2008 Woodie Awards
VIEW FROM MARS
The Human Adventure
Alan Nordstrom
Issue date: 12/3/04 Section: Opinions
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How much of human nature and experience can be summed up by the idea of adventuring, which means daring to leave the safe island of home and braving the unknown-throwing oneself upon the wind in order to arrive at a new and more wonderful land?
Is that not the motive underlying human history-"The Human Adventure"? Every human life amounts to an adventure into larger and more luminous spheres of experience-or a failure to risk that journey and a consequent self-stifling, a Jonah-like cringing from the calling to be more.
The human enterprise is about boldly going into the unknown, bravely venturing upon the terra incognita surrounding us, plunging into deep and savage woods, into dark and hidden caves. It is about conquering the fears that inhibit and constrain us from finding out the fullness of all possibilities and potentials.
We are by nature explorers seeking to bring light into caverns and to hew clearings in the wilderness of forests and jungles. What we most admire in human beings, what essentially constitutes heroism, is bravery, is courage, is the deft and graceful facing down of fears and consequent arrival on the shores of new glories of accomplishment.
Human beings seem made to be fear-fighters, and thus we honor most highly those who are bravest in the pursuit of their callings to venture, whether outward or inward, and to discover new knowledge.
Surrounded by unknowns of all kinds, curious to find out new knowledge, yet cautious of extending ourselves beyond the clean and well-lighted comforts of the familiar, we live at the edge of our fears, tempted to endeavor, poised to retreat, and constantly challenged to enlarge our circle of experience, challenged to grow and to become.
Is that not the motive underlying human history-"The Human Adventure"? Every human life amounts to an adventure into larger and more luminous spheres of experience-or a failure to risk that journey and a consequent self-stifling, a Jonah-like cringing from the calling to be more.
The human enterprise is about boldly going into the unknown, bravely venturing upon the terra incognita surrounding us, plunging into deep and savage woods, into dark and hidden caves. It is about conquering the fears that inhibit and constrain us from finding out the fullness of all possibilities and potentials.
We are by nature explorers seeking to bring light into caverns and to hew clearings in the wilderness of forests and jungles. What we most admire in human beings, what essentially constitutes heroism, is bravery, is courage, is the deft and graceful facing down of fears and consequent arrival on the shores of new glories of accomplishment.
Human beings seem made to be fear-fighters, and thus we honor most highly those who are bravest in the pursuit of their callings to venture, whether outward or inward, and to discover new knowledge.
Surrounded by unknowns of all kinds, curious to find out new knowledge, yet cautious of extending ourselves beyond the clean and well-lighted comforts of the familiar, we live at the edge of our fears, tempted to endeavor, poised to retreat, and constantly challenged to enlarge our circle of experience, challenged to grow and to become.