What Does ‘Adventure’ Mean?

We all seem increasingly inclined to use the word ‘adventure’ to describe whatever we are up to these days

It has become a bit of a casual apportionment; a throwaway (social media-led?) cliché, perhaps … the new catch-all description of things that previously just were. It puts me in mind of a comedian on a panel show who was talking about ‘craft beer’, “or what we used to call beer”. In a media-stoked, social media-influenced world, have we all been press-ganged into exaggeration and hyperbole to make our daily doings sufficiently interesting for a world-weary audience; an audience desensitised by sheer weight of content; a community which has been overwhelmed by iconic shots of ‘adventurers’ gazing out over breathtaking mountains, lakes, and icecaps?

We were listening to a discussion between Tim at Adventurous Ink - a subscription service that delivers a curated library of reading about adventure and the world in which it takes place to your living room - and the team at Sidetracked Magazine. There was much talk of adventure. No surprise there; it is what we tuned in for. Sidetracked is the first word in the resurgence of print journals about lives lived in the great outdoors. It is an intoxicating cocktail of words and images, shaken - quite often with polar ice - and always stirring. Adventure writ large.

We were curious

Is there ever an editorial debate about what to include in an issue of Sidetracked? A debate that wrestles with publishing decisions to be made between the type of adventures that Shackleton gathered earnest, bearded hard men to undertake, and everyday tales of derring-do by seemingly ordinary folk?

A definitional conundrum at the heart of these musings.

It is an issue of degrees; not necessarily degrees of longitude; though perhaps some latitude is required to draw in those of us who are a long way from fitting even the loosest description of adventurer. Undoubtedly, however, the readership of Sidetracked and subscribers to Adventurous Ink have gathered around the metaphorical campfire to hear tales at the more extreme end of the definition.

In a recent article for Sidetracked Magazine, ‘The Mountain I Did Not Choose’, Rosie Baker explains her take on the characteristics of adventure, as she is compelled by circumstance to recraft her own expectations.

“... it draws together being curious, pursuing challenge, accepting some hardship for a worthy purpose, seeking perspective, and accepting failure as part of all journeys towards bold and big dreams.”

— Rosie Baker

Rosie’s words made us reflect on our own ‘adventures’. We are definitely guilty of using that terminology to wrap up all manner of undertakings. As we share tales of our own ‘life well-lived’ we see it both as an adventure for us and “an encouragement [for others and ourselves] to stay curious, optimistic and adventurous”.

In our modest way, we have been driven by curiosity to take on the challenge of selling our home, living nomadically, crossing borders, and lightening our footprint. We are learning - later in life than many - to celebrate the outdoors; hiking, cycling and swimming. No ‘firsts’ or ‘highests’ … certainly no ‘fastests’ or ‘furthests’. But adventures nonetheless.

We are in the process of unpicking certainties we previously wrapped ourselves in as our life wound its way along paths that reflected expectations and conformities, both our own and society’s. Our new path is definitely about ‘pursuing challenge, accepting some hardship for a worthy purpose, seeking perspective’, as Rosie Baker put it.

We are certain that our ‘early alarm call, drive an hour, clamber down a cliff’ sea swim followed by a 40-kilometre cycle home won’t feature in an upcoming adventure magazine article; but it certainly stirred our souls. It even struck a chord with the folk who peer in on our life; ordinary humans like us whose vicarious experience of our ‘life well-lived’ reflects their own cravings to break free and adventure.