5.
EXPLORE
“One doesn’t discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.”
In May 2012 cult legend John Waters, the writer and director of iconic movies Polyester and Hairspray, otherwise known as the “Pope of Trash,” embarked on an eight-day hitchhiking journey across the US from his hometown of Baltimore to San Francisco. Sporting his iconic pencil-thin moustache and a cardboard sign that read “I’m Not Psycho,” he braved lonely roads and put his life in the hands of strangers to take him to the final destination. The story, which eventually was published in a book titled Carsick, might as well be the screenplay for one of his movies.
Among his 15 rides he met an 81-year-old farmer, a married couple from Illinois, then a young councilman and Republican picked him up in his Corvette in pouring rain. Convinced he was homeless and feeling sorry for Waters, he drove him four hours from Maryland to Ohio. By then he was so taken with Waters that he reconnected with him in Denver, Colorado, to drive him 1,600 km and 22 hours to Reno, Nevada, then met up with him again in San Francisco to stay at his apartment.91 Indie rock band Here We Go Magic, from Brooklyn, who were on tour, eventually picked him up on a stretch of Interstate 70 in Ohio after they couldn’t believe their eyes when they spotted him by an exit ramp, sporting a hat that said “Scum of the Earth.”92
In an interview with the New York Times Waters commented that he was driven by a need to “give himself up to the winds” and surrender. “My life is so over-scheduled,” he said: “what will happen if I give up control?”93 The surprising lesson was that “it can sometimes be thrilling to not know where life is taking you.”
Australian sea and ice adventurer Chris Bray, a 28-year-old Australian Geographic young adventurer of the year in 2012, shares Waters’ appetite for new experiences.
“There’s something pretty special about doing something, or going somewhere, that no human ever has ... Then, not only is it a new experience for me personally, which makes everyone feel more alert and alive, but knowing I’m the ‘first’ adds this overarching feeling of awe in realizing that anything could happen next.... It’s that uncertainty, that stepping into the unknown, that pulls the entire experience into a whole new level of focus, heightens all my senses and demands me to live completely in the present. It’s an unforgettable privilege to experience.”94
Not Knowing is the frisson that makes life worth living. Imagine that we woke up every morning at exactly the same time, to the same conditions, met the same people and had the same challenges and opportunities. The concept was explored in the comedy Groundhog Day where the comedian Bill Murray, who plays Phil Connors, a meteorologist, starts to live one day again and again. While at first he can take advantage of knowing what people will do, and has fun seducing women and breaking the law, eventually he becomes anxious, bored and irritated. He cannot even kill himself, waking up each morning as in a time loop to the same tune on the radio.
Even in a predictable world Phil’s stumbling block is a relationship with someone he cannot control. He ultimately realizes that knowing and manipulating her leave him dissatisfied and does not work. Even though the circumstances of the day may be known, he uses his choices to recreate his own day, learning new skills such as ice sculpting and piano, and stepping into the unknown.