Gautam BakshiPhoto by Dan Cook / Unsplash
Consider going to the gym and sitting in your usual chair, watching everyone else. Aside from the creepiness, it's a pretty shady way to exist and a waste of time. Before I tell you what to do, let me explain why people do this.
Remember how much of a pain you were to your family when you were a kid? Why was this the case, and why are you not now? One of the reasons is that as a child, you have no boundaries and are free to explore the world. You climb trees because they're there, and you run in a field because, well, what else would you do in a field? You want to see new and different things all the time.
But once a day, it hits you: the world is too big to explore, or perhaps it makes others uncomfortable, so you refrain from exploring. Instead of going on adventures with your friends, you suggest going to familiar places and doing familiar things (e.g., "let's go for coffee and talk about your week!").
Eventually, the spirit of adventure fades, and it is reduced to watching movies or taking four weeks of vacation every year?
The concept of relaxation takes over, and comfort becomes paramount. Consider what we value in our society: luxury goods, comfort, and ease. Even the hikes that people post pictures of appear to be very relaxing. Was the end result a sense of adventure or an Instagram photo?
Why do we feel joy when we look at children or pets? I believe it's because we recognise the opportunities for adventure they provide. Even if it's fictitious, it's comforting to know that exists in the mundane world of 9 to 5.
Life should be exciting. Not in the Instagram sense of only taking great pictures, but in the true sense of what we used to do as kids. We may not all be able to jet off to Italy or climb Mount Kilimanjaro for an adventure, but we can do it in our own backyard.
We can run around, try to climb a tree, invite our friends to join us in exploring a part of the city we haven't seen yet, and take a turn in the opposite direction we are going and explore.
Going to the library and picking out a random book is something I enjoy doing, which I have recently resumed. Get a book on cat health (especially if you don't have a cat), read a biography on someone you don't know anything about, and so on. Read and interact with the content, but then let it go. You don't have to achieve a specific goal, such as finishing the book or reaching the top of the tree.
Simply go exploring.
p.s. If you adopt this mindset, you will discover that art makes a lot of sense to you. I enjoy music, art, and films, but I've also begun to consider the meta aspects, such as the struggle that the creators go through to bring it to life. This means you've realised you're not alone among a horde of crazy explorers. I wrote this while listening to Paul Simon and Method Man's playlist. Their exploration of their simple experiences brought them both to my attention.
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