Dare to Venture Down Unknown Paths

A brief reflection on the need to wander to vanquish fear and gain meaning in life.

Photo by Patrick Fore on Unsplash

“Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.”

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

There is a crisis of meaning in modern times. With so much rapid and disruptive political and social change occurring daily, many of us are left questioning ourselves and others. Trust is down. Fear is up. Who can we depend on? Am I making the right decisions? Is the road I’m traveling down leading to one of misery or satisfaction? We seem to grapple with endless uncertainty and worry in our modern age.

Although modern life is certainly distinct from previous times in history in several ways, perhaps the “crisis of meaning” is not. We are “present-centered” and so we are naturally biased to think that our own time is somehow more complicated and unique. But humans, present and past, have always taken very seriously the question of what the meaning of life is and have been equally if not more, plagued by plenty of fears and uncertainty.

The short and harsh answer, at least from my point of view, is there is no ultimate meaning to life. However, the good news is that this question of meaning and our quest for purpose lends itself to democratization—by which I mean that the purpose of our lives is to assign life a purpose—we get to choose and imbue our individual lives with meaning how we see fit. What greater sense of freedom could there be? And yet, this also proves to be a challenging project since life is full of uncertainty and misdirection.

Where do we begin to take the first step toward discovering meaning? Who or what can give us certainty and direction in a limitless world of charlatans, fearmongers, and nihilists? Many of us, fortunately, receive plenty of guidance from our peers, parents, and communities along with larger society and popular culture full of musicians, artists, philosophers, podcasters, entertainers, and self-appointed gurus and “influencers” of every niche subject you can dream of that pushes and pulls us in all sorts of directions on how we ought to live. However, none of those people are us and cannot ultimately decide our fates. I suspect the beginning stage of constructing a meaningful life has something to do with following an inner urge to wander and dare to venture down unknown paths, especially when we are young.

Daring to travel down unfamiliar and potentially uncomfortable roads enables unforeseen life trajectories and these moments can dramatically come at times when we most need them. Thus we sometimes must be willing to embrace uncertainty rather than try to avoid it. I do not fancy myself to be Reinhold Messner or Jacques Cousteau by any stretch of the imagination, but I’ve taken some moderate risks and traveled several unknown routes in my life thus far.

From pursuing financially unwise career paths (anthropology and history degrees are notoriously unwise routes toward financial security) to twice moving away from my family, across the country to places where I had little social network to lean on. Directly out of college, I took several months off to backpack the Appalachian Trail instead of seeking out a job to start paying student loans back and saving for the future. I frequently travel approximately three to four weeks per year, foregoing income because I do not have PTO to offset bills and a mortgage while taking time off.

I’ve invested in wandering because money isn’t everything. But I’ve also learned over the years that a balance can be struck between having responsibilities and traveling—that it isn’t a zero-sum game, all or nothing. I’ve come to discover that traveling down unknown paths often leads you to discover something new about yourself or something new about other people and places. And these experiences have proven to be profoundly important and life-altering. These memories and experiences wandering are the stuff of meaning. I once spent what little money I had on an old Chevy van that got about eight miles to the gallon and burned a quart of oil in about the same amount of time. I traveled to Kentucky to camp in the middle of nowhere Appalachia with it and even took it on my first trek out west, a two-week trip to Colorado with my father and brother. That trip was life-changing because we visited Mesa Verde National Park which catapulted me into pursuing archaeology and anthropology.

When I look back on my life, I tend to zoom in on these major turning points—the moments I decided to go to college to pursue archaeology; met my wife Hilary and our decision to get married; the times we moved across the country; hiking the Appalachian Trail; and our travels abroad. Virtually all the greatest moments of my life thus far share a common theme: they all happened in the context of actively pursuing some adventure with a lot of uncertainty in the mix. They were all risks taken down unknown paths both metaphorical and physical. Out of all these experiences packaged into these risky maneuvers and adventures came a lot of understanding of myself and the wider world. More importantly, I came to be more comfortable with risk and uncertainty.

I’ve often asked myself both on an individual level and as a society, what are the risks of not taking risks? There have indeed been times when I’ve foregone opportunities for adventure and potentially missed out on some grand experience, whether that be chances to do archaeology in other countries like Mexico or simply traveling abroad to more countries out of feelings of uncertainty and fear. How often have we all given in to a fear of some unknown adventure only to be plagued later by a tiny disquieting feeling telling us that perhaps we should have gone through with it?

The values and lessons of adventure elude many of us because adventure means danger and risk and much of contemporary culture and society has become allergic to danger and risk. We’ve cultivated an unhealthy obsession with safety that feeds into our culture of fear (these topics I will expand upon in future posts). Nevertheless, we all possess an adventure left untaken, unexplored, unlived. What exactly is stopping us from participating in one of the most ancient and instrumental behaviors of our species; an intoxicating mix of serendipitous wondering and wandering?

Many people lean on a common phrase that “everything works out.” And as cliche as that is, there is truth in it. We can never anticipate the future and we spend incredible amounts of our time living in fear and worry about what’s to come. One answer to alleviate these fears and anxieties about the state of the world is to simply be more spontaneous with our lives. That includes taking on some daring adventures, especially when we are young. Where and how those adventures unfold specifically will be up to each one of us, but I encourage everyone to dare to venture down some unknown paths, nonetheless. Meaning is guaranteed to be found for those who wander.

For consideration:

●      What was a moment in your life when you traveled down an unknown path? Where did it lead you? What benefits did you gain?

Thanks for being a fellow traveler with me through this read. Please consider subscribing, sharing, and supporting this project—much more to follow.

Cheers!

-JSB