very challenging for me to write about what exploration is and who the explorer is. I often think about this subject since it’s how I see myself as an “explorer”. Experience after experience, adventure after adventure I always ask myself, is this exploration? What have I explored?
Humans are wired for stories. That is how we came here since the dawn of civilization: by telling stories. We want to hear stories that drive our feelings and picture our vision for ourselves. We have a tendency to seek ourselves in those stories that we hear about. We instantly connect with the story that relates to an experience we had before or that we are searching for.
Now, this is something. We Instantly connect with stories that contain the experience that we are looking for.
I can’t tell you what exploration is. I am not so mature. This question can truly be answered by people who have experienced rare human capabilities. But, the idea of exploration is a self-reflection and self-discovery through your personal experiences. You need to find it on your own. It’s that personal.
Along the years of doing mountaineering and outdoors, reading and searching on the subject, I came to a vision that I think is really close to what I think exploration is.
It is a process of searching for a unique and not-ordinary experience with the final goal of creating a story that will give people different worldviews.
Now, what can limit the exploration? Have you ever thought about it? I do.
Turn on your flashlight.
Nothing can limit the exploration. What can stop you from experiencing what you truly want in order to create the story you truly believe? Let me tell you. Except for yourself, no one.
When all the scientists, doctors, intellectuals, and even the government told Messner that it was impossible to climb Mount Everest without oxygen, it didn’t stop him. He believed that it could be done; he believed the story he had created in his head. As a by-product, now, all of us have different worldviews.
Now, back to you. You stand on the mountain where you are alone. Even the sun left you. You are away around 40 minutes from the summit of the mountain. The snow is deep, with no tracks of people. What will you do?
I truly think that on every adventure we go on, the exploration does not start when the adventure starts. The exploration starts when we need to make a challenging decision. When we open the gate to the unknown, not the geographical unknown, but the unknown in ourselves.
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