The date was November 24, 1977, I was a precocious 7 year old (2nd grade) boy hopped up on pirate movies and the imminent Thanksgiving vacation. I have a few really strong memories of grade school but most of those are about fun (or not so fun) things that happened as a student. This memory stands out to me because it isn’t so much about what happened but what I thought about it and what I wanted for my life. Considering I was 7 and it was in the midst of arts & crafts time, that is still a little amazing to me.

As I mentioned before, it was the day before Thanksgiving. The elementary school I attended was in a large converted 1900s high school building. It had a wonderfully huge auditorium where on special occasions they would show films (on film! ~ It was the 70s after all). This was a special occasion. I don’t remember what the film was, I think it was supposed to be about pilgrims and thanksgiving and I am sure there was some fantastic moral lesson to be had, but what myself and my peers (a group of rowdy 7 year olds) took away from this was the swashbuckling! There were sword fights! So as we spilled back into the classroom with visions of pirate adventure at the edge of a sword dazzling in our young minds and massive amounts of energy on our hands, our teacher frantically set us to making Thanksgiving themed arts and crafts.

As young men of a certain joie de vivre, we were not having it. We all immediately began to make swords out of construction paper. Some of my more talented friends were folding paper to make actual semi-working facsimiles of swords. Not me, I went directly to the crayon-outlined, limited edition, Errol Flynn endorsed, curved scimitar cut out from brown construction paper. The sword fighting commenced momentarily and lasted for a sum total of 2 minutes, after which we all stood around and looked at our bent, broken, and/or ripped swords.

The other boys headed back to the craft table to make new swords immediately, but I was nonplussed. I stared at the handle of the sword in my hand (the actual sword had torn off and was elsewhere). “This is dumb, it’s not real. I want the real thing”, I thought. It’s not that I truly wanted a sword (well, maybe a little bit). I value my fingers and other fleshy bits too much to get that creative with sharp things.

What I wanted was the real experience. I wanted to be a pirate or the 7 year old’s romantic imagination of what a pirate was and did. In the end, I didn’t go back and play with the others. It was the real thing or nothing.

No paper swords for me.

It’s probably a silly example but the principle has stuck with me. There have even been times when I have uttered the above sentence (albeit under my breath) when presented with the opportunity to have a non-adventure, to take the easy way out, or to not go in at all.

As I get older, material possessions become less important, experience is what I want. I want to see it, feel it, smell it, taste it for myself, I don’t want to accept what I see on TV, YouTube, or read in a book.

I want the good and the bad. I want the REAL.

I recently went to The Electric Daisy Carnival (EDC) in Las Vegas. If you are unfamiliar with it, it is three full nights from 7p to 5a of electric dance music (EDM) performances by some of the biggest artists in the world. It has been on my bucket list for YEARS.

In my head, this was going to be 3 days of total bliss. In reality it was 3 very physical, hard days (yeah, sure it’s a dry heat) and nights interspersed with moments of unbelievable bliss. In spite of the heat, frustration, and the occasional bouts anxiety, it was wonderful. It was a real adventure and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Don’t watch life from the sidelines (more commonly known as your couch or office chair), get out there. Get your sword and claim your adventure.

Here is a little taste of EDC:

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