It’s been said that adventurers are born, not made. J.R.L. Anderson in his book The Ulysses Factor: Exploring Instinct in Man explores the idea that some are born with a genetic disposition to embark on great adventures, driven by more than mere fame and fortune. As he tries to explain why some people hike the Appalachian Trail, Roland Mueser lays out the theory in his book Long Distance Hiking, Lessons from the Appalachian Trail.

“Anderson points out that as with Ulysses, the adventures of modern men and women undergoing long trials, often undertaken alone, are not pointless, but result in personal achievement, can be communicated, and are often interesting and exciting. He states that the Ulysses Factor includes attributes valuable for the biological survival of the human species, such as courage, imagination, self-discipline, and endurance.”

Given my compulsion to broach one adventure after the other, this might offer some explanation, or at least a rationalization I can resign myself to. In any case, it’s certainly an interesting explanation.

With the Ulysses gene ever so active, I recently discovered something about myself and I’ve accepted it. I realized I excel in the process of conceiving, creating and building things. What the thing is, actually, doesn’t matter. Any thing qualifies. I am more of a generalist when it comes to the doing, doing most anything very well, but few things exceptionally well. That suits the role of an innovator, creator, entrepreneur and adventurer, I believe. I thrive in the start-up phase, but tire from the day-to-day management of an operation that’s grown up and matured to a point of stability.

Climbing mountains moves me. Walking down winding paths soon weighs on me. So, I climb. The AT represents a new mountain, an exciting landscape of surprise and challenge. Despite the energy required and the great deal of resources consumed along such an adventure, physically and emotionally, my spirit is riled and my energy grows, and contentment follows. This is the hunger adventure feeds.

Celebration

Some have suggested that my exit from the real world, onto the Trail, is due to unhappiness with my life and the business. This is not, in fact, the way I feel. My AT adventure is also a celebration.

I am very pleased with how Firefly Digital has risen from a few thousand dollar investment and one employee into Louisiana’s largest and most successful web development firm. I am proud of the culture, out book of business and the team we’ve built at Firefly. It’s a remarkable story of success. Not my own success, but the success of a team we’ve built. Through the telecom bust and the dot-com bomb, we managed to thrive, growing the business on profits, innovating powerful software applications and writing the book on how to create and manage a successful web development business.

My role at Firefly is simply coming to an end. It has always been my intention to reduce the company’s dependence on me. My goal was to build a staff and business process that would perform optimally and best without me. A team of experts and specialists has no real place for me. Remember, I am a generalist, and not a manager. This would allow me to one day move onto my next venture, where I might conceive, innovate and build something new, to move a place I thrive.

So, in many ways, this adventure is a triumphant celebration of my former adventure. Four to five months on the AT is a reward I pay to myself. In some ways I feel it’s a somewhat selfish endeavor, but no less necessary. It’s an opportunity for reflection, conclusion and appreciation.

While I don’t plan to disconnect from Firefly completely, the people who are today’s Firefly are remarkable, and no longer need me. It is their turn to grow, to explore their own talents, to challenge themselves and achieve their own goals. And I look forward to celebrating their successes too!

Creative Playground

Since college, there’s been little opportunity for me to expand and explore my creative side. It’s been a key missing element of my intellect. Managing a business and serving the community offer few opportunities for creative expression. Over the past couple years I’ve developed two novel ideas. I mean, two story ideas for novels, that I feel will make great animated features. These ideas grow more restless with each passing day, and the details emerge and demand attention. I hope my Trail experience will clear my mind of the worldly clutter that’s accumulated from a self-imposed, ambitious and fast paced life.

Rest & Regeneration

The mind is cluttered with so many thoughts. So many thoughts are cluttering my mind. Will the woods offer a cure? Let us hope it will!

Inspire

A grand challenge is always a great way to renew one’s confidence, to confirm one’s strengths, to test one’s weakness and to enhance one’s ability to persevere. It is my opinion, and one of the underlying principles of the LC83 code, that positive self-esteem is one of the most important fundamental human qualities. It is a necessary component for achievement and personal development. It is the glue that binds fruitful and gratifying personal and professional relationships.

This is a lesson I’ve learned throughout my life, as I struggled to repair a failing self-image. One approach is to demonstrate to myself that I can achieve personal change. I can change the things I don’t like about myself and the things about me that make it difficult to find contentment and happiness.

Achievement of small goals, leads to the achievement of larger goals. The challenges that achievement presents help us to refine and improve our own qualities, qualities that enable us to build our own self-image, but also, qualities that enable us to build up others (instead of tearing them down which is often the tendency when we don’t have a positive self-image.)

My achievements have contributed to my own healing and growth. It’s helped me see and embrace the good in others, and appreciate all of the things that make them unique and interesting people.

By sharing my adventures, challenges and successes, I hope to give others the wisdom and inspiration to take on their own demons, to set out on their own personal adventures, to build themselves up and to learn how to build up others along the way.

The world is full of wonderful places and people. Sometimes the things that happen in our lives make it difficult to clearly value and appreciate these wonders. We must reserve places in our world to retain and appreciate the natural wonder and beauty of it all. It must be the same with people. We must cultivate and retain the unique character and personality of ourselves, and then others.

In our society, this rarely happens naturally. It is more often a deliberate effort, and the rewards are a pleasant and fulfilling life full of great relationships.

If there is anything I can share that might inspire just one person to this end, then I can only hope that God will lead me to do so.

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