Ministry of Silly Quests

I'm sitting on a bench on the wharf in Victoria surrounded by unusual performances. To my right a portly fellow plays traditional tunes on the hammer dulcimer, including that old-timey favorite "Hey Jude," while to my left a scrawny fellow juggles lit torches while riding a tall unicycle, and behind me a mime is taking a smoke break. 

But I'm immune to the excitement because I'm immersed in the opening chapters of Tony Hawks's classic tome Round Ireland with a Fridge, which I purchased today for $5.99 (Canadian) at Munro Books in downtown Victoria. The book was available in paperback for $16.99 or in slightly battered paperback for $5.99, and I wonder what sort of person pays more than twice as much for the same amount of silliness.

The silliness begins in the first chapter when Hawks succumbs to GTDSBS syndrome: Going To Do Something a Bit Silly. Hawks muses about the motivations of people who pursue outrageous acts of derring-do simply because it is there--"But so are your slippers and the TV remote," notes Hawks:

Why subject yourself to untold pain and deprivation when popping to the shops and back followed by a bit of a sit down is an option? Why explore when you can tidy? Why sail singlehandedly when you can read singlehandedly, trek when you can taxi, abseil when you can take the stairs, stand when you can sit, or listen to Neil Sedaka's Greatest Hits when you can take your own life?

Hawks's laissez-faire approach to life is a timely antidote to what I'm hearing at the ASLE conference. Last night's plenary speaker, Karsten Heuer, got a standing ovation (!) for a really marvelous presentation about his experiences following a herd of migrating caribou in the Arctic, hiking from Yellowstone to the Yukon, and canoeing across Canada, presumably without a fridge. Then this morning I heard a paper on the rhetoric of mountaineering, which made me rejoice that I'll never have the $65,000 guide fee necessary to climb Everest (where a fridge would really be redundant). 

I am delighted that many talented and dedicated people are willing to undergo hardship and danger in order to visit and write about some of the world's least habitable places, but Hawks reminds us that epic quests are available closer to home to anyone susceptible to GTDSBS syndrome. I'm no more likely to climb Everest than I am to trundle a fridge on a trolley around the perimeter of Ireland, but if others are willing to pursue these quests, I'm happy to read about the results.