What the Spirit of Exploration Means to Me…
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In the early years of the 21st century we, the human race, find ourselves on a planet where almost everything which can be explored has. We have been to the top of Mount Everest and the bottom of the sea. We have been to the moon, conquered the poles, and have seen up-close photos of every planet in our Solar System. Most of the ‘firsts’ have been exhausted and modern explorers have resorted to attaching more more adjectives to their accomplishments to make them noteworthy: oldest to climb Everest, first solo human powered journey around the Earth, first pole-to-pole circumnavigation of the Earth, etc.
It would seem that exploration as we have come to think of it is all but dead.
While the age of the explorer may be gone, a new age of exploration is just beginning. The same technology which has brought humans to the four corners of the Earth has also made is possible for most people to achieve what any individual explorer of the past could never think of doing. Edmund Hillary and Tensing Norgay’s conquest of Everest has made it possible for septuagenarians and the blind to follow in his footsteps. Phineas Fogg’s incredible journey around the world in 80 days could now be accomplished in 80 hours. Regular people are now visiting Antarctica, where only a century ago it was a place where men died just attempting to make it to the shore. If you have the money, civilians can even fly into space.
Exploration has been democratized.
Exploration is no longer the domain of the government and crown-financed expeditions. It is now within the grasp of anyone. If you dream of visiting an exotic corner of the world, the only thing stopping you is your determination. The Amazonian Rainforest, the Sahara Desert, the ruins of Easter Island and the savanna of Africa are all available to YOU if you just dare to do it.
Sapphire Drinks is no longer a social event where we cheer on representatives of our species, it is a personal one where each of us achieves our own ‘firsts’ without any adjectives or qualifiers. It might be as simple as visiting a foreign country or as daring as setting foot on all seven continents. Regardless of what is explored, it is your exploration.
by Gary Arndt
Everything-Everywhere.com
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May 28 2008 08:00 am | Sapphire Drinks
