I love Sterling Hayden’s perspective on adventure and priorities:
[Many men say]
“I’ve always wanted to sail to the South Seas, but I can’t afford
it.”What these men can’t afford is not to go. They are enmeshed in
the cancerous discipline of “security.” And in the worship of security
we fling our lives beneath the wheels of routine -and before we know
it our lives are gone.What does a man need -really need? A few pounds of food each day, heat
and shelter, six feet to lie down in -and some form of working
activity that will yield a sense of accomplishment. That’s all –in the
material sense. And we know it. But we are brainwashed by our economic
system until we end up in a tomb beneath a pyramid of time payments,
mortgages, preposterous gadgetry, playthings that divert our attention
from the sheer idiocy of the charade.The years thunder by. The dreams of youth grow dim where they lie
caked in dust on the shelves of patience. Before we know it the tomb
is sealed. Where, then, lies the answer? In choice.Which shall it be: bankruptcy of purse or bankruptcy of life?
– Sterling Hayden