Tonight I'll share, not a travel adventure story, but a story that inspired many of my travel adventure stories, and a mystery I just figured out this evening.
The solving of that mystery began when I sat down my kids this evening to watch "Raiders of the Lost Ark", for their first time. They enjoyed it a lot.
They asked me whether any of it really happened, and whether Indiana Jones was a real person. I explained how parts of the background (the mystery of the Lost Ark, Hitler's search for occult items) were true, and inspired the movie.
I also told them about a number of real-life people, such as the Harvard archaeologist Langdon Warner, who took many of the frescoes from Dunhuang on China's Silk Road, helped inspire the character of Indiana Jones.
And told them about the commencement address I heard at the 1988 Presidential Scholars week in Washington DC, by a man who was introduced as one of the inspirations for Indiana Jones. I could never remember or identify his name, but his speech had a huge and lasting impact on me.
I suspect I'm one of the few young people that day who remembers the address. Most of my peers had spent all night partying and getting to know each other. My mother was very ill at the time, and I was going through a very sad time, so I actually got a night's sleep.
The man began, as expected, by congratulating us. But he challenged us. He said "Most of you are here because you excel at following the rules, and giving the right answers to the normal questions. But very few of you are risk takers."
"And because you are not risk takers," he said, "You will never do anything truly exceptional, or reach the heights that you could reach."
It was a pretty bold thing to say to 100 or so young people who had just been recognized as the country's top students by the President himself, and were all heading to top schools: "You are not risk takers, and you will never be exceptional unless you learn to become one."
He then told stories of the many adventures he had in remote jungles and mountains. One story, in particular, stuck in my head.
He had heard a legend that India's most famous scripture, the Bhagavad Gita, was written in ancient times at the edge of an octagonal well. He wanted to find the location of that well.
So he studied every ancient manuscript he could find, searching for clues. He learned Sanskrit, just so he could pursue this task. Finally he believed he had found the location.
He outfitted an expedition, which trekked through the jungle. They waded across rivers and scrambled up cliffs. Finally they approached the village where he believed the well could be found.
As they entered the village, they realized that streams of people were arriving by bus. Apparently some sort of local festival was underway. They asked what was the occasion.
A local happily told them: "This is the village where the Bhagavad Gita was written beside an ancient well! Everyone across India knows this! Every year, thousands of pilgrims come here to celebrate the occasion!"
In this and similar stories the speaker had a simple message: You must dare, even at the risk of failure, even at the risk of making a fool of yourself.
"But most of you," he warned, "have gotten this far by playing it safe. And it will only take you so far."
For years, I could not recall - and could not find - the name of the speaker. Even when I related the story and its impact on my many years later, to the alumni magazine, I could not pinpoint his name.
Tonight, after retelling the story to my children, I went back to some old materials of mine that had been stored for years at a cousin's house, which I retrieved over Christmas. In them, I found a program, and was able to find his name.
His name was - or is - Daniel Taylor-Ide. You can read about him here. He grew up in India and Nepal as the son of a missionary. He apparently spent many years trying to track down the Yeti, only to conclude they were really the tracks of a bear. baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-19…
I don't know whether Mr. Taylor-Ide is still alive, but I'd like to tell him thank you. His words made me take many chances in life, as well as directly inspiring me to travel the world - and experience many similar adventures.
