To go out, to find one’s passion, to be free.
This is the gist of exploration—as explained by most.
This passion is oft strived for, craved by the dreamers seeking to push their life’s frontiers outward and onward.
The endless far-flung fields foster a fascination for a life to be filled with fervidity for even the most banal things. Even something dangerous can be looked back upon as a fond memory!
However, most people never get to this dream of a life truly lived, only surviving day by day in a nearly unchanging state.
To truly explore is to reject that monotony, to get out of the rat race imposed upon us. Too many of us worry, “But what will I do, how will I find any stability and purpose while on the path of discovery?!”
That’s the thing. You don’t have to have a set purpose. Life is a maelstrom of emotions, experiences, entrances, and exits. There’s no set meaning of life; you make your own meaning of it.
There’s an expression for the complexity of life viewed through a human lens, termed “sonder”, which I found myself drawn to.
It’s the realization that every person lives a life as complex and real as one’s own.
And after that realization, the meaning of life and why exploration is needed is revealed.
Life is an infinitely complex thing, with any given person to humanity as a whole being a grain of sand to the Sahara. Truly, the perceived expectations of you as a person are much grander in your own head than to the outside world.
And so knowing that, I began to think, “Why damn yourself to unhappiness by limiting yourself to others’ purported expectations?”
Humans have to go explore, frolic in a field, sojourn by the seaside, pick petunias, stare at a sunset, and then the stars. To explore is to live out what it means to be a person, not what it feels like to slave away at a desk like some robot.
Exploration is following the echo of your soul; to build upon what your forefathers started and to go upon an undefinable journey of epic proportions.
That is why humans crave exploration.