Wednesday, January 22, 2014

What They Left and What They Kept: What an Antarctic Expedition Can Teach You About What’s Truly Valuable

Rating: *****

                If you were asked; out of all your processions to keep only two pounds of it, what would you take? What materialistic things in life do you consider to truly be valuable?

This article is different than most. It explains the journey of a group of men who ended up stuck during an Antarctic expedition. The journey was done by a twenty eight man crew and ship, set to traverse the continent of Antarctica in the year 1914. However the journey was short lived when the boat got stuck in the ice. The men were forced to leave the boat and set up camp on the ice, they didn't have much time until the boat sank. The captain informed the crew to grab all the materials to set up camp on shore (glacial shore), however once settled off the boat, they didn't get any time to relax. The captain made the hard decision that they were going to have to move, yet again. He told the men to carry only the clothes on their back, and basic provisions, they needed to pack light to make it across the 346 mile hike he planned to do. In terms of personal processions each member were only allowed to bring two pounds worth of valuables.


This article was moving to say the least. It branched out from being about the twenty eight men and their journey across the ice, but more about how we can learn from this event. Some things we should be thinking about in our everyday lives. The article is fairly deceiving, it doesn't look it will be very well written, and from a website named “the Art of Manliness” you assume it may not be all that profound. But one couldn't be more wrong if these assumptions were made. The article encourages us all to live minimalistic lives and that, all the consumerism we have in our society really isn't necessary. We buy so much more than what we need. That our idea of value is extremely skewed. That money shouldn't buy value, sentiment and memories should. The article does a really good job of showing how, a plenty of gold trinkets can be less valuable than a few pages from the bible (what the captain left and kept). Even since reading this a month back or so, I have still gone over a few things I have in my room with this idea in mind. Is that new video game really all that important? I suggest that everyone should at some point go over their lives and their processions like those 28 men. If left in a situation like this, what would you keep?

MCKAY, BRETT & KATE . "What They Left and What They Kept: What an Antarctic Expedition Can Teach You About What's Truly Valuable." The Art of Manliness RSS. N.p., 7 Oct. 2013. Web. 5 Dec. 2013. http://www.artofmanliness.com/2013/10/07/what-they-left-and-what-they-kept-what-an-antarctic-expedition-can-teach-you-about-whats-truly-valuable/

1 comment: