For him it represented a series of principles which guide the decisions and behaviours of an expedition’s members in order to achieve the maximum across the team with the minimum of stress. By 1974 he’d refined the idea enough to write 17 pages on it in his seminal “Wilderness Handbook” and it continues to be at the core of NOLS courses today.
Expedition Behaviour means being prepared, on time, organized, flexible and humble; seeing the humor in everything; exercising a tolerance for adversity, uncertainty and discomfort; and putting the needs of the group and others on the same level or above one’s own needs. Some people do it instinctively, others take a while but eventually, given the reality that wilderness places in front of us, almost everybody gets it.
A striking and touching New Year’s Eve message delivered by author Neil Gaiman at Symphony Hall in Boston.
May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art — write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.
…I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you’ll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you’ll make something that didn’t exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and to like in return. And, most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now), that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind.
This video was created for the AARP U@50 video contest and placed second. It is based on the Argentinian Political Advertisement “The Truth” by RECREAR.
I turn 30 this month.To mark the occasion, below is an open letter I wrote to my friends…
Dear All,
If you get this you have probably just turned thirty, or are about to in the next few months.
That means that it’s ten years since you turned twenty. Ten years ago the Euro was introduced, the Kosovo War started, Napster was invented, Lance Armstrong won his first of seven Tours de France and the ExxonMobil Corporation merger was completed, heralding the start of the age of super-corporations. Ten years ago, thirty looked a lifetime away.
” A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. ”
Robert Anson Heinlein in Time Enough for Love (1973)
In 1965 Paul Petzolt, founder of the National Outdoor Leadership School in Wyoming used the phrase “Expedition Behaviour” for the first time.
A striking and touching New Year’s Eve message delivered by author 
Glad to see you’re keeping us all on our toes, though!”
There are more than 6000 words in the English language representing emotions.1
