Taking Adventure Out On The Town
Homer, perched on a three-legged stool in his little eighth century bedsit on the Greek island of Chios, could never have dreamed he’d become one of the most famous novelists of all time
Happy Friday!
And a warm welcome from the Gipsy Palace, where I’m waiting for the delivery of my sixth laptop of the year.
This technophobic rigmarole sprawls without resolution over the past two and a half months, spanning four countries, three vendors, TWo IRritating SHift KEys, two HPs, two Lenovos, two Acers, one faulty fan and one blue screen of death.
And, so far, the only machine that appears to be working perfectly is the one that I originally needed to replace.
The rigmarole has got me thinking, though. How much of what we do, as writers, is done through the medium in which we write?
The two most ambitious works of European literature that I can think of are Marcel Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu and James Joyce’s Ulysses; both were written longhand in pen and ink (and both primarily, incidentally, from bed).
Staggering: the ability of these authors to hold in mind the overlapping constellations of such complex novels, without the aide-memoire of a decent spreadsheet.
But Joyce’s inspiration, The Odyssey, wasn’t even written.
Homer, perched on a three-legged stool in his little eighth century bedsit on the Greek island of Chios, could never have dreamed he’d become one of the most famous novelists of all time.
He was, after all, a beat poet, a wandering bard, a story-singing balladeer who never wrote a line, never even put pen to paper, let alone pinky to SHift.
Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story
of that man skilled in all ways of contending,
the wanderer, harried for years on end,
after he plundered the stronghold
on the proud height of Troy.
Homer would be tripping out if he learnt one day his words were read. Homer, if they ever existed, would scream and shout — no, no, no — this is not canon, this is not where the storyheart lies!
The story of The Odyssey is in the song, in the improvisation, in the tone, the cracking of the voice, in the manipulation of attention by performer to rapt audience.
In printing, in canonisation, some things are lost, just as they are when novelists move from bedsheets to spreadsheets.
For better or worse, I’m the spreadsheet kind.
Anyway — I’ve just had a message that my driver Anthony will be with me between 10:19 and 11:19, so I’d better get cracking.
For those of you new around these parts, welcome 👋 My name is David and I’m a writer, outdoor instructor and cyclist-at-large with Thighs of Steel. In this newsletter, I write stories that help you and me understand the world (and ourselves) a little better.
Sometimes I wait for the doorbell to ring.
Welcome to edition 376 — a long overdue update on Days of Adventure 2023.
Days Of Adventure 2023: 83
🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢⭕⭕⭕⭕⭕⭕⭕⭕⭕⭕⭕⭕⭕⭕⭕⭕⭕ What is this?
Every year since 2021, I’ve tried to fill my days with at least a hundred adventures.
‘Adventure’ for me has a pretty low bar compared to the sorts of things that some people do. I’m not sailing across the Atlantic, like my friend Jess (and 200 other skippers) will be very soon.
My kind of adventure is the kind that you can do around your day-to-day: it need be nothing more than a bike ride to a woodland for sale or a morning spent getting in the English grape harvest.
Having said that…
The bulk of my summer, 43 days’ worth, were spent cycling from Glasgow to Athens with Thighs of Steel. So there is definitely big-ticket adventure in my life as well.
But now I’m back from Greece, things are about to get small.
I can’t wait.
I’m so excited that I’ve come up with a neologism.
From Outdoorsy To Exploresy
We all know what outdoorsy means:
Associated with or characteristic of the outdoors; fond of an outdoor life.
We often use the word to describe people, like in this example from 1952:
In my attempts to be a truly outdoorsy woman at all times I had a ludicrous crab-hunting misadventure of my own.
Despite spending approximately 94 percent of most days closeted away indoors, I also like to be known as an outdoorsy sort of a person.
I don’t know how to crab-hunt, but I do own a pair of boots and can (just about) light a fire in the woods.
However, there are two limitations to being outdoorsy:
No one thinks that an urban existence is compatible with being outdoorsy, even though, technically, a traffic island on Oxford Street is entirely outdoors.
Outdoorsy doesn’t necessarily include the sniff of adventure: novelty, daring, audacity or excitement.
That’s why, humbly, I think we need a new word: exploresy.
Exploresy is used in the same way as outdoorsy, but to describe someone who is fond of exploring — whatever that means to them.
Indoors, outdoors, online, offline, together, alone, in walking boots or fluffy slippers.
The only unifying requirement is that the exploresy person sets out to discover something new (to them).
Now then. There is a school of thought that says that neologisms need justification.
But you know what I say to that:
Even so: why make a new word when an old one will do. Isn’t exploresy the same as being curious?
No. Well, yes, but I can’t copyright the word curious, now can I? Also, it’s a bit insulting to call someone a curious fellow. It just means they’re weird.
(Fun fact: curious used to be a euphemism for porn.)
So, as we crawl head down into winter, I would like to propose an expansion of adventure. It doesn’t have to be outdoorsy, especially if (like me) you find yourself more urban than Alpine.
It can, instead, be exploresy.
Keep your antenna up for moments you could explore. Shelter from the rain in a public museum, slow down to soak up a stone-grey street scene, swivel your lobes for a little light earwigging on the bus.
While the great green outdoors is a wonderful place to explore, it’s beyond okay to invite adventure inside and take it out on the town.
Thank you for reading. I’m excited to hop on a train and explore the work of self-appointed ‘godfather of vegan food in London’, King CookDaily.
Don’t forget that this is an email, so feel free to reply if something here leaves you wanting more.
See you next time.
Big love,
dc: