People who look for excitement and danger are foolish. Do you agree?
The answer to the proposition can be a big ‘NO’ though there may be quite a few who take the opposite view, still, the truth will prevail. Man pangs of hunger for adventure for it bring him the excitement and the resulting satisfaction. Excitement and anticipation make life worthwhile. If everything is as cheap as dust or as free as air there can’t be any excitement and life would have no meaning and man can at best be a cabbage going through vegetative growth.
It may be enough for the purpose of this essay to confine to adventurous acts though there are others that may be equally exciting.
Why does any person go through the hazards of an adventure? It is because of their psychological needs. We see it in children. They explore and get into difficult places because they like excitement. This sort of thing is quite common among school children. Their mischief and frolic have got them into trouble. The youth does dangerous things because they have the elements of adventure in them. While there is attendant self-satisfaction, it also ensures public recognition. One climbs mountains where others have never gone; one jumps long distances for the sake of recognition. To get the excitement of standing on the victory stand and getting the applause of the crowd one goes through months and months of hard training. What an excitement we get to see the star artist in the circus on the trapeze! Crossing the Channel or climbing Mount Everest has its own excitement. Climbing Everest and crossing the Channel have been done by successive generations of adventurers nobody now looks upon these as a challenge; so too with space. The news that man had landed on the moon was exciting in those days but now it is taken for granted.
Man’s desire to try the impossible challenge and win is at the bottom of so many success stories. If these adventurers had not taken the challenge there would not have been any human progress, whether it be in the field of sports, science, or medicine. Could it not have been exciting for Alexander to march his army all the way to Punjab? Was it not adventure that forced Columbus to seek a route to India by going West? Had not Vasco da Gama found a sea route to India round the Cape of Good Hope, the history of the Far East countries would have been different? It is not foolish nor childish to look for adventures. Then only can one cross the uncharted seas and be happy as Ulysses. Only the weak-kneed will look upon anything calling for excitement and danger, as foolish.
