February 8, 2005
LONESOME COWGIRL
Ellen MacArthur is racing for everyone who yearns to be free (Paul Hayward, The Telegraph, February 8th, 2005)
It is often said that fanatical mountaineers, fell runners and round-the-world sailors are rebelling against the "safeness" and deadening affluence of middle-class existence. If so, MacArthur is part modern rebel and part a great British seafarer in the tradition of Raleigh, Drake, Anson and Cook. Whatever she is running away from - dry land, office jobs, other people - she will have ignited small flares of yearning inside all those who secretly want to emulate Reggie Perrin and dump their work clothes on the beach.The idea that we could all jump in a £2 million yacht and glide alongside dolphins in tropical oceans is, of course, a delusion. Yet some instinct rebels against our enslavement by technology: the e-mail account that will not stop churning, the mobile phone that will not be silent for more than a minute. When most of us dream of freedom, we imagine mountains, walking and cycling expeditions, sails and exploration.
MacArthur is an extreme manifestation of an impulse we all feel to escape, to keep moving, to return to the realms of the physical; to test our bodies for a while, instead of our brains. Michael Palin roaming endlessly round the world or Ewan McGregor roaring off on his motorcycle has a visceral appeal well known to television executives. Equally compelling is near-death outdoor drama of the sort that the climber Joe Simpson popularised with his harrowing book Touching the Void, which was subsequently turned into a high-grossing movie.
Our returning heroine understands the power of solitude to penetrate our deepest imaginings, our darkest insecurities. "I think anyone can imagine what it's like to be alone. Everybody has experienced it at some stage, whether it's for three hours or three weeks," she once said. "That is something people can connect with."
Or, rather, try to connect with. It is a modern conceit to think this impulse is a reaction to technology and affluence. Odysseus was not bothered by e-mail and the knights seeking the Holy Grail had no mobile phones. It is, in fact, a manifestation of man’s eternally alienated nature. Although we are often described by natural scientists as “social animals”, and although most of us are impelled by nature and tradition to settle down, raise families and build communities, we seem to be the only species that also consciously resents the social and biological chains that fetter us and yearns to break away, to explore and to live entirely for ourselves in a climate of never-ending newness and adventure.
Most of us sublimate this urge in a variety of healthy ways from art to sports to Harlequin romances, or unhealthy ones like affairs and addictions. But what is new is our blindness to the moral implications of this impulse and the risks we run in giving it free rein. Legend has it that Petrarch was the first European to climb a mountain and that he was so horrified by the dangers he invited by seeking out such beauty and adventure, he ran down and swore never to try such foolishness again. He recognized he might be awakening an unquenchable thirst that could destroy his soul as surely as heroin destroys an addict’s body. This insight seems to be completely beyond the ken of modern man, except perhaps for a solitary New Hampshire blogger who bravely risks the scorn of the rabble by preaching the time-zone rule.
Posted by Peter Burnet at February 8, 2005 6:44 AMHell isn't other people, hell is the future. What we seek from adventure is to exist completely in the present.
Posted by: David Cohen at February 8, 2005 7:42 AMHow on earth was Odysseus seeking solitude? He was trying to get home to his family. The only reason he was alone was that the gods off'ed everyone who travelled with him.
Brandon:
Not necessarily solitude, but adventure. Imagine you finally get home to your wife and tell her it took twenty years to find the way. Would she believe you? Do you think the millions who have thrilled to the story were sorry he didn't get home in chapter one?
Posted by: Peter B at February 8, 2005 8:28 AMDavid:
Very true. And also to prolong our existence.
Greene's 'Travels with my Aunt' captures the idea nicely: your life flashes past if you stay in the same place, and conversely, time slows down if you keep moving.
A personal history filled with experiences and adventures has substance - some meat to get your teeth into when you look back.
And well done Ellen - it's an incredible acheivement.
Posted by: Brit at February 8, 2005 9:02 AMBrit:
If that is true, shouldn't we be urging all the young to lead adventurous, Graham Greene lives and avoid the humdrum, endlessly repetitive, dutiful routine of marriage and family at all costs? Aren't we betraying them if we don't?
Posted by: Peter B at February 8, 2005 9:34 AMJust an observation, not a prescription.
Anyway, just leaving the parents' home seems to be too much adventure for many of the lazy hounds these days.
Shouldn't your title be: Lonesome Cowgirl?
Posted by: Brit at February 8, 2005 9:42 AMBrit:
Right again, on all counts.
My 20 years in the military substantiate what you say. And, to partially answer Peter, were not antagonistic to marriage and family.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at February 8, 2005 11:35 AMBrit/Jeff
Ah, another artful ducking of the issue by the materialist, self-laudatory tag team. :-)
Posted by: Peter B at February 8, 2005 11:59 AMWithout accusing Brit or Jeff of being leftist utopians, I note that just getting people to live in close proximity without killing each other is such a wildly improbable accomplishment that seeking to add on to it seems greedy.
Posted by: David Cohen at February 8, 2005 12:03 PMPeter,
Okay, if it's adventure you meant, then the example of Oddyseus does support your point.
And my wife wouldn't believe me if I was four hours late getting home and said I was lost.
But the time zone rule is still stupid.
Posted by: Brandon at February 8, 2005 12:31 PMAnyway, what issue, Peter?
You can't seriously hope to get a patriotic Briton to belittle an individual's sense of adventure?
Adventurous Nutcases are wot made Britain Great, damn your eyes and breeches.
We still churn them out. A regular at my local Indian restaurant in Bristol is a chap called Tony Bullimore, who ten years ago famously survived for a week in the Sourthern Ocean in a small air bubble in his capsised boat, living off only a single bar of chocolate and the Bulldog spirit.
Meanwhile, some few miles from the Brit family seat in Devon, dwells (occasionally) the world's greatest, and probably maddest explorer, Sir Ranulph Fiennes. And yes, I've met him, and no, he's not really from this planet.
Each to his own is the key. Three cheers for solid citizens, of course. But who'd want a world without any Adventurous Nutcases? Now that's an idea that, to me, smacks of leftist anti-individualism.
Posted by: Brit at February 8, 2005 1:11 PMYou can keep the Time Zone Rule just as long as you follow the Every Other Day Rule.
Posted by: joe shropshire at February 8, 2005 1:25 PMCommon sense would also note that yacht racing at that level is very much a team effort, from fund-raising, through boat design and checkout, to navigation and race strategy. You don't just "jump into" a boat that can race in the southern ocean.
Posted by: joe shropshire at February 8, 2005 1:38 PMBrit:
Granted one shouldn't perhaps be a fanatic about this or try to take all the fun out of life, but don't you think there is a difference between adventure for(collective) gold, glory or the gospel, and adventure just to get your name into the Guiness Book of Records?
Posted by: Peter B at February 8, 2005 1:50 PMWell, depends how you look at it. Sir Ranulph Twisleton-Wickham-Fiennes (yes, that is his real name) has raised 5 million for charity with his many adventures and misadventures.
But with or without the 'purpose', he's the sort of person who'd have gone off on those adventures and misadventures anyway, just because there's something wrong with the way his brain is wired, or something.
Probably best if you don't force people like that to work in offices. They might explode.
Each to his own, horses for courses, takes all sorts, live and let live, take the rough with the smooth, round pegs in round holes, no accounting for taste, et cetera et cetera...
Posted by: Brit at February 8, 2005 5:40 PMBrit:
"Each to his own, horses for courses, takes all sorts, live and let live, take the rough with the smooth, round pegs in round holes, no accounting for taste, et cetera et cetera.."
Now, there's the spirit that built the Empire!
Posted by: Peter B at February 8, 2005 6:28 PMJust to show that adventuring isn't all male, my wife rode her bicycle across the USA one summer, Seattle to Maine.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at February 8, 2005 9:00 PMMy wife has set a goal of hiking the Appalachian Trail in '06.
Posted by: Phil at February 8, 2005 10:32 PM