In Search of Awe

NY Times caption:  A steady stream of mountain climbers lined up to stand at the summit of Mount Everest, on Wednesday. (5/22/2019) Edited to add: Photo Credit Nirmal Pirja of Project Possible.

This photo has been heavily shared in traditional and social media with most of the articles discussing the impacts-including higher death toll-from the increased popularity of and access to climbing Everest. I'm not here to add to that particular discussion but with a blog title like Earth Explorations I feel like I would be remiss if I failed to address this picture.

In the About section of this blog, I make the following statement:

Being an explorer is mostly about having an approach to life that is based on curiosity about the unknown. That's the core requirement. The other things like travel to exotic places are nice but not necessary. And it's really not necessary to climb a mountain or traverse a polar region. That's being an adventurer which is different than being an explorer. They aren't mutually exclusive but they aren't the same thing, either.

If you were to make a Venn diagram of what is an explorer and what is an adventurer, you would find a lot of overlap between the two.  For many people they are practically synonymous. And, in fact, National Geographic did and still does support this perception through its coverage. You don't have to look any further than Alex Honnold and Free Solo to see that.

But I maintain that adventure alone does not and will not make you an explorer. Taking risks and pushing the limits of what is safe in and for the natural world has its place and certainly might happen in the course of being an explorer but it also might not. You can go in a different direction.

In the explorer/adventurer Venn diagram one of the attributes you would find in the intersection is that both seek and feel awe. Awe is the feeling of being small in comparison to something much, much larger. The expansive panoramas of nature cause us to feel awe. So does experiencing up close the force of nature like a towering summit or raging river.

But the world has more opportunities for awe than blockbuster experiences. When I work with students, I use a Beetles Project activity on making observations teaching them to zoom in, get low, and go slow. There is a lot of awe to be experienced in the small and quiet that comes not from the beauty or grand scale or overpowering force but from the mystery of the hidden.

This desire to uncover the mystery, hopefully in a respectful, responsible manner, is what drives the explorer. And that walks straight back to being curious, the core requirement and main attribute.

Look, I'm not here to quash anyone's Everest dreams. But I do encourage everyone to deeply reflect on what are they really looking for and if it can be found another way, namely through exploration rather than adventure. My experience is that in being an explorer you will have adventures (maybe not Everest adventures but adventures nonetheless) but I doubt the corollary is true; that in being an adventurer you will have explorations.