When in Doubt, Attack
The value of uncertainty and adventure in an increasingly mapped-out world
“Should we stay another day or go back?”
“I don’t know. Let’s hang a little longer and see how we feel.”
When I met my wife back in 1993, we had three key things in common.
Not much money.
Plenty of time.
A sense of adventure.
In those days, there was a bus that left RAF Lakenheath at 4:30 AM each day for London Heathrow. (My wife is disputing this detail … she recollects the bus leaving at a less punishing time, and she may well be right … it is completely unrealistic that she would ever awaken at 4:30 for any reason. But no good story is totally free of embellishment, so even if I am wrong, I am going to die on this hill).
It existed to carry airmen and families on official travel, but if there were open seats, anyone with a military ID could hop aboard at no charge. There was a second circuit that left from Heathrow back to the base in the late afternoon, providing a free round-trip.
Many a Saturday we would get ourselves up and hop on that bus, napping on the journey before touring London all day.
We had no plan. A day pass on the tube could be had for £3.50 in those days. We would simply hop on the Underground and use the 30 minute journey to Piccadilly to pick out a couple highlights for the day.
Sometimes we chose things that sounded vaguely familiar. Other times because they sounded cool. Most times because they were inexpensive.
As the day bore on, we’d eventually come to the dawning realization that we either needed to head back to Heathrow or we’d be stuck for the night. This led to a curious ritual of getting out all our cash, counting it to see if we could afford a B&B for the night, and then usually defaulting into an “ah, what the hell” decision to stay the night.
When we were done tackling the town, ordinarily fueled by a £1 baguette and a pint or two, we’d head back to the Tourist Services window at Heathrow and tell the clerk how much money we had. They’d call around and find us a room for the night, usually in Hounslow.
It was last weekend on a return journey from the States that I happened past that old window, still in operation three decades later. Waves of great memories came rushing back, most of them so cheap you could wrap then in a tenner, and so simple they might sound mundane if described aloud.
But it was high adventure. We made London our town, escaping from the self-imposed ennui which tended to trap scores of our colleagues, drowning themselves in cheap beer while sitting voluntarily in their dorm rooms bitching about the weather.
Meanwhile, we were hurtling ourselves into the strange and wonderful novelty of one of the best cities in the world. We were wise enough to know the opportunity might never come again, and that we couldn’t let money or anything else be a barrier.
And over the years, all the things we learned in those times of threadbare adventuring informed our worldview, our parenting style, and our empathy.
This reflection makes me think of two beliefs we’ve developed and held dear in the years since.
First, sometimes it’s OK to have no plan. Throw yourself into things. Figure it out as you go and don’t over-think it.
Many of us are obsessive planners, and the tools of the digital age make detailed planning easier than ever. But pre-visualizing every detail of an experience creates conceptual boundaries that close the mind a little bit. Instead of being open to whatever might happen, we maneuver to a target experience, which is a different thing.
Over-planning robs us of the ability to be surprised, and it’s in those moments of unexpected delight that we fall in love with places, experiences, and people.
Second, this all just reminds me of how I feel, justifiably, about travel. My life experience has lent truth to Mark Twain’s sentiment:
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.”
Get out there and move around. Do what you can afford. Don’t worry about a plan, especially with the power of that supercomputer in your hand.
“When in doubt, attack” … is a good guide for military operations, and a good guide for life.
TC is a writer with diverse interests who resides in Manchester, UK. He writes about whatever he damn pleases, and appreciates your engagement.
When I was stationed in three interesting places -- California, Germany and Massachusetts -- I was *flummoxed* at how many people were content to just stay on base and completely not engage or, worse, affirmatively reject their surroundings. In California, we explored from Baja California to the San Francisco Bay, and everything in between -- San Diego, inland empire, Julian, Orange County, Hollywood, Central Cal, San Luis Obispo, everything we had time and money to enjoy. Usually folks from the Midwest or deep South who were assigned to California against their will would openly reject all things California, as thought they were virtue signaling, when in fact they were ignorance signaling. Ditto Germany, where families were content to hunker down in Fortress America - there were four bases in Stuttgart (Patch, where we lived, Panzer Kaserne, where we worked, Kelley Barracks, which in those days just mostly contained housing and some weird Army offices, and Robinson Barracks (big commissary/PX and houses and not much else). Almost every weekend we were exploring German cities, from Munich to Frankfurt and everything in between, plus Belgium, Netherlands, France, Austria, Italy (by car) and Czech Republic, plus Spain and Italy by air. We lived on base because there was capacity and it was right after 9/11, so the security of the base was tempting for families with small children. We soon realized the threat vector in Germany was pretty small, even as all the FP/Intel weenies were constantly sounding the alarm, mostly to make themselves "useful". The number of people who never left base was simply astounding to me. I felt bad for them, but they were captivated by their own incuriosity and small world view. Many of them should have just sought assignments to Fort Hood and let the curious souls at Fort Hood have the joint orders. Finally, Massachusetts was the same. We explored from Maine to the Cape, and were in Boston every weekend. I was in Cambridge daily for school, and it would have been easy to sit on my butt where we lived in Bedford (Hanscom AFB), but we were determined to maximize the experience -- sports, concerts, history tours, museums, restaurants, the whole 9 yards. I feel sorry for people who are so incurious and insecure they isolate themselves.
These are my same memories. When we’re stationed in Germany, it was a rare weekend we were “home”. Many were afraid to travel due to the language barrier (I never met a German under 50 that could not speak English). Others just lacked curiosity.
On a rare weekend at home I was at the commissary and ran into a colleague. He said, “looks like your doing the sale as us. There’s never anything tondo around here.” I was dumbfounded. We traveled to 13 countries while stationed there. Within a two hours drive four different languages were spoken, the oldest city north of the Alpes was our back yard and the greatest wine growing regions on the planet were their for the tasting.
Out wanderlust has never ceased. This year includes a trip to the Arctic circle and then a trek to African Savanah.