Just being willing to go into yourself is brave. Actually making the steps is a hero’s journey.
— Fran Houston
This post was inspired by a t-shirt I received as a Christmas gift. It’s a white “Redbox” design shirt by American outdoor products company The North Face. I recognised the brand but I’ve never owned anything by TNF before. Neither can I recall owning a white shirt of any kind since the days wearing a collar and tie was de rigueur for anyone working in the civil service. These days, I wear t-shirts pretty much every day of the year no matter the weather and regardless of sartorial convention.
I have a burgeoning collection. Until a couple of years ago, most were mental health related in one way or another. As I’ve written previously, wearing t-shirts is not enough, but it can be great conversation starter and I’m proud to support the work of mental health organisations and initiatives including Time to Change, Mind, Bipolar UK, and Stigma Fighters.
In 2023 I made a conscious decision to widen my clothing repertoire to express some of my other interests. I bought shirts supporting two bands I’d recently come across: RØRY and AnnenMayKantereit (AMK). I also added a couple proclaiming my love of writing. (“LIFE IS SHORT. BLOG MORE.” and “Fountain Pen Fanatic.”) Another t-shirt bears a quotation by philosopher Albert Camus that I’ve taken very much to heart in recent years. (“The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”) I recently chose another RØRY shirt to celebrate their debut album RESTORATION, and one that proudly affirms “I Just REALLY Like Writing, OK?”
Almost all these shirts are black or dark in colour. White is a definite departure for me. Colour aside, my new “Redbox” t-shirt caught me off guard with its “Never Stop Exploring” tagline. The TNF website confirms the company’s adventuring credentials.
Named for the most challenging side of the mountain, The North Face has equipped explorers since 1966 to reach their dreams. Driven by the mantra of Never Stop Exploring(TM), our expeditions inspire us to test the outer limits of performance and possibility.
I’ve always been fascinated by adventure and exploration, especially polar exploration and mountain climbing. I spend a good deal of time watching YouTube videos devoted to mountaineering and polar exploration. The 2008 PBS documentary Storm over Everest is my favourite account of the 1996 Mount Everest disaster in which eight climbers lost their lives after being caught in a blizzard attempting to descend from the summit. For International Men’s Day last year I wrote about twelve men who exemplify qualities I admire. Three were explorers or adventurers: Robert Falcon Scott and Sir Ernest Shackleton (Leadership and Endurance), and Soviet and Kazakh climber Anatoli Boukreev who survived the 1996 Everest disaster (Devotion and Sacrifice).
In real life (whatever that means) I’m the least adventurous person I know. I’ve twice zipwired across the River Tyne for charity, but I knew I was safe and didn’t feel at all nervous or scared. In truth, I was more nervous riding the Ultimate roller coaster at Lightwater Valley Family Adventure Park, which was the longest roller coaster in the world when it opened in 1991. My one claim to adventure is that I once climbed the 1,085 metre peak of Snowdon (Welsh: Yr Wyddfa) via the perilous Crib Gogh arête. I say adventure but stupidity would be a better label. I had no business being on so perilous a ridge at all.
So much for adventure. What about exploration? Unlike most people I’ve ever met, I’ve never been interested in travel or seeing the world. I’ve left the mainland of Great Britain twice: a week-long childhood holiday on the Isle of Man, and a day trip to the Isle of Wight in 1983. I once declined the opportunity to travel to Cairo for a research conference, much to my professors annoyance and my colleagues’ disbelief. I didn’t have a passport at the time and it would have been difficult to arrange one in time, but my refusal was instinctive and absolute. I registered for a passport in 2013 just in case it ever came in useful, but it expired without ever being used. I’ve no plans to renew it.
These days, I scarcely leave my local area except to travel into the office two days a week. I went into Newcastle once last year, to see a J. M. W. Turner exhibition at the Laing Art Gallery. It was my first trip into the city in more than two years, apart from my covid jab late in 2022 and two opticians appointments during 2023. I visited my friend and fellow blogger Aimee Wilson several times through the year and accompanied her to an engagement party (big shoutout to Jack and Spencer!) and a mental health event at the coast. I spent a week in the Lake District and took a few day trips. Other than that my time was spent very close to home. As the saying goes, “I don’t get out much.” But this is very much by choice. As I described in Not Doing Things Is a Thing I Do Now, exploration for me takes other forms.
[Exploring] is what I’m doing, internally, when I’m not out there doing stuff. Doing stuff can be fun, exciting, and healthy. It can also be a distraction from what’s really going on. Slowing down, withdrawing from doing and going, offers me the opportunity to examine what’s important to me and what isn’t.
This is, arguably, a form of asceticism.
Ascetic
Adjective: characterised by severe self-discipline and abstention from all forms of indulgence, typically for religious reasons.
Noun: a person who follows an ascetic life.
In my case, it’s not religious in nature. I’ve declared my atheism previously in such posts as IMHO: A Guide for Opinionated Bloggers and Reasons to Celebrate? A Brit’s Thoughts on Thanksgiving. It’s rather more philosophical in nature, aligning with my — admittedly partial — understanding of Camus’ doctrine of absurdism. For now at least, it suits me to spend my free time exploring my thoughts, opinions, and values in conversation with close friends and family, in the pages of my diary which I’ve kept for the past fifty years, and in my weekly blog posts. In doing so, I believe I’m being true to Fran’s observation which I quoted at the start of this article.
Just being willing to go into yourself is brave. Actually making the steps is a hero’s journey.
She wrote those words for herself as much as for me. They open chapter 9 of our book High Tide Low Tide which covers Fran’s three month road trip around Europe with her parents in the summer of 2013. It was a desperate time for Fran. It brought her to the very edge of despair and illness, with only occasional interludes of clarity and joy. I accompanied and supported her every day from here in the UK. I provided a point of stability and relative calm amidst the chaos of her adventure. It tested and proved our commitment as friends, and taught me a great deal about inner and outer adventuring and exploration.
On another occasion, Fran captured our respective perspectives on adventure perfectly. “I’m a gypsy,” she said. “No matter how hard the traveling is I still go, again and again. You are a comfort creature traveling vicariously.” Never were truer words spoken. In the years we’ve been friends, I’ve been Fran’s virtual travel companion on trips all over the world, including Mexico, Hawaii, The Bahamas, Panama, Spain, Germany, Austria, The Netherlands, Norway, Iceland, Greenland, and Canada. The final four were brief stops on her return cruise to the US from Amsterdam in 2013. I’ve learned a great deal about myself and the world with Fran and other friends; not just by seeing the world through their eyes but also in terms of relationships, health and illness, and caring support. I explored the benefits — and perils — of vicarious living in Second-hand Experience: If a Life’s Worth Living, It’s Worth Living Vicarously.
I love my new TNF t-shirt. I will wear it without any sense of irony as I go about my little life on my little adventures. I’m wearing it now, writing this at my favourite table in my local coffee shop. This is what Never Stop Exploring means to me. I’m good with that.
A Note on the Photograph
The photograph I chose to illustrate this article is by Samura Silva on Unsplash. Taken in Athens, Greece, its labels include Walking, Never Stop Exploring, Walk, People, Travel, Explore, Human, Person, City, Road, and Street. It captures the mood of my article perfectly. For one thing, the person in the photo is wearing the exact t-shirt I was gifted. It also appears that they’re standing in the street as people walk by, stationary in the midst of all that’s happening around them. Whatever exploration they’re engaged in is, for the moment, internal.
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