It’s about time I shared my secret — the reason for this whole blog thing, the whole publishing thing, the whole writing thing.
I want to go to Antarctica.
The origin of that desire is sort of secondary, though it’s not exactly a mystery. The anime A Place Further than the Universe affected me really deeply at a time when I didn’t know what to do. It’s about a quartet of teenagers going to Anarctica to recapture their youth, to find out what happened to a character’s mother. It’s an excellent show, but it leaves only an oblique forensic impact on my larger ambitions surrounding the continent.
Antarctica is also the last true frontier on Earth, if you don’t count the ocean. But I do count the ocean, and I have no desire to go down there, let alone Mars. I would maybe go to the moon, but I vibe with the moon aesthetically.
Why do I want to go to Antarctica, then? It’s not any kind of practical goal. I could see it from a plane, or a cruise, or even a guided land tour. Maybe the latter of those would satisfy me, but it’s never how I imagined things going. My plan, if I have a plan, has to do with the Antarctic Artists & Writers Program — even though, my approach is generally more journalistic than a lot of artists you find in this program. Mary Roach is a major inspiration, and she went to Antarctica, but she’s a science writer and my interest in physical science is about as great as my knowledge of what a cell is. That is, shoddy.
So I’ve made up some kind of end goal, and I have a very specific idea of how I want to get there. (Woah, déjà vu.) I know roughly when I started wanting it, what corresponds to my wanting to go, but it’s not really a reason.
The reason is that I decided it. I made a decision that I would try. I pick up and drop a lot of things, but Antarctica has never been one of them. It stuck.
Sometimes you just have to do something difficult, you know? I suffer as much as anyone else from malaise, from frustration, from melancholy. But on the whole, life is pretty easy these days (in the parts of the world I interact with regularly). We live in a golden age of fun because most survivalistic concerns have been conquered. We’re afforded the chance to attend to more complex things.
That is: To say, “I wrote several works of nonfiction of which I am proud — I contributed to the great discussions of our time, I elevated public understanding on some range of topics, digital and analog minds replicated my name and voice across space” — these are complex. Too complex to grapple with as concepts of success.
To say, “I wrote myself to Antarctica.” That is a direction and a goal. And it isn’t just a goal in the sense of objective or target. It’s Ithaka.
Keep Ithaka always in your mind.Arriving there is what you’re destined for.But don’t hurry the journey at all.Better if it lasts for years,so you’re old by the time you reach the island,wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.