Expeditions, happiness and luxury
I stumbled across a fantastic article on Charles Leadbeater's site today. I heard Charles ('one of the world's leading authorities on innovation and creativity in organisations') give a fantastic talk at last year's TED Global conference, and we shared the stage at a recent event for IDEO in London, where the theme was 'happiness'.
Whereas I managed to sidestep answering the question of what actually makes us happy by telling a few stories about frostbite, polar bears and flying around in rickety Russian helicopters, Charles had clearly gone to the trouble of thinking seriously about his response, and he gave a thought-provoking talk.
I suppose we are truly happy - or at least we have the possiblity of being truly happy - when these two strands come together: we escape into commitment. Voluntary commitment becomes the true mark of happiness, when we feel we belong and when we choose to invest ourselves in things.
Expeditions, to me, embody this idea of 'escaping into commitment' absolutely. Being dropped by helicopter at the start of my 2004 North Pole trip represented, on the one hand, utter escape. I was alone in no man's land, thousands of miles from the fetters of civilised society. Yet I was also entering a period of complete commitment; the amount of thought and energy that goes into merely staying alive in those conditions is remarkable. To do so while also walking 1,000km took (perhaps understandably) more focus than I'd ever given anything before.
Charles' article on luxury (pdf) had me nodding in agreement as well:
Luxury experiences come in all shapes and sizes these days. Cheap technology means the average person can walk down a road listening to better quality music than a King could have summoned up a century ago… In every city in the world luxury brands – Gucci and Prada, Armani and Mont Blanc – sell the same products. Anything you can buy in an airport is not a luxury. That means luxury will come from finding oddity, idiosyncrasy, something that has not been discovered by others, and does not have a brand upon it… In a more cacophonous, relentlessly always on world, people will look for sanctuary: pockets of calm and breathing spaces where they can be themselves.
Breathing spaces don't come much bigger than the Arctic Ocean, the Greenland icecap or the Antarctic plateau, yet before today I'd never really thought of expeditions as luxuries. From tough guy to epicure in the blink of an eye…
{ Filed under Random thoughts and reflection on Monday, October 16th, 2006. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site. }
Ben Saunders is the youngest person to ski solo to the North Pole and holds the record for the longest solo Arctic journey by a Briton.
irene wrote:
I’m surprised that you never thought of the expeditions as a luxury. Really, any sport related or travel related activity could be considered a luxury, especially if you combine the two. There is the cost and the time, most people can’t afford either. Examples, I just learned to scuba-dive, and even that is a luxury sport, it seems. To venture 18 metres under water (by the way, that really sucks in the US Midwest), it is a considerable time investment, something an average working person can't easily take off or would never consider for just that, and also you have to dish out close to 1K to do it, after all is said and done. Same with skiing or triathlons in many places, of any sort. By the time you are done with equipment, travel costs, and time, you’ve really got yourself a luxury indeed.
October 17 2006 · 1:02 pm
Eloy Anzola wrote:
I do think expeditions are a luxury. As in "you are really lucky to be able to do (train, prepare, and then do) this"
I don't know that I agree with Irene, however. It can be expensive — but that's not what makes luxurius — in fact, the financial aspect is a little more like: "given the chance, how can you afford no to do it?"
October 17 2006 · 6:02 pm
Ben wrote:
There's not much luck involved ;)
As Donald Trump said on his blog recently (oh yes!) "The harder I work, the luckier I get".
October 18 2006 · 4:49 pm
Christy wrote:
My children have been following Ben for almost 3 years now and they
always want to know where he is and what he is doing, they kinda don’t
think of his travels as luxurius, but daring and solitare. They are
9 and 11 and they have waited for this trip since last year when he
announced he was going to do it again. I think it’s amazing to have so
many support you and (including money) It’s a shame that the one place in the
the world that many will never make it, that it would cost so much
money to get to. I guess that is one way to keep it clear and clean!
I am not sure I would want to expeirence it myself, the thought of no noise
day after day and complete whiteness day after day and I am sorry (Ben
) the thought of dying alone in a place so cold and untouched scares me to
no end. I am very proud of you and just simply amazed. If it matters you are making
two special kids very happy and thrilled. How’s your mum doing? I hope she’s doing wonderful. Good Luck friend.
October 22 2006 · 2:32 pm
Paul wrote:
Ben,
I have questions about that 912 mpg post. I read the article listed on HuffPo. The writer doesn't specify which kind of calories he's talking about. He doesn't take into account calories versus kilo-calories.
I think his calorie math is a little skewed because I don't think he takes the differences between food calories and energy calories into account.
While it would be good for each of us and the enviroment to ride a lot more, I just think he's spreading misinformation based on faulty math.
Maybe I'm wrong, but that's how I read it.
Paul
October 25 2006 · 4:17 pm