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As I sit here to begin telling the story of my life that I call In Search of the Meaning of Life (An Autobiography), I aim to trace this singular thread of searching that has remained constant in my life of adventure. My life has been a mosaic of many independent events that on face value appear to have nothing in common, that is, when viewed from the outside. One must always remember to avoid drawing conclusions from appearances alone. When I view the events of my life from the inside, there is a great consistency and commitment to this search for meaning in my life. It is no small miracle that I have survived my adventures to this day to be able to tell my story, and it is by the grace of God alone that I've reached this point in my life to share my hopes, dreams, journeys and adventures with you. My journeys and adventures officially started the day I intentionally stepped off the well-worn path of life and onto the path less-traveled. It was a deliberate and calculated decision and my life has never been the same since. It has not been an easy life, for once the comfort of the path well-traveled is left behind, there are few signposts to follow and no maps to guide you. Uncharted territory as they say and not without its pitfalls, danger and misfortunes. I often wondered if this path would ever lead me back to the safety and comfort of the familiar again. In some ways it has and in other ways it hasn't, but 'The Great Adventure' I began in 1976 has never really ended for me over all these many years. I will be traveling this path less-traveled in my continuing search for the meaning of my life right up to the very end. I couldn't really explain it when I was growing up, but I wished there would have been some sort of guidebook I could read that would have broadened my choices in determining the course and direction of my life. Life seemed so programmed, restrictive and predictable - kindergarten, elementary school, junior high school, high school and college. I felt straight-jacketed by the whole process and progressively funneled down an endless hallway leading to a destination that wasn't of my choosing. This entire process felt automated and confining - like a widget being processed along a conveyor belt or being prodded down a cattle chute leading to an unknown and uncertain outcome. Life seemed to be all about the process of conforming, as opposed to being all about journeys, dreams and adventures - which were never classes listed on my course schedule. The crux of the problem was that I wasn't enjoying life while growing up, and couldn't see any light at the end of the tunnel to give me hope and encouragement...
Bruce and I completed the first leg of The Great Adventure, traveling 1,931 miles from southwest of Flint, MI, to my aunt and uncle's house in Tallahassee, FL, over the course of 58 days on our bicycle adventure. We departed the Flint area on September 22, 1976 and arrived in Tallahassee on November 18th - low on funds and needing to recuperate at our third oasis on the bicycle trip to date. The question remained though as to what would happen to us on this second leg of the adventure? We were almost out of money and had no idea what to expect in Florida and along the Gulf Coast, and soon our thoughts would begin focusing on looking for jobs - without having any concept of how that would work out or how we could make it happen. Would our adventure succeed or fail miserably, leaving us stranded on the road out of money and ideas? As they say, no guts no glory, and here begins the story of the second leg of 'The Great Adventure.' The opportunity to journey and adventure kindles the human spirit like nothing else can. For to immerse oneself in adventure and test your meddle beyond your known capabilities and prevail despite the odds, is to conquer and overcome your fears, and find within yourself the strength, reserves and will to endure and survive in the most difficult of circumstances. I wish you all the very best on your adventures in life, no matter where life's path takes you on your journey of discovery! Adventure is a mindset and a perspective, for one can find adventure in whatever endeavor you choose to participate in - it doesn't have to be a physical challenge taking you to the ends of the Earth. 'To adventure' is to take life by the horns and try your very best, to blaze your own trail, and live your hopes, dreams and passions in life. Choose adventure, because life is so much richer and rewarding for having tried to live the life of your dreams no matter the outcome - win, lose or draw! Cheers! Mark
I had no idea of how my life would turn out after arriving in Seattle with Bruce following our bicycle adventure in June 1977 and it turned out that life opened up for me in ways I could have never thought possible. At the same time, after the adventurous initial ten months of mine in Seattle on my own, I couldn't have foreseen the dramatic changes that would occur in my life and sweep me away in ways I couldn't even believe at the time. All of the experiences I was going through during my time in Seattle were subconsciously making me more aware of the need to discover a greater theme of meaning and purpose for my life, for I still had no idea what I was to do in life, why I was born or what my future held. There had to be something greater than an endless series of adventures, but I really didn't have a clue at all as to what it was. At the time, I couldn't see further into my future than the next moment or two, leaving me no awareness of where I was headed and going in life. I certainly didn't see the changes to my life in Seattle that were just over the horizon at this point, or the dramatic events I'd be part of in the upcoming years...
Sometimes, the best way to find ourselves is to get lost in the process. So lost, in fact, that we're afraid we'll never find our way back again, especially the direction we've only just come from. It's when we find ourselves alone and directionless in the quiet moments of our lives, in surroundings we know we don't belong in and aspire to leave behind, that we can hear ourselves think without the distraction of the status quo calling us back to what had been our everyday reality. My questioning began very early on in this odyssey on the road, and as this internal dialogue developed I wrote down all of these debates with myself on a yellow, legal pad. This process of spontaneously writing my 152 philosophical questions and ponderings, laid the foundation for a resolution to the dilemma as to which way I should go with my life, seemingly giving me permission to follow my heart and my dreams...
I've often found my life being guided by moments of great insight or 'eureka moments, ' as I accidentally discovered the next direction my life should take while stranded at various mileposts and chapters during the course of my life. It seems these momentary glimpses into the future tended to occur more often than not when I was floundering and failing in life, not knowing what I was to do or where I was to go. So it was when I knew in my heart it was time to return to Michigan State University while watching the Michigan-Michigan State football game in the fall of 1979 on Bainbridge Island across Puget Sound from downtown Seattle. I knew in an instant I was to go back to school and arranged the details of my return in minutes, not days or weeks, to redirect the course of my life. Yet, I had no clue as to what this new journey and adventure I was starting out would mean to me and my future, or even what that future would hold. All I knew at the time was the timing was right to return to MSU, as my life was stagnating in Washington State with no real end game in sight. So it was as I boarded that Greyhound Bus - was I making the right decision? Would college work out for me this time around? Would I find my way into a career I wanted to have after graduation? Would I even graduate? I had no idea at the time, just a gut reaction that this was the right thing to do. In the end that's all that mattered, as I knew adventurers needed to know how to make decisions and stick with them. I'd made mine and now it was time to make the best of it... My life was filled with the excitement of the open road and traveling to parts unknown, while working various jobs to fund my adventures and experiencing opportunities I'd never dreamed of before, yet I began to wonder if that was all there was to life for me. At the end of the day I still didn't have a purpose or a plan, and life couldn't continue carrying on that way in a never ending series of road trips and hardships. I needed more out of life than just hitting the highway on yet another adventure. I still didn't know the meaning and purpose of my life, but came to understand it couldn't just be adventure for adventure's sake. This is where I found myself leading up to the beginning of Book Twelve of my autobiography, deciding at the time to return to Michigan State University to finish college and get my degree in business. I still didn't know what I'd do with my business degree, but felt it would at least funnel me into something where I could start living my life as an adult and not as a perpetual dreamer seeking my next adrenaline rush from adventure. Little did I know at the time I'd remain a dreamer my entire life, yet I found a way to not only live a life of purpose, meaning and responsibility, but also to continue living an adventurous life on an entirely new level I couldn't have imagined.
Spike Milligan's legendary war memoirs are a hilarious and subversive first-hand account of the Second World War, as well as a fascinating portrait of the formative years of this towering comic genius, most famous as writer and star of The Goon Show. They have sold over 4.5 million copies. With his lightning-quick wit, unbridled creativity and his ear for the absurd, Milligan revolutionised British comedy, leaving a legacy of influence that stretches from Monty Python's Flying Circus to the work of self-confessed acolytes such as Eddie Izzard and Stephen Fry today. Throughout his life, Milligan wrote prolifically - scripts, poetry, fiction, as well as several volumes of memoir, in which he took an entirely idiosyncratic approach to the truth. In this ground-breaking work, Norma Farnes, his long-time manager, companion, counsellor and confidante, gathers together the loose threads, reads between the lines and draws on the full breadth of his writing to present his life in his own words: an autobiography - of sorts. From his childhood in India, through his early career as a jazz musician and sketch-show entertainer, his spells in North Africa and Italy with the Royal Artillery, to that fateful first broadcast of The Goon Show and beyond into the annals of comedy history, this is the autobiography Milligan never wrote.
"Some Pow'r did us the giftie grant/ To see oursels as others can't." With that play on Burns' famous line as a preface, Willard Van Orman Quine sets out to spin the yarn of his life so far. And it is a gift indeed to see one of the world's most famous philosophers as no one else has seen him before. To catch an intimate glimpse of his seminal and controversial theories of philosophy, logic, and language as they evolved, and to hear his warm and often amusing comments on famous contemporary philosophers. From his beginnings in Akron, Ohio in the early 1900s, Quine takes us on a tour of over 100 countries over three-quarters of a century, including close observations of the Depression and two world wars. Far from a philosophical tract, it is an ebullient, folksy account of a richly varied and rounded life. When he does dip into philosophy, it is generally of the armchair sort, and laced with a gentle good humor: "There is that which one wants to do for the glory of having done it, and there is that which one wants to do for the joy of doing it. One can want to be a scientist because he wants to see himself as a Darwin or an Einstein, and one can want to be a scientist because he is curious about what makes things tick .... In normal cases the two kinds of motivation are in time brought to terms .... In me the glory motive lingered ...... In this book, Quine approaches the details of his life the way he has always approached them with a sharp sense of interest, adventure and fun. And he has a skill for picking a word that is just off-center enough to pull an ordinary event out of the humdrum of daily life and evoke its personal meaning. The result is a book of memories that is utterlymesmerizing. Willard Van Orman Quine is the author of numerous books, including "Word and Object, "published by The MIT Press in 1960. A Bradford Book.
The idea of going on adventures captured my imagination ever since the sixth grade when my friend Dan first introduced me to J.R.R. Tolkien's 'The Hobbit' and 'The Lord of the Rings' trilogy set in the fictional world of Middle-earth. I dreamed of going off on an adventure like Bilbo and Frodo Baggins through the Shire and beyond, but how does one take an adventure in the here-and-now of the real world? I didn't know how it might be possible, but understood it was up to me to figure out a way to turn my dreams into my reality. Adventure was never an offered class in my curriculum or coursework in school while growing up, but I was convinced there must be a way to go on great adventures in life. I figured that I'd just have to make it up on my own along the way - and when I wasn't accepted into the College of Veterinary Medicine at Michigan State University during Winter Term 1976, I realized this was my opportunity to follow my dreams and leave MSU. I finally settled on the idea of a great bicycle adventure around the United States and despite being broke, I set out to plan how to accomplish such a journey. This is the story of Part One of 'The Great Adventure' from southwest of Flint, MI, to our arrival at my aunt and uncle's house in Tallahassee, Florida - a journey around the U.S. in 1976-1977 of 8,111 miles that eventually finished in Seattle, WA. I left Michigan State University following Winter Term 1976 after not being accepted into the College of Veterinary Medicine, along with the fact there wasn't anything I wanted to do in life but go on adventures. Finally, after saving money and buying equipment, Bruce and I set out to begin 'The Great Adventure' on the sunny morning of Wednesday, September 22, 1976. I hope in telling the story of the adventure Bruce and I completed over 40 years ago, that you will seek to live your hopes, dreams, passions and adventures in life as well. Life is too short and precious not to live the life of your dreams - bon voyage! Cheers! Mark
Born in 1905 in the center of the crumbling Austro-Hungarian Empire, Viktor Frankl was a witness to the great political, philosophical, and scientific upheavals of the twentieth century. In these stirring recollections, Frankl describes how as a young doctor of neurology in prewar Vienna his disagreements with Freud and Adler led to the development of "the third Viennese School of Psychotherapy," known as logotherapy; recounts his harrowing trials in four concentration camps during the War; and reflects on the celebrity brought by the publication of Man's Search for Meaning in 1945.
"Although he spent thirty-five years of his life as a faculty member at three universities, his autobiography contains almost no discussion of departmental affairs or university politics, topics about which Simon had little or no interest. Rather, after the personal chronology and experiences, the book includes substantive chapters on research methods, population economics, and immigration. It also explains how Julian Simon became the economist he was. He analyzes crucial periods in his life when he developed his ideas on fundamental issues."--BOOK JACKET.