Here's Why
Hi Ben,
I come to your site through a friend of a friend and can't help but wonder why you do this? You said in your FAQs that it is/was 'an Ironman x10' – but how does this feed your soul? You spend so much time on your own – what are you contemplating? searching for? debating? running from? running to? praying for? What? Why? I appreciate that I delve into the highly personal but the drive to do this, especially alone, is exceptional and unconventional even for research sake. Undoubtedly you are a remarkable person (your testimonials etc. show that clearly) with incredible drive, passion and physical stamina – I am still curious as to why? What is it that drives an individual to such exceptional extremes physically, mentally and emotionally.It would be interesting to hear back from you.
I'm asked 'why' on a constant basis, but this email (of September this year) was prying so much further that I thought it might be an interesting exercise to try and answer it here.
I don't have a one-liner (the great Sir Wally Herbert beat me to it with 'Those who need to ask, will never understand the answer, while others who feel the answer will never need to ask') and it's definitely not 'because it's there', if only for the fact that the North Pole isn't there. It's just another bit of ice.
And to be brutally honest, I really don't spend much time contemplating the question, in much the same way that I don't imagine David Beckham spends much time asking himself how football 'feeds his soul'. He's just doing what he loves.
Expeditions, for me, have a lot to do with self-discovery. Challenging, fearing, pushing limits, testing, doing, learning. Lance Armstrong described the Tour de France as a 'contest in purposeless suffering', something I can identify entirely with.
'There is no reason to attempt such a feat of idiocy, other than the fact that some people, which is to say some people like me, have a need to search the depths of their stamina for self-definition.'
So, yes. Self-definition.
There's more, though – the bigger picture. And until very recently, it's been a hazy picture indeed. Perhaps one of the most profound questions I've asked myself (and continue to ask myself) is 'where's this all leading? What's my legacy going to be?' As a child, and then a teenager, I drifted through school. Academically, I don't remember being inspired by anything. All the really important stuff – teamwork, communication and leadership, as John Ridgway puts it – I learnt outdoors, and the biggest lessons were often learnt in the wildest places. I was lucky to have grown up in the countryside, and to have been involved in outdoor pursuits for most of my life, but it strikes me that many of the opportunities I took for granted as a child simply aren't available to most of the young people in this country.
In addition, one of the biggest challenges I've faced over the years is finding the money to do the things I love. Polar expeditions are, admittedly, a particularly expensive way to go camping, but even buying a pair of walking boots isn't cheap nowadays. So there are a number of barriers between many young people and the experience that the founder of Outward Bound, Kurt Hahn sums up so beautifully:
'We are all better than we know. If only we can be brought to realize this, we may never be prepared to settle for anything less. Outdoor challenges show young people the meaning of what is one of the greatest sentences in the English language: "I can."
The bare bones of my plan is to start an organisation (a foundation, perhaps) that brings in corporate sponsorship and awards young people, or groups of young people, funding to do adventurous things (in the broadest sense of the word) – whether it's learning to ride a horse, or organising a climbing trip to Alaska. That's all I'm saying for now.
How about you – why do you do what you do? Where's it all going? What's your legacy going to be?
— Filed under Miscellany