Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
For many years I thought my job was to go to places where it would be difficult for most of the readers to ever get to. Now, in the more than 20 years I've been doing this, the concept of adventure-travel trips or expeditions by groups has sprung up. The places I went 20 years ago now have adventure-travel trips.
Hot, dry katabatic winds, like the south foehn in Europe, the sharav in the Middle East, and the Santa Ana of Southern California, are all believed to have a decided effect on human behavior and are associated with such health problems as migraines, depression, lethargy, and moodiness. Some scientists say that this is a myth.
A lot of the physical flirtation with fear I did early on in my career, when I was a much younger person - stuff I wouldn't do now. But I was very interested in the mechanics of risk and fear in those days. And I found out fear pretty much always feels the same, whether it's doing a rock climb or speaking in front of an audience.
I have no problem with the adventure travel movement. It makes better, more sensitive people. If you get people diving on a coral reef, they're going to become more respectful of the outdoors and more concerned with the threats that places like that face and they're going to care more about protecting them than they would have before.
As one of the first editors at 'Outside' magazine in 1975, it was my contention that most American writing going back to James Fennimore Cooper and then through Twain up to Hemingway had been outdoor writing. At that time, adventure writing meant stuff like 'Saga' or 'Argosy.' 'Death Race with the Jungle Leper Army!' That kind of thing.
It occurred to me that for a long time I tried not to write about my own backyard and my home. I suppose I was selfishly keeping it to my self. And in doing so, I was never able to get out into this incredible wilderness area - by the way, I live right at the edge of the most incredible wilderness area probably in the northern hemisphere.
In 1952, Muddy cut the song 'Rollin' Stone.' It was a nationwide success, and the song echoes down through rock n' roll history. Bob Dylan cut a tribute by the same name, an English band decided to call themselves the Rolling Stones, and the magazine that first embraced music as a serious cultural phenomenon was itself called 'Rolling Stone.'
When you've managed to stumble directly into the heart of the unknown - either through the misdirection of others, or better yet, through your own creative ineptitude - there is no one there to hold your hand or tell you what to do. In those bad lost moments, in the times when are advised not to panic, we own the unknown, and the world belongs to us. The child within has full reign. Few of us are ever so free
A lot of us first aspired to far-ranging travel and exotic adventure early in our teens; these ambitions are, in fact, adolescent in nature, which I find an inspiring idea...Thus, when we allow ourselves to imagine as we once did, we know, with a sudden jarring clarity, that if we don't go right now, we're never going to do it. And we'll be haunted by our unrealized dreams and know that we have sinned against ourselves gravely.