Adventure Is A Muscle To Be Exercised

Early March, 2022. I’d been itching for a mix up to the rhythm I’d been getting so used to. That mix up was to be found outside city limits. So I packed the car and headed east out of San Diego to find some snow, solitude and a bit of newness. Camping in the parking lot of a Best Western near the base of the mountain, I wrote this in my journal…. “adventure is a muscle that needs to be exercised. The more you exercise it, the more willing, adapt + rewarding it becomes. The less that you do… and the opposite becomes true. Comfort and domestication become more attractive and the adventure spirit soon withers.”

I love that. And over the last several months I believe in it even more. Sooooo lets expand. When I think of the spirit of adventure I imagine it the same as a muscle. As we train, exercise and push our bodies, we become stronger. We become more adapt to the stimulus of exercise thus making us willing to go further, harder, faster, longer. The concept obviously goes the opposite way as well. As we neglect our physical training, our bodies and muscles become weaker. Less adapt to the training we were once used to. And the longer we neglect our training, the harder it becomes to get back into it. The easier it becomes to make excuses. Comfort becomes more attractive because we know that the mountain to our goals will require pain, sacrifice and commitment. And the longer that continues, the harder and harder it becomes. It’s the same concept for adventure. It’s the same concept for anything really. Business, relationships, education, etc. But we focus on adventure here. 


Let’s relate this concept directly to adventure now. A life lived with a routine dose of adventure will, in time, make adventuring more enjoyable because we are more used to the limits it pushes us to. Quick side bar here…. I’m talking about real adventure… Not this glorified social media culture where going to a Cabo San Lucas beach resort is considered an “adventure” … The adventure I speak of… The adventure I yearn for, is when things don’t go according to plan. Wrong directions, lost with no cell service, out of water in the middle of the desert, vehicle breakdowns, bus rides through foreign countries, power outages, no air conditioning, scrapes, bruises cuts and sickness. Highs that come only through persevering the difficulty it takes to get there. This is what I mean when I say adventure. SO, back to the concept.. the more of it we do, the easier it becomes! The more comfortable we get with being uncomfortable. It allows us to enjoy the adventure more because our minds, bodies and spirits are better trained to endure the adventure! And yes, just like our muscles, the same is true in the opposite direction. The less of it we do, the more resistance there will be. We will ease into our lives of comfort. Our domestication will grow and we will default to the safety we’ve grown familiar to. Living in the know of what each day, hour, moment will hold. As we let the time build between adventures, the harder it will become to get back out there. It’s simple human nature! We gravitate towards what we know. 

I’ve felt this concept in both directions. And my urgency to commit to routine adventure is built during both seasons. Yeah yeah life is seasonal and sometimes adventure suffers at the hands of it… but in an ideal world, I’m getting my dose of adventure on a monthly basis at the minimum. Now there’s an entirely different conversation as to what qualifies for the adventure needed to scratch that itch, but for now… I’ll leave it as anything that gets me out of town, out of routine and out of reality. For a day, a weekend, a week. Whatever it may be. 

I took a trip recently that plays to this concept perfectly. I had just finished a full week of work (7 days of 8-12 hour shoots with travel days mixed in) and I was a bit exhausted. It had been several weeks since my last adventure (A summit of Mt Whitney) and a small group of friends packed the cars and headed south of the border to Baja for a weekend of surf and camp hangs. Side bar… how great is living in San Diego!? Hahahaha So this adventure had a little bit of everything. There were run ins with the police, arrests, taking wrong turns on dirt roads with no service, off roading *almost* trickier than the capabilities of our cars,  remote fishing villages with whiskey drinking locals and of course….. time in the water. As you read that, I hope a picture starts to form in your head. It was a real proper adventure. And given all of the aspects that went a little wrong (and could’ve gone worse) we all stayed pretty calm and enjoyed the absolute piss out it hahaha. It was one of my favorite trips. I think about this concept of “adventure as a muscle” and my muscle was very well trained on that trip. The months leading up to this specific trip, were filled with loads of adventures, mishaps and discomfort that all benefited me on this trip. My memories of this trip are fond ones because of the commitment to adventure I had been living. 

5/23/2022 // punta san jose ish 10 minutes before getting seriously lost

Sooooooo here’s to training our spirit of adventure! Maybe I will have more on this topic at a later time but for now…. This is all I have :) 

Previous
Previous

Stories South of The Border