Log #5

TED- Why Bother Leaving the House?
https://www.ted.com/talks/ben_saunders_why_bother_leaving_the_house/transcript?language=en

“If you cannot understand that there is something in man which responds to the challenge of this mountain and goes out to meet it, that the struggle is the struggle of life itself upward and forever upward, then you won't see why we go.“

People may regard Ben Saunders, the speaker in this video, as an explorer, but I want to call him a life-lover. He went to pole for several months, with no specific itinerary. He walked along the coast to feel the movement of Iceland. He traveled for sheer joy. Also, he planned to finish the mountain climbing which others didn’t finish and encouraged us to walk outside exploring the world.

“I can try to tell you what it was like, but you'll never know what it was like until you get there.”

Exploring the world can be either simple or challenging. What’s the meaning of exploring? We can rather go shopping or stay in a park and take pictures with artificial installations. However, if so, in my opinion, it’s not “exploring.” There is where someone wants you to go. It’s human-made scenery. It can’t even be called as scenery! It’s like the bloggers have been there and took pictures and uploaded them for everyone, and after you see that, you know what it will be like. Then here, you have known all of them, and you can’t have the value of exploring it.

So, what’s the true exploring? It should be to rebuild your altitude, or to find the meaning of life. It should get you know something new. And the most importantly, you will have your own story after the exploration, which can be shared to others, but can never be owned by others. This is because they’ll never know what it will be like until they get there. They have to explore by themselves.

“And it seems to me, therefore, that the doing, you know, to try to experience, to engage, to endeavor, rather than to watch and to wonder, that's where the real meat of life is to be found. Real inspiration and growth only comes from adversity and from challenge, from stepping away from what's comfortable and familiar and stepping out into the unknown.”

When I was little, my parents took me to travel everywhere. Since then, I have been dreaming of traveling alone to explore the world. Therefore, when I grew up, I took my first self-trip. Due to my age limited, I could only travel to the city in Taiwan. Thus, I stepped onto the train toward Tainan and started my own exploration. On the way, I looked out the window, imagining where I would get, and what I would find.

I am not going to detail my first self-trip. The result is I got lost in the unfamiliarity, and eventually I called my friend to rescue me up. After that, I hadn’t traveled by myself for long time. I wondered why I couldn’t finish my trip by myself…

Still, I tried to go exploring the outside world.