No Map. No Guide. No Limits.

A few days ago, I heard the actor Morgan Freeman being interviewed on the PBS show “Charlie Rose.” Freeman was on the talk show promoting a new show he’s producing and hosting for the Science Channel called “Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman.” As the name indicates, the show, which premieres June 9th at 10:00 pm EDT, explores some of the more intriguing and complex questions of the universe, from “Is there a Creator?” to “Is Space/Time Travel Possible?”

The mere fact that the 73-year-old Freeman is still interested in exploring complex questions of the universe impresses me. (He was in New York, he told Rose, to attend a big science festival that Stephen Hawking was attending, as well.) Many people, especially folks whose economic comfort is assured, are playing golf and rehashing old war stories by the time they’re in their 70s. Freeman is clearly someone whose thirst for knowledge hasn’t dimmed with age. And discovering that kind of adventurous vitality in a person always renews my own enthusiasm for attacking life with full force, age be damned.

But what caught my attention most in the interview was Freeman’s answer to Rose’s question of what Freeman would tell students who wanted to become actors, but whose parents were advising them to get a degree in something more practical first, so they’d have something to fall back on if the acting didn’t work out. Would he advise getting the back-up degree first? [click to continue…]

There’s a reason that the Greeks came up with the concept of  “muses” to explain bursts of inspiration or creativity. It’s because even those of us who make a living at creative endeavors aren’t always sure where those great bits of creation come from. And because of that, if truth be told, most of us are a little bit terrified that one of these days, the magic will suddenly stop working.
So the good news is, scientists are now studying the brain processes that are at least related to creativity, if not directly responsible for it.
The bad news is … those scientists are discovering that even the mappable brain functions associated with creativity look a little bit like alchemy. “It seems,” one researcher concluded, “that to be creative is to be something we don’t have a test for.”
Nevertheless, several neurological research efforts (chronicled in a recent New York Times article) are trying to plumb the mysteries of creativity. Interestingly enough, the “standard” definition of creativity (tested by giving subjects one minute to list all the different uses they could find for a brick) is apparently “the ability to combine novelty and usefulness in a particular social context.”
Personally, I’ve never considered creativity to have any necessary relationship with usefulness. Lord knows, there are plenty of very creative works of art out there that don’t serve any discernible useful purpose. I’d be more inclined to refer to something that combines novelty and usefulness as innovative, rather than creative. Innovation entails an element of creativity, to be sure. But it’s the usefulness requirement that distinguishes between creative art and creative innovation. At least, in my book.
But some of the other findings are fascinating. [click to continue…]

A couple of days ago—while I was on the road trying to balance work demands with helping my parents do some spring cleaning and looking at potential housing options for an upcoming move—a reader named Tim made the following comment on a previous post I’d written about the advantages of adventure for relationship happiness:

Great advice! But how to do this plus manage a family and a business life on the road is at the heart of the issue.

Arriving on my computer when it did, the comment, and its implied question, hit home with particular force. In thinking about it, I had to admit that a lot of my more spectacular adventures—at least in the physical adventure realm—have taken place when I was single, unattached, and could set aside some dedicated, uninterrupted time for one particular activity. I’m luckier than most on that front because often, I’ve been able to go on an adventure and call it work. And at other times, I’ve been able to finish a book project in a frenzy and then, with my income for the next few months assured, take a little time off to explore the world.

One of the big appeals of physical adventure activities, in fact, is that by their very nature, they require us to disconnect from all the other voices hammering for our attention and allow us the blissful experience of concentrating on one thing for a period of time. Mountain climbing, flying, scuba diving, and trips to remote corners of the world all take us out of the maddening multi-tasking demands of daily life and not only allow us to focus on ourselves, and where we are in any given moment … but actually require us to do that, for our very survival. Which alleviates even the guilt we might otherwise feel about removing ourselves from all our other obligations.

Contained in this truth is a very important lesson to which we all should pay VERY close attention. [click to continue…]

An article published in this week’s “Science Times” (the New York Times weekly science section), illuminated yet another reason to take on adventure (see LaneWallace.com for more on how I use and mean that word).

More specifically, a reason to take on adventure … with your spouse/significant other/partner.

Adventure, of course, offers all sorts of gifts for individuals who undertake it—education, fun, an expanded world, increased confidence, a sense of vitality and being alive … the list is long and distinguished, and if you do a quick search of “adventure and risk” posts on this site, you’ll get a lot of info on my and other people’s thoughts on the subject.

But researchers at Stony Brook University have come with yet another reason to embrace more adventurous pursuits. In a recent study they found that couples who took on adventures together (not necessarily physical adventures, but world-expanding or challenging experiences of one kind or another) … reported higher levels of commitment (and therefore fidelity) than those that did not. [click to continue…]

One more note from my interview with Story Musgrave (see previous post).
I have never really considered myself a romantic. Romantics, to my way of thinking, were fuzzy-headed dreamers who imagined Prince Charming would come rescue them, or that love conquered all. If I’d had to say, I would have said that I was a realist. Perhaps an optimistic realist. I don’t assume things are going to go well without attention, care and effort. I look for the potholes in a plan, even as I look to possibilities the horizon might contain. I hope for the best, plan for the worst, and keep my catcher’s mitt primed to field unexpected curve balls at all times.
It’s an approach I suspect a lot of adventurers and entrepreneurs share—at least, the ones with any degree or hope of success. And, indeed, Merriam Webster’s second definition of “romantic,” after “consisting of or resembling a romance,” is “having no basis in fact.” And its third definition is “impractical in conception or plan.”
But in talking with Story Musgrave—an incredibly accomplished pilot, astronaut, scientist, and medical surgeon known for his impressive analytical and detail-oriented thinking—I was surprised to hear him describe himself as an unabashed romantic.
“Really?” I asked. “You mean in terms of the poetry you’ve written?
“No,” he answered. “In terms of how I view the world.” [click to continue…]

A few days ago, NASA celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope launch. Ironically, nobody much remembers the 1990 launch. What they remember is the big post-launch “Ooops” when NASA realized that the primary mirror of the telescope was flawed, and the legendary 1993 Shuttle mission that repaired the telescope, finally giving it the clear view into the heavens that its designers had intended.

One of the lead astronauts on that 1993 repair mission (or “servicing” mission, as NASA euphemistically called it) was Dr. Story Musgrave, a veteran astronaut who’d been with NASA since he signed on as an astronaut-scientist in 1967. In anticipation of the anniversary, I spent some time talking with Dr. Musgrave last week on a wide range of subjects. We talked about everything from the Hubble repair, to the future of the space program, to space flight and exploration in general, to risk and what it means to have the soul of an explorer. (For some of Musgrave’s comments on the future of the space program, see this piece I did for The Atlantic.)

The whole conversation was far too lengthy to recount here (even by the standards of my sometimes loquacious posts!) At least in one pass at the subject. But one of the elements that struck me, listening to Musgrave’s answers, was how pervasive Musgrave’s passion for exploration was, and still is. And it made me wonder, once again, whether explorers are simply born that way—insatiably curious souls who, as Tom Petty would put it, “need to know.”

Most astronauts are well-educated and achievement-oriented, so a couple of advanced degrees and, for pilots, an impressive flight record, are standard fare in the astronaut corps. But Musgrave has way too many degrees and ratings to have pursued them for mere career advancement. He learned to fly as a civilian, and got all his ratings up through an Airline Transport Pilot certificate, even though he wasn’t pursuing a career as a professional pilot. He has a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and statistics, a bachelor’s degree in chemistry, an MBA, a master of science degree in physiology and biophysics, and a master of arts degree in literature. And … oh, yeah. He’s also a medical surgeon. [click to continue…]

It is not easy to be a teacher. I know this in part because I remember being a teenager who thought I knew a whole lot more than most of my teachers, at least about some things. And I know this in part because my sister is a teacher. She works long days, brings work and stress home, and has to get up and perform in front of a posse of cool-oriented teenagers every day, even when she’s had little sleep, has problems at home, or isn’t feeling up to snuff. The tragedies and failures of each of her students haunts her, even when the forces leading to those ends are beyond her control.
A teacher may have lesson plans, but in reality, they bring a catcher’s mitt to every day, knowing that they will also have to field a challenging range of unexpected line drives from a very tough audience and somehow make it come out okay.
Which is to say … even experienced teachers are negotiating uncharted territory, in public, every day of the school year. And like any explorer, they get better at it. They get stronger. They learn invaluable lessons along the way. Some of those lessons, however, are harder than others.
Erin Gruwell is the teacher whose story was turned into a Hollywood movie called “The Freedom Writers,” starring Hillary Swank. For anyone not familiar with the movie, it told of a young, idealistic English teacher (Gruwell) who went to teach inner city kids at a high school in Long Beach, California after the Rodney King arrest sparked widespread rioting and looting in Los Angeles.
Many of Gruwell’s students were members of gangs; most had lost close friends or family to violence. The abuse, abandonment, and tragedy they went home to, and the limited cell blocks they saw as their lives, goes beyond what most of us could understand. But in her classroom, and through a remarkable project she instigated, in which they turned their life stories into a diary, and then a book called “The Freedom Writers,” they built another, more stable, family environment in which they could be loved, accepted, and understood by not only Gruwell, but by each other. [click to continue…]

This Outside magazine cover story, highlighting CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, was not quite what I expected, given its title. I thought it would be a discussion of why, as humans, we need a certain amount of risk in our lives—possibly including Cooper’s take on the subject.
So I was a little disappointed to discover, upon reading, that it was, instead, short answers from 12 people who do somewhat risky things, about why they do them. Which isn’t at all about why anyone “needs” risk. A more appropriate title might have been “Why I Think the Risk is Worth It.”
Looked at from that perspective, however, the answers were intriguing. Most of the people profiled were doing risky or difficult physical adventure things, from skiing big ocean waves to rock climbing to ultramarathon running. But there were two journalists in the mix, and two others who were combining physical challenge with an intellectual journey or goal.
The people pursuing pure physical challenges described very personal rewards: being challenged, performing at their best and expanding their abilities, and the intrinsic satisfaction of being in a world they loved. Anderson Cooper and Ivan Watson (the other NPR/CNN journalist profiled) talked instead about the importance of the stories they were taking risks to obtain; of bearing witness to people’s suffering, balancing objectivity with getting involved in rescue efforts, and of being haunted by some of what they’d seen.
Clearly, Cooper and Watson get some intrinsic, personal satisfaction from getting those stories and being in those places, or they’d have chosen another, less risky, career field. But their answers conveyed, quite clearly, that much of what they did wasn’t all that fun. They just thought it was important for people other than themselves. None of the answers from those pursuing pure physical challenges conveyed that sense of purpose or responsibility. [click to continue…]

When David Roberts was young, he was all about the physical challenge and thrill of mountain climbing. Which is, I suppose, how it should be. I don’t know if nature kindly allows us to compensate for reduced physical ability as we age by driving us to notice and desire other components to adventure besides sheer physical thrill, or whether it’s just convenient that it works out that way. Either way, it’s a good thing.
When Roberts was in his 20s and 30s, he did first ascents on any number of routes in the Brooks Range of Alaska and founded the Outdoor Program at Hampshire College, where his student Jon Krakauer (Into Thin Air) first developed a love of both climbing and writing.
In the years since, Roberts has written for Outside, Men’s Journal, Smithsonian, National Geographic Adventure, and a host of other publications. And he is, indeed, one of the great adventure writers. But what makes me such a fan of his more recent writing is that it reflects that rare quality of a man who has mastered the art of growing up without losing the fire for life.
Roberts’ book Escape Routes is a collection of essays he wrote in his 50s about various adventures—almost all of which are far more complex than just “bagging a peak.” He writes of being part of the first team to travel by boat down the Tekeze River in Ethiopia, but talks as much about how trying to report on the trip daily changed and challenged the experience (it was sponsored by Microsoft, and he was expected to blog about it as it happened), as he does the physical challenges of the trip. [click to continue…]