What makes Sarah Marquis tick?
I like nature—a lot—often—but no one would associate me with a real rugged naturalist, living off the land, or even on the land, or walking through it with a huge back pack, or scaling cliffs, endlessly putting my life on the line via encounters with dangerous creatures. Oh yes, I love animals, at least the ones that can love me back—even those that don’t—but not a big fan of predators that hunt and kill other creatures (evolved enough for me to empathize with)—and least of all those predators which hunt and kill as a game, not for food, like humans. If a ten point buck deer sauntered across my pathway there is zero chance I would ever shoot it. Such an act would haunt me forever. I had huge emotional problems with slitting the neck of a sick or injured chicken as a kid when I raised chickens to sell Reid’s Leghorn Eggs. I am going to guess genetics plays a role in our empathy toward wildlife. Watching the life drain from the eyes of a dying animal seems to resonate through my mind more depressingly than most anything else. I know life comes with a death penalty but I still hate the ending.
After several hours in nature I am ready for a sumptuous meal, some comfortable place to read, or write, or view course lectures on various topics until, in the late hours of the night/wee hours of the morning, I go to sleep on a sleep number mattress adjusted to slumber in maximal comfort.
However, there are those who make nature a twenty four hour extended life existence. Why they even get huge satisfaction from all the danger and miserableness associated with such an existence. The worst weather conditions, the frightening encounters with dangerous animals, with unfriendly human natives, subsisting on lousy food, with the inevitable physical and mental stresses associated with living out in nature for long periods of time—are all part of the ‘fun’. Sarah Marquis is one of them. When I was younger taking my strolls through woodlands at dusk, miles from the parking lot, I seldom saw lone females—hardly ever. Today, at dusk, miles from the parking lot I am more likely to see a young lone female strutting along often with her head set on listening to music as she strolls along. Not many, but some females climb trees for an electric company, or drive trucks and tractors, work on moving vans, etc. Still, they are not equal to men just yet: only when they can walk down the street with a bald head and a beer gut, and still think they are sexy will they have attained real equality. Smile.
Sarah is a pleasant enough looking person, not some sort of physical eyesore seeking to escape a society which rejects her personal appearance. She was born in Switzerland to a watchmaker and housewife. She had two brothers. At 16 years of age she took a job with a train company so she could travel for free. At 17 she traveled to Turkey where she rode a horse across the Central Anatolia Region. I guess she was some sort of hermit in that she did these things alone. I am dated here, I guess, but these kind of solo nature adventures seem more the kind of thing a male would do.
In her twenties she spent a month in New Zealand’s Kahurangi National Park without bringing any food. From there she canoed through Algonquin provincial Park in Canada, then hiked the Pacific Crest Trail on the West Coast ( 2,650 miles), then in 2002 she walked border-to-border across the United States in four months, then spent 17 months in 2002-03 walking across Australia, covering a distance of 8,700 miles. In my hey day I walked 5 miles a day (now down to 4-7 miles every other day) which means, to walk 8,700 miles in my hey day, it would have taken me 1740 days or 4.77 years. Today, for me, we are talking 9 years, maybe a lot of it coffin bound. Then she went to the Andes in South America and walked solo there for 8 months.
In 2010 Sarah began a 3 year solo walk from Siberia through Asia via Mongolia (Gobi Desert) China. Siberia, Laos, Thailand, then boated to Australia where she continued her walk in Australia—in total 12,000 miles on a three year solo journey through difficult terrain, weather, and hostile residents (she sometimes dressed as a man to avoid being sexually assaulted. She wrote a book about her walk called Wild by Nature, and I read the book which generated this musing.
She was walking through relatively uncivilized dangerous territories with extreme weather conditions, a female, by herself with just a huge backpack and a sturdy two wheel upright cart she pushed or dragged behind her. She made arrangement for water and supplies at certain points along her trail. I don’t understand why she didn’t at least bring a donkey along to carry supplies and a dog for protection and company. People are considered by many to be mental cases with far less strange lifestyles.
Apparently companionship, lack of physical stress, lack of mental stress, sexual activity, personal security, comfortable environments, and other amenities of modern life are not that important to her. I think most people take more gambles when young, and get more pleasure from dangerous and stressful challenges than when older. Perhaps people like myself and my dad, when older, just value a comfortable, predictable, non stressful lifestyle in our twilight years. We are not looking for excitement, unexpected turn of events, drama, out manipulating anyone for anything, and have learned, for most aspects of our lives, when ‘enough is enough’. I guess most everyone, when young and become independent of our parents, need get a life. Some never give up that effort and others, once gaining some modest success in their lives, just give it up for a more contemplative and contented existence. Tragically, many lives take turns which never reach the point where this lifestyle is a choice. Their lives remains turmoil and frustration to the end.
In just the walks mentioned in this musing Sarah walked 27,260 miles. That would be roughly equivalent to walking from coast to coast in this country 7 times.
It seems strange she was never sexually assaulted in these primitive cultures wandering around alone, a person clearly not of the same ethnicity, religious or cultural status as the natives. Maybe she was assaulted and just has chosen not to write about it. She never mentions sex, consensual or otherwise the entire book. Of course she didn’t walk through any American ghettoes either. Maybe that would be more ‘heroic’.
She states that even under the most dire weather conditions she reached ‘real happiness’: “I’m in the right place at the right time, that’s all. I feel it, I know it.” Maybe we would get the same answer from someone who likes being tied up and abused during sex, or likes walking the length of the Amazon fighting bugs and dangerous creatures all the way, or climbing mountains which could end their lives, or ski in areas where snow slides could doom them, or feeling religiously ‘saved’ even though their life is mostly disappointment. At least they can pretend a Heaven to look forward to. I am not sure what any of the others have as their end point.
On the other hand, maybe contentment comes in strange forms. Long distance runners, used to their endogenous opioid high from their daily running regime, are highly unhappy if something prevents them from running to exhaustion that day. Perhaps those who survive or succeed in dangerous undertakings have a reward system that only kicks in after such success in the face of danger—a real example of ‘no pain, no gain. Those who take heroin to relieve emotional pain of their life situation—like being on a battlefield or unable to get a job and provide for their family, or need relief from certain aspects of their life, or are frustrated because they see no light at the end of the tunnel, and so on—these people seek, not reward from their brain reward centers, but pain relief which enables them to not care so much about their life situation. Chronic pain, physical or mental, can become almost unimaginably intolerable. Telling them to just put up with the physical or mental pain rarely succeeds. They, at least right now, can never get contentment, only some partial relief. If there is hell on earth, these people have it worst.
In what I will charitably call educated speculation, it seems those who thrive on dangerous/stressful endeavors probably have strong reward centers in their brain. The pleasure they get as a reward is so strong that it becomes worth the risk. At the other end of the scale would be those who are rather cautious in their endeavors and I speculate here that they have strong punishment centers in their brain, and therefore fear the pain of punishment for taking such a ‘stupid’ risk.
Of course most people fall in the middle somewhere between seeking reward from their brain reward centers and fearing punishment from their brain punishment centers. Evel Knievel, cliff climbers, marathon runners, etc would be examples of individuals who have exceptionally strong reward systems. The scaredy cats of the world would be examples of those individuals who have strong punishment centers in their brains. Terrell Owens would be the perfect example of someone driven by a strong reward system and an almost nonexistent punishment center. This would explain why willpower is inherited.
As so often with human behaviors, there is no right or wrong involved at all, just diversity in our various traits. Perhaps we vary depending on the activity in question. In some matters we seek to activate our reward center and in other matters we fear more our punishment center. Terrell Owens was likely exceptionally suited with a weak punishment center and an exceptionally strong reward center. This would explain why he went nuts after every touchdown. It might also explain why some people do the most senseless sexual behaviors as they desperately risk their whole reputation in order to get a strong sense of pleasure from their reward center in their brain. Maybe gambling fits in here too, where “I won, I won, I won” is more important than fearing “Oh no, I just lost my entire pay check”. To the extent any of this is true, then consistent reasonable behavior is no small task considering the role our reward and punishment centers may play.
At any rate it is probably good Sarah never married. When she stepped out for a walk it might just be a three year walk across some continent. “Is mommy coming home?” “Someday, over the rainbow”…………
