Philosophy for Polar Explorers

September 28, 2020
Explorer Kagge (Walking: One Step at a Time) reflects on the forces that drove him to become “the first to reach the Earth’s three poles on foot” in this enjoyable adventure story. He discusses how his aspirations shifted from youthful fantasies of “being a fireman, a footballer, an astronaut, and a superhero all at once” to more realistic, but still extraordinary, ambitions. His ventures combined a lifelong attachment to the natural world with a desire to achieve milestones with minimal assistance: in 1990 he and a companion reached the North Pole without using snowmobiles, sled dogs, or supply depots; in 1993 he walked to the South Pole by himself, followed by a climb to the summit of Mount Everest the next year. Making such extreme experiences relatable to less daring audiences, Kagge admits that he found just getting up in the morning at the right time to be “a polar explorer’s greatest challenge,” and he describes raising three children as his “fourth pole.” His continued wonder at the world and openness to the unexpected make for a refreshingly optimistic perspective. This moving and sometimes amusing look at how one man fulfilled his aspirations will charm both armchair and real-life adventurers.

November 15, 2020
The author of Silence (2017) and Walking (2019) ponders discipline, courage, failure, and happiness. Between 1990 and 1994, Norwegian explorer, art collector, and publisher Kagge completed three impressive feats: walking to the North and South Poles and climbing Mount Everest. In a slim volume illustrated by bone-chilling photographs of rugged glacial terrain, the author shares some of what he learned from those experiences as well as from other challenges--sailing across the Atlantic on a 35-foot boat severely battered by a storm, for example, and raising three teenage girls ("more daunting," he admits, than climbing Everest). "What I know of discipline I learned above the tree line," he reveals. Drawing on the insights of several other explorers--such as Roald Amundsen and Thor Heyerdahl--and thinkers including Socrates, Aristotle, John Stuart Mill, Wittgenstein, Pascal, and Kant, Kagge meditates about fear, solitude, and the meaning of challenges. "For any undertaking to be truly challenging, you have to stand to lose something," he writes. Humans need challenges to "make us feel like we have to earn the gift of life." Although being able to surmount danger "feels like a confirmation of our own existence," a challenge need not involve the kind of physical exertion Kagge undertook in the polar expeditions, where, he found, the hardest thing was getting up in the morning and leaving his warm sleeping bag. Challenge also involves finding purpose, taking responsibility, and nurturing one's dreams: "having dreams, and wondering about the world around me, is what will keep me going," he writes. For Kagge, the secret to a good life is to "keep your joys simple." Having met thousands of people on his world travels, he has come to believe that most undervalue themselves. "It seems that many of us are afraid of our own greatness," he writes, "and so we make ourselves less than we are." Well-earned wisdom serenely imparted.

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