Sunday, January 08, 2006

An Update

An update is long overdue. I need to tell you about my adventure, and why I've neglected my IWAA web site. It's hard to know where to start...

I set out with high hopes of spreading adventurousness, as well as wanting to waken myself up from a quite unsatisfying, un-challenging existence. Maybe it was all a bit ambitious? Maybe it was all a bit vague? I said I didn't know what 'an adventure was,' and although I had lots of ideas for adventurous stuff, I had little free time or energy to organise anything adventurous for anyone.

So I put up a post claiming I was 'Having an adventure.' When I wrote this post I felt a little deceptive, I didn't know what 'an adventure' was, but I claimed to be having one. What really happened was that there was lots of complicated life stuff going on, and this meant I couldn't give IWAA the time and attention it needed, and deserved. The 'complicated life' stuff has now calmed down a little, and surprisingly it feels that by describing this as 'an adventure' I wasn't far off the mark.

I had time to think, and now I have my own personal definition of 'adventure' sorted out in my head. Although I accept that this definition might not suit everyone. To me an 'adventure' is... (don't laugh!) anything that makes you feel like you could be in a movie! So anything dramatic, funny, exciting, romantic, tragic, anything that makes you 'feel' big-time. Of course it's likely that the type of adventure you like depends on whether you see yourself as the star of a comedy, an action movie, a thriller, whatever... Unfortunately most of the time I want to be the star of a funny film, which means I find it very hard to take anything very seriously. It also means it's highly likely that this stuff I'm writing is complete bollocks. If I was the star of a clever art house film then IWAA might have some chance of making sense!

Recent events in my life did feel like an adventure, but not at all the sort of adventure I wanted. They were dramatic, challenging, emotion-charged, life changing... But not much fun to be honest.

The sort of adventure I really crave is something silly that would make me laugh, like a giant, real food fight. Wouldn't you just love to slam a big gooey cream cake in someone's face? Or a jelly!

And a food fight fits my newly found definition of 'adventure.' It's 'something that could happen in a movie.' It's silly, it's fun. And it's possible that this is an adventure I can arrange.

I understand a flash mob group organised a pillow fight recently. My sort of adventure!

But perhaps not yours..?

I feel a responsibility to the many people who emailed me to say 'I want an adventure!' I feel like I let these people down.

I know I didn't promise much, and I know that adventures aren't easy to come by. But I don't want to give up, I do still very much want to help people find their own personal adventures. Strangely, I'm not so sure that I really, truly, 'want an adventure' right now. I feel like I might like a break from adventures for a little while, although if the right one came along I think I'd change my mind..!

I do miss stickering. I can't help it, I still look at every tube poster nose I see. I know I won't see an IWAA sticker there now, but I do see plenty of chewing gum noses. Every time I see a chewing gum nose I think of adventures... The magic Up escalator at Oxford Circus is still special, often every poster nose is chewing gum decorated. Once the magic Up escalator was closed and I was forced to take an alternative escalator and I was very glad I did. Someone had decorated a poster here with a home made sticker. This was a very special moment. It was a rather abstract design with some initials, 'N P'. It didn't matter that they'd decorated the wrong escalator, in fact it was actually a good thing! It was as if the magic was spreading, both Up escalators at Oxford Circus were special for a little while.

Just a little while...

I still pass one IWAA sticker on my way to work each morning, it's now very faded and slightly tattered. It's on a poster for 'Oakley' shades at Oxford Circus tube. I worry that I might cry when that little flagship for adventure is no more. I hope I can sticker some more before it disappears.

I'd like to print new stickers with 'mini-adventures' on them. Stickers that directly make people think 'adventure', and challenge them to act on the sticker message. But if they don't that's ok. It would be good just to make people think, and perhaps to wonder, 'What is an adventure...?'

I hope I can find the time and energy to make this happen. I also hope to redesign this web site, I'm not sure the 'blog' format works. I have my own 'personal' blog that I enjoy writing, and keeping this updated takes time enough. I'd like the IWAA web site to be more about other people rather than me. As I said, I'm not even sure I'll go adventuring for a while.

But having said that, stickering, and helping people find adventure, could be a small adventure in itself? I hope I will update you soon with some more news, but if I don't, I hope you find 'adventure', whatever it means to you...

3 Comments:

At 9:38 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Are your adventuring days over? Your email provider seems to think so, as my mail was bounced back.

 
At 6:14 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Reading these has done a number of things.

A) i'm not alone! (yay) Others do want adventures :)
B) I've gained some goal, I intend to go stick a few IWAA stickers up around my home town :)

To be honest, I'm unsure whether you even look at this site or even recieve email verifications anymore but on the off chance you do; reading these blogs have somewhat brightened my day. Should my travels take me to London, I'm sure I will post a few stickers at Tooting Bec or Tottenham Court Road stations :)

 
At 3:36 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

IWAA

 

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