A follow-up to the thoughts expressed in two recent posts: my own piece on commercializing adventure, in which I talked about my discomfort with highly-publicized, sponsored adventure quests, and Mike Singer’s piece earlier this week about what taking on adventure really means ….
A reader recently sent me a scanned copy of an article called “Dreams Delayed” by Peter Egan, the acclaimed Road & Track columnist. Unfortunately, the article is old enough that it’s not listed in Egan’s “Side Glances” archive on Road & Track’s Web site. I did, however, manage to find a grainy copy online: on page 7 of a Lotus enthusiasts newsletter (PDF) from 1986.
In the article, Egan relates the story of testing three GT cars at the Willow Springs race course with Allan Girdler, another car industry writer. The two were taking a break, race helmets in hand, when a man drove up in a 300ZX Turbo with “trick wheels, a bra, and an after-market sunroof.” He approached Egan and Girdler and gushed about what a racing fan he was. “Racing a car is something I’ve always wanted to do more than anything else on earth,” he said.
“There was a long, uneasy silence,” Egan wrote. “Allan hefted his helmet for a minute, brushed some imaginary dirt off the face shield and said, ‘No, you haven’t.'” When the man reacted with perplexed confusion, Girdler responded, “You haven’t always wanted to race more than anything else on earth. If you really wanted to race, you’d be doing it. Or you would have done it 10 or 15 years ago.”
The man protested. There was the cost, and the time. But Girdler was unswayed, pointing out that the man could race his 300ZX, if he wanted to. Or he could have bought another car even more suitable for racing, as well as a trailer and tow car and still have had money for drivers’ school, for the same price as his new ZX. “I started racing sports cars,” Egan reports Girdler as saying, “when I was a newspaper reporter, just married and bringing home about $80 a week. If you want to race more than anything on earth, you find the time and money.”
Amazing, how the truth can hit with the impact of a safe dropped on a sidewalk, sometimes.
As a friend of mine used to say, “In the end, we all do whatever it is we most want to do.” And that goes for attendance at “obligatory” parties and chronic bad behavior, as well as career choices and pursuit-or non-pursuit-of life passions. But the piece made me think.
It clarified for me the difference between Clive Weber (of stinkyfeetproject.org) and some of the bigger, sponsored adventurers I’d written about. Or, for that matter, myself.
In my “commercializing adventure” post, I wrote “There’s a reason I haven’t taken my own world tour yet, and it’s not lack of interest.” True enough. I could cite difficulties of time or money as the reason, but the real reason is … I haven’t wanted to badly enough. I haven’t wanted that world tour “more than anything else in the world,” or I’d have done it by now. I’d have done what Clive Weber did. Or I’d have scraped and saved and sold everything I own, just like some other people have, in order to have that experience.
To illustrate, here are a few links to stories of people who did want their adventures badly enough to do just that:
1. Six families in search of adventure, who found ways to embark on various world adventures with their kids.
2. A couple with four kids who sold their businesses and the family farm to restore a boat and are attempting to sail around the world
3. Eli Gerzon, who left school at 15 to learn from traveling the world and coined the phrase “worldschooling.” (like homeschooling, except, well … in the world).
And then there are all the people who simply chose adventurous career paths, making adventure a daily task. While they may make a living doing adventure, they’ve typically sacrificed a lot of other things to have that job.
Would I take on the challenges of a world tour adventure if I could get a sponsor to defray the costs (and perhaps provide a better safety net and communication/weather/support network)? Sure. But clearly, I don’t want that particular adventure enough to do it anyway. By the same token, there are other adventures I evidently did want badly enough to do whatever it took to have them. Which ones? The ones I’ve done, or am currently immersed in.
That’s not to say that there’s no adventure in an endeavor with major sponsorship. There’s still risk, sweat, and uncertainty. And few of us would turn down sponsorship or funding if it were offered—Allan Girdler included, I’d wager. But in the end, I’m just a big fan of passion. And I’m particularly drawn to those adventurers whose passion drives them on when other people would quit, or wouldn’t even start. People willing sell everything they have to journey around the world … or race junky cars as a cub reporter on $80 a week … just for the love of the game.
I guess I don’t want a world adventure bad enough either.
After retiring from the FAA last year, I find my adventures on my Harley. My wife and I have been coast to coast numerous times, mostly on 2 lane roads and can find plenty of adventure in the USA.
And if I may quote a great writer from Flying Magizine, “God willing and the creek don’t rise” the adventure continues to Alaska and the Artic Circle next summer.
Your article reminded me of an old story about a man who played violin and dreamed of being a concert violinist. One day, while in college, he asked his professor, a violin virtuoso, to give an opinion about his potential to make the violin a career. The maestro listened to his student play for only a few moments before pronouncing, “no, I’m sorry, you just don’t have the fire.”
The young man was crushed, but refocused his life and went on to build a successful business career and family life for himself. Years later, he met the old maestro, and asked him, “How could you tell, from only a few moments, that I didn’t have the fire?” “Actually,” replied his teacher, “that’s what I tell all the students who play for me.”
The young man was horrified. “But, that’s terrible!” he protested. “But for your comment, I might have gone on to become a great violinist! You destroyed that dream for me!”
The old maestro shook his head sadly. “No, you don’t understand,” he replied. “If you really had the fire, you wouldn’t have paid any attention to what I thought.”
How true. We find a way to do what we really want to do and a way to *stop* doing what we don’t want to do. There are always “pay-offs” in our choices whether positive or negative and this is what defines healthy choices. People just don’t do things they *really* don’t want to do. Taking “the road less traveled” requires going beyond our personal “comfort zones”. If we are not doing what we “always wanted to do” that means the idea is mostly a fantasy that one “visits” when life gets boring, messy, stressful or whatever other reason there is discontent. “Reasons” for not doing or doing things are like psychological alibis we use to make ourselves feel better about our choices, most of which are based on letting life happen to you rather than you choosing what happens.
Thank you for finding Peter Egan’s original article. I read that when it was originally published and it changed my life – no more excuses. I went out and bought my first sports car (a 1976 Triumph Spitfire) a few months later. Many cars and adventures later, I now race Porsche’s at the club level. Why? Because I really wanted to.