While traveling, I met a lottttt of people. Being from Alaska, it was pretty easy to talk to them. Almost everyone wants to hear about Alaska. Once I had them roped into talking to me through the topic of Alaska, they generally would be mildly curious about me as a person. What I am doing in the lower 48, who I am traveling with, etc. Well, I would tell them my story of something like "yup, just packed up the truck and am driving. By myself" and the response I got most of the time was something along the lines of "That's really brave of you." Uh, well thanks, I don't feel brave at all. People also seemed to think my trip was impressive. I also do not feel all that impressive either.
I have been called a lot of nice things; brave, impressive, once in a while powerful (not in relation to this trip but I feel like it ties in... and I don't think I would mind being powerful), and while these are all words that I would like to describe me, and image of me does not come to my head when I hear those words. I suppose this is all in perception. I mean from my point of view I am just trying to live my life in a way that makes sense to me and fulfills whatever it is I am looking for. Which I still don't know what that is. But I think I am on the right track and have become almost content with not knowing and just enjoying the journey.
Anyway, I am going to analyze this.... So let's start with some definitions.
Brave: Ready to face and endure danger or pain; showing courage
Impressive: Evoking admiration through size, quality, or skill: grand, imposing, or awesome
So being brave is being ready (and willing?) to endure danger or pain. I don't consider my trip to be incredibly dangerous or painful. I really would hope it would not be painful. I mean sure, shit could go wrong. My truck could break down (ha), I could meet some really unscrupulous people, I could get lost, I could get in a car accident, etc. etc. All of this could happen to anyone at any time though. I am just further away from my support network than the average person.
It is not like I just blindly started this trip assuming everything would be great. I did my best to identify potential problems and at least think of what an appropriate response would be prior to leaving. I call it "calculated risk taking". Yeah, it is a risk, but I have a plan. Isn't that what life is all the time? You could drop dead this instant, doing the same thing you do every day for all you know. Traveling alone just made these dangers blatantly obvious, as opposed to hidden in every day life monotony.
I still haven't really answered if traveling alone makes me brave in my book. I mean, before I left, I was totally scared and overwhelmed. However, I often feel this way and have found that some of the best things come from feeling scared and or overwhelmed. Once I said goodbye and hit the road, I was feeling good about the trip by the time I got to Eagle River. My doubts vanished and I felt free to explore. Really, I would argue that this does not qualify me as being brave. All I have done is put myself in a situation that makes the every day dangers of life a little more obvious.
Moving on to impressive. I think this one is all in other people's perception. The end.
I mean when I hear words like these, I think of knights fighting for honor and the pyramids and just insanely awe inspiring and nostalgic things like that. I am just wondering if maybe I am failing to see the modern day application of these words. Maybe people from history who we think were brave or impressive didn't think that they were. Maybe they did. Who knows.
