The Appeal of Physical Adventure

I was interviewing an air show pilot this past summer–one of the better known ones, who’s been around in the business for a long time. That’s impressive, because the fatality rate in that line of work is a lot higher than average. So surviving to fly another day is a significant part of the challenge.
This particular pilot is getting toward the end of his career. There is a point, he said, when you simply can’t keep fit enough, or keep up that level of abuse and strain on your body, to be safe and skilled enough to stay in the game. That’s true of any professional athlete, of course–pilots just get another couple of decades beyond football, basketball and baseball players before they hit that wall.
Not surprisingly, however, as his air show career is nearing its end, he’s taken up other physical adventure challenges. Mountain hiking/climbing. Scuba diving. Sports that are still physically demanding, and contain enough risk to require complete attention while engaging in them, but are less grueling than the high-G, Olympic-level training required of an air show performer.
I say it’s not surprising, because while I stress often on this site that adventure comes in many forms–physical, emotional, professional, and personal–all adventure is not alike. It can all be educational, because any kind of adventure involves some degree of uncertainty; of stepping outside your comfort zone and figuring out a path in an uncharted territory. And there are certain kinds of rewards that come from undertaking any kind of adventure. Figure out how to raise a kid as a single parent (or raise a kid, period), find a way to keep the bills paid when steady work isn’t available, start a business, climb a difficult mountain, learn to fly an aerobatic routine, or learn how to follow your own voice and stand up for something you believe in, and you will come through the other side feeling stronger and more capable.
But all those adventures do not offer the same kind of experience. And if more people get excited about the prospect of flying, diving, or climbing a mountain than raising a kid as a single parent, there’s a reason for that. A couple of reasons, actually.
Part of the appeal of most kinds of physical adventure, as opposed to life adventure, is that physical adventure is so darn clean. It offers an experience that has specific start and end points, a clear challenge, and clear metrics as to how well you meet or overcome that challenge. Then, at some point, you get to say “enough,” or “well done!” brush your hands together, and call it a day, wrapped in the warm, rewarding comfort of a sense of completion.
Life adventures are rarely so clean or clear-cut, and if they provide a point of “completion” at all, it’s usually a much longer-term prospect. Human adventures can be every bit as exhausting as physical endeavors, but they’re usually messier and more complicated. More than one mountain climber, in fact, has gone to the mountains in search of escape from those messier human adventures.
Human adventure also tends to be about more than just yourself. If you’re working to create an unusual career track, that almost certainly involves interactions with other people. Family adventure involves all kinds of messy dynamics. Pursuing a passionate cause often pits you (and whatever people you can persuade to join you) against complex opponents in a struggle to improve the world in some way. If you’re an entrepreneur, you have to think about partners, funders, employees, and the rest of the team you need to pull across the finish line in order to succeed.
Physical adventure is much more “self” oriented. Only you can fly that plane across the ocean, climb that rock wall or mountain, or finish that cross-continental bicycle journey. Even if there are others on your climbing team, it’s not a team sport. It’s you and your personal strength, skill, tenacity and determination against nature, physics, or some other non-human–and well-defined–opponent. That’s part of its appeal.
It’s also part of why I’m cautious about drawing too many parallels between physical adventure and human or professional adventure. Yes, physical adventure can teach you valuable lessons about yourself, overcoming fear, finding a path where there isn’t one, and thriving in uncertain circumstances. And the importance of passion for an endeavor translates, to be sure. So does staying calm in emergencies. But taking on a physical adventure for yourself doesn’t teach you the skills of managing a company, or being a better CEO or parent, because those things are far more about focusing on others and on multiple, competing priorities then they are about focusing on yourself.
A second reason physical adventure is so appealing is that in addition to allowing you to focus on yourself, it allows you to focus on “being present in the moment.” In point of fact, most physical adventure requires you to focus on the present. Otherwise, you’re likely to get hurt or killed. You can’t focus on next week’s Board of Directors’ meeting, or how to resolve the behavior problem your six-year-old is having, or the memo you have to write as soon as you finish developing the pitch for your public art proposal. You have to focus on what’s happening where you are, right now, and what your very next move is going to be. Nothing else.
That “present” focus is appealing, because–among other things–there is a direct correlation between being in the moment and feeling alive. As I’ve often written, the way to feel 100% alive is not live as if each moment were your last, but instead to try to make each moment last forever. That puts you squarely and completely in the present, aware of every sound, sensation, and emotion. Add a little excitement, adrenaline and uncertainty to the mix, and it’s a hard thrill to beat.
As the pilot I interviewed put it: “I love living in the moment. That’s where I feel totally engaged and alive. I love that feeling where you’re not thinking about your laundry, or what you’re going to have for dinner. Where there’s nothing else in your mind except total, acute focus. I’ve found that practicing, performing, and climbing these mountains, because [in all those activities] I’m very much in the present. And when I’m just engaged in that moment, I feel very, very powerful.”
There are some creative endeavors that offer the same kind of focus, of course. Musicians and artists will sometimes talk about being in “the zone,” where they are unaware of the passage of time, or anything else except the creative process they’re immersed in. But most life adventures are multi-tasking endeavors, not single-focus experiences. And contrary to the addiction so many people seem to have to distractions and constant connection, there is a singular satisfaction, power and thrill to focusing that intently on one thing, in the moment of “now.”
We also tend to hold up physical adventurers as somehow higher status than many “life adventurers” (unless that life adventure involves starting a company like Google or Apple). So there’s a kind of public status and bragging rights that come from success at a physical adventure that teachers trying to figure out a way to get kids in an inner city school to read just don’t get.
No wonder, then, that physical adventure challenges continue to hold such an appeal for people. They offer clear-cut boundaries, start, and end points; clear and relatively uncomplicated opponents; a chance to focus on yourself; a chance to focus on and live in the thrill of being alive in the moment; and bragging rights to boot.
The downside, of course, is that you’re unlikely to die in a life adventure. That’s not true of many physical adventure challenges. Nothing is perfect, and everything in life is a trade off. But that’s a topic for a different day.