The Explorer’s Club, now a prestigious New York institution, was founded in 1904 with the mission of advancing “field research and the ideal that it is vital to preserve the instinct to explore.” The club is famous for its luminary members’ “firsts” (although many of those people were made honorary members after the fact): first to climb Mt. Everest, reach the poles, reach the depths of the ocean, reach the moon.
But after the club’s annual awards banquet a couple of weeks ago, a Science Times article suggested that perhaps the club was past its prime. “Today’s explorers face a daunting prospect,” the reporter explained. “Our maps are fully drawn, and there is not much left for [explorers] to do.” He also noted that “the growth of new technology poses problems for one of the club’s most cherished precepts — that exploration means adventure in the field, carried out by visionary risk-takers.”
It certainly raises an interesting question. What does exploration consist of? And how important are the physical and risk-taking components in classifying something as exploration?
My Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary gives several definitions for the verb “explore”:
- To investigate, study, or analyze
- To become familiar with by testing or experimenting
- To travel over new territory for adventure or discovery
- To examine minutely for diagnostic purposes
- To make or conduct a systematic search
Nothing in any of those definitions requires physical activity to be part of the equation, (although I guess that depends how you choose to interpret “territory” in definition #3). There’s also no explicit mention of risk.
In truth, however, investigating, examining, traveling in, or searching anything unknown or uncertain always has an inescapable element of risk, because you don’t know what you’re going to discover, or how it’s going to turn out. You risk something if you’re exploring. The question is what you risk. In some cases, you only risk wasting your time. Or you risk an investment of money and resources into an effort that fails, or fails to discover what it set out to find. You might risk failure, loss of status, reputation, or money. You might risk ridicule, disappointment, or other humiliating outcomes. Or you might risk physical injury or death.
What you risk depends on the type of exploration you’re doing. The physical risk comes into play only if what you’re doing is, or entails, physical exploration.
If we equate physical risk with exploration–or at least the sexy kind of exploration the Explorer’s Club is famous for–it’s largely because physical exploration (and adventure) has a unique kind of appeal–for participants and spectators alike. (See my earlier post on The Appeal of Physical Adventure.) It boils down to this: better photos and more dramatic tales. Watching a scientist dissect 8,000 lines of code for an anomaly that might open up a new discovery about Saturn isn’t nearly as exciting as watching someone free-climb the El Capitan rock face in Yosemite National Park. Entrepreneurs I know describe the failure of a business as a death you have to live with. But macabre as it might be, physical death or disaster gets our attention far more than professional death or failure in the American Astronomical Society.
In terms of the Explorer’s Club, I suspect that the founders, when they began the organization, were thinking of the third definition of “exploration.” If they also focused on physical exploration and field work, which carries with it physical risk, it’s undoubtedly in large part because of the status and image society associates with physical exploits. But it’s also because of the time in which they lived.
Even as late as 1921, there were no maps of huge areas of Nepal, Tibet, and Asia. There were any number of areas of the planet that still remained physical unexplored (at least, by Westerners). What’s more, the early years of the 20th century were much more technologically limited. In 1904, both the Ford Motor Company and the Wright Brothers’ first airplane were only a year old. Climbers wore tweed, not Gortex. One of the reasons explorations were focused on physical discovery was because we lacked the tools required to do some of the more scientific exploration we’ve done since.
Pilots often bemoan the end of the “golden era” of aviation, when pilots flew with goggles and white scarves in open cockpit biplanes, barnstormers roamed the skies, and “real” adventures could be found and records and “first attempts” still waited to be conquered. Ah, for those heady days when all a man had was a compass and a map and his own wits, pitted against the elements and danger of new horizons!
Of course, as much as we romanticize the bravery of those pioneer days, I’d wager that none of those early pilots would have turned down GPS equipment to keep them from getting lost or crashing into mountains, if the technology had existed. They weren’t trying to be “real” men. They were just using the best technology they had at the time.
So given the advances in technology and more complete mapping of the planet we have today, what’s left for explorers? Is their “golden era” past, as well?
Absolutely not.
For starters, there are iconic images in numerous professions that we’ve had to change over the years–notably, when it comes to women. The iconic airline pilot, fighter pilot, cop, doctor, military officer or astronaut used to be a rugged, sturdy, manly man. (And please to note: The Explorer’s Club itself only started accepting women in 1981.) We had to adjust that image, once women were allowed to enter those fields. Some people still aren’t happy with that change, but the truth is, the jobs didn’t change. Just our image of what the person doing them should be like.
Today’s explorers may be wearing labcoats, exploring nanotechnology or operating remote vehicles in the depths of the ocean or in distant reaches of space instead of planting flags on peaks in fur-lined parkas. Or they may be finding new paths to places we already know something about. They may be outside in nature, or they might be sitting at a research station or desk. But they still exist, and they still matter. For only someone with appallingly unchecked hubris would think we have complete understanding and mastery of our bodies, our planet, and our universe.
But that doesn’t mean everyone is an explorer. So what constitutes exploring? Here’s my own list of elements or qualities that should be present:
- We reward and admire explorers because they are actively working at pushing boundaries. The laurels go not to the spectators, but to those who run the race. So to be an explorer, someone should be actively working on something; risking something; and the endeavor should have some element of uncertainty, the unknown, sacrifice, and discomfort (physical, intellectual, or emotional). Otherwise you’re still within a comfort zone. What’s more, just funding an effort does not make you an explorer. That makes you a patron–a worthy role, to be sure, but a different role.There are still physical boundaries to be explored. But I’ve seen a science team react when a satellite they spent 10 years building went dark right after launch, and their devastation showed how much risk and investment they’d had in that exploration effort. Ditto for the joy and exhilaration of the team that found the Higgs Boson particle in the CERN accelerator. It was the same as that of any triumphant exploration team that ever reached its goal or discovered something people had only guessed about before. The work, the sweat, the blood, the tears, the risk, and the discomfort are why failure is so devastating, and the joy at success is so intense. And that goes for any exploration effort.
- The point of exploration is discovery. The desire to conquer a mountain is different than an explorer’s quest to map it or understand it, even if both quests involve discomfort, risk, and effort. Explorers seek knowledge and understanding. They’re working to push the boundaries outward. Doing a route faster than the next person, or setting a new distance record, does not make you an explorer. It makes you a competitor (with one exception, noted next).
- To be an explorer, you should be working to push a boundary further into unknown territory. But there are two kinds of boundaries, and I’d argue that pushing either one can make you an explorer. The first is universal (or at least planetary): exploring into a place nobody has gone before. The second is personal: exploring a place you have not gone before. Just because someone else has already climbed that rock face doesn’t change the fact that the first time you do it, you’re in unexplored territory for you. But again, you get to wear the mantle of an explorer only if you approach it seeking knowledge and understanding–of the rock face, or yourself. Not if you’re only after achievement.
To be an explorer is to have a certain mindset and approach to life and the world. It’s a quest to understand what is not understood, and a willingness to risk reputation, funds, precious time, or even life itself to find some of those answers. It’s a willingness to step into territory that’s uncharted … either by you, or by anybody. The Explorer’s Club is correct that exploration takes courage. But courage comes in numerous forms. I’ve met any number of physically courageous people who were emotional or professional cowards.
I am also sure of this: the world still needs explorers–perhaps more than ever. After all, the world and the ways in which all the people on it interact are now far more complex. So the need is greater, as well, for people who are willing to question; to step into territory they don’t know or understand with a curious mind, wanting to explore and understand it better. And perhaps, in the process, help the rest of us understand, and broaden our minds and horizons, a little bit more, as well.
