The Myth of Adventure

I've traveled pretty widely in my military and corporate careers, and I can tell you one thing for certain: travel isn't an adventure.

I don't take many pictures when I travel. They're misleading. The photo of the floating market doesn't exactly jog one's memory of the 12 hours crammed into coach between Big Bertha and Sleep Apnea Sal in the Aisle of Aroma, nor does it tend to evoke the beastly heat and bug swarms endured to get the perfect shot of barges with tables set upon them.

In the name of what?

Adventure, of course, which translates to "being able to lord one's exotic experiences over someone smart enough to have stayed home."

Why is it smarter to stay home?

Home is where you want to be, by definition.

You like home well enough to put all of your stuff there for easy access.

You spend most of your hours at home. Home is comfortable, because you've made it so.
It's stuffed to the gills with the things you enjoy.

Any hotel measure up to that?

If you dislike commuting to work, you probably work close to home. Why does anyone want to travel for days to get somewhere alleged to be exotic, which they typically haven't seen, and know only through reputation?

I don't know about you, but I don't trust anybody else to tell me what I'll like.

When I joined the military, we were promised adventure. And we got it. Six months in the desert is quite the adventure. Exotic, one might say.

I'm confident that when we've uncovered the full Indo-European lexicon, the root of adventure will turn out to be synonymous with "suck".