A World without Adventure (English)

Living Philosophy Creative English Poem

①
When I quit my company in Japan, I said "I want adventure, not stable job."


On the last day of my work, I said this in front of many employees out loud and left the office. They must have thought that this guys is crazy. hahaha.




I wanted to do what I wanted to do sacrificing stable employment and good salary. Right after I quit my job, I left Japan and started traveling. I was excited about the fact that I was going to adventure.




Now, I am majoring in Development Studies. I like this area of study. I like the world I see through it.

I think one of the purposes of Development Studies is to provide a stable life for the poor.

If you take a look at explanations of development projects around the world (ex, led by UN, World Bank or other International NGOs), they frequently say that the goal of the projects is to provide stable potable water, stable electricity, stable income, stable social security, etc etc.






I didn't want "stable" life and now am trying to provide "stable" life for other people.


Isn't this a contradiction?


                                                                                    • -

②
It seems like this is not my unique problem. It seems like this is a concern for Western World and Modernization too.




Fletcher (2014) described this in his book Romancing the World.

He says that Western civilization has always had this ambivalence as they pursue modernization.



It seems like adventure has been a central philosophy of modernization. Age of Discovery, American Dreams, Entrepreneurial Mindset, etc etc. All of these are representatives of adventurous mindset.

We can also say that Capitalism is based on this adventurous mindset. Without risk taking, there is no startup corporations nor new businesses and enterprises. Capitalism does not work if nobody adventures.



Adventure is romantic. People are always attracted by that romance. People are excited about their unpredictable future and willing to take risk to achieve something important in their lives, just as I did when I left my company in Japan.





However, at the same time, we look for stable lives.


Organized infrastructures, well structured social security system (of course, not perfect as we can observe in current Japanese society ...hahaha), law scheme, government institutions, etc etc....

We can think that all of these are consequences of our desire to have a stable and peaceful lives.




A society developed based on adventure is looking for stability. People are attracted by adventures and at the same time, looking for stable lives.


Is this a contradiction?

                                                                        • -

③
Recently, I have been thinking about this thing when it comes to the world of scholarship.


It seems like the world of scholarship is about rationality and reason. We have to write thesis rationally and logically.


Especially, since Im interested in Social Sciences, I need to be logical. Because it is science. Science is about logic.



I like logical thinking.

I like writing papers logically. Writing papers is like a hobby for me. When there is no assignment, I write anyways.

I like thinking logically too. I think Im always thinking something logically, even when Im taking a shower. (Im definitely a geek, hahaha)




However, as I think and write logically, I realized that I was missing something important: emotion.



As I kept thinking logically, I felt like my emotion is going aways and I did not like it.

As I kept writing logically, I realized that I was becoming less romantic and adventurous as I used to be. And I didn't like it.



I want to be emotional but at the same time, I like logic.


Is it contradicting?

                                                              • -


Here, can we think that adventure is a representation of our emotion and stability as a representation of our reason?



If we think so, we can connect ①、②、and ③.







It seems like we are looking for a balance between "adventure and stability" and "rationality and emotion."






                                                      • -


Recently, there has been a trend in Development Studies that tries to integrate our emotional behavior and logical thinking.


World Bank's recent report, World Development Report 2015, titled "Mind, Society, and Behavior" is an attempt to take humans' mindset into consideration when it comes to development policy making.



http://www.worldbank.org/content/dam/Worldbank/Publications/WDR/WDR%202015/WDR-2015-Full-Report.pdf








We are humans. We all have emotions. Without taking it into account, there is no social science because its a logical study about society, which is constructed by humans.

We need to ingrate logic and emotion.












If so, contradictions that I showed above is somewhat resolved. We can combine both adventure and stability. We can combine both reason and emotion. It is not a dichotomy between reason OR emotion.








The other day, a psychologist advised me, "try to connect your head and heart."









We are NOT moving towards a world without adventure.