Our trip is now coming to an end, and in this whole trip, we have done a lot of different activities including reaching Inuvik, which was our destination and also our halfway point, crossing the Arctic Circle, going on the Tombstone hike and hiking up a bit of Mount Edith. Apart from doing a lot of special things, we also saw a lot of things happen in this road trip, where most of them were natural but also some of them were caused by equipment failure. You may then ask, what does fearless have to do with any of this? Well, in order to even join such an epic and risky road trip like this, you cannot be fearful of every single event that might happen along the trip. As everyone in Monticle says, you just have to suck it up and keep moving forward. However, if you do fear of risks, then you will do nothing fun and interesting in your whole life as they all have a certain degree of risks in them, whether they are small or big. Therefore being fearless is something that is required for this trip.
So first of all, by joining this expedition, we all have shown a bit of our fearless, risk-taking side. Secondly, instead of doing a Trans-Canada East or Trans-Canada West trip, this Trans-Canada trip included going pass the Arctic Circle and through the Dempster Highway into Inuvik (this is far as you can ever go north on the road unless you count during winter time when the rivers freeze over and you can cross even further). The moment you enter the Dempster Highway, you also need a certain amount of fearlessness as the Dempster Highway, unlike other highways, it is not paved, relatively empty, full of many dangerous animals and have no emergency service vehicles that can enter the highway. The above reasons is why it is so easy to get into accidents on the highway, which range from flat tires to cracked or even shattered windshields. In order to fix all of these problems, you must be fearless and calm when these incidents happen. Why? This is because, as most, if not all of you should know, that when you are afraid or in fear of something, it is usually hard to suppress it and the fear inside you just grows larger and larger until it takes control of your mind. When that happens, the body goes into a panic mode and your vision will get murky and clouded and it will be hard to think of anything or do anything right. When I say vision, I don’t mean our literal vision, but a vision on the whole event in our brain. This can even cause you to worsen the situation because in this state of panic you rush to get out of it. As Billy once said, a bucket of water with no disturbances is clear and you can see your reflection on the water. However, if a stone is thrown in to the bucket of water, ripples form on the surface, making it so that it is hard to see your reflection and even if you could, it would be distorted. In this metaphor, the reflection is our vision on events and objects and the stone thrown into the water is fear. If you are fearless, fear then cannot distort what you see and will make you think clear and straight, enabling you to get out of those situations.
On our mountain next to Mount Edith hike (referred to as Mount Edith Jr. from now on), I’ll admit that I lost some of my fearlessness, as Billy kept repeating the warnings of Mount Edith over and over again. He said that there would be steep drops, narrow paths and very cold weather. When we arrived at the trailer parking lot and started unpacking our day packs and changing into warmer clothes, I started to feel genuinely worried about the hike as the fear inside me inserted images of a tall rising mountain with people walking along a narrow ridge with long drops on both sides. It also didn’t help much when Billy showed us the harnesses and also questioned some of our hiking shoes and said how we couldn’t go past a certain altitude as the shoes would not fit the job. When we arrived at the base of the mountain though, most of my fear instantly evaporated. It was because in that moment, I was actually facing this challenge head on. A part of me told me that we would be fine but the other half said otherwise. However if anything did happen, Billy would be there to help us. After reaching our destined location, my fear didn’t even exist anymore. Although I knew we didn’t reach the actual summit, which meant some of the hazards Billy mentioned didn’t show up, it was still challenging and I felt proud for going up there. This event showed us that people cannot be fearless of everything and how fear plants images and thoughts in your mind to make you not try whatever you had a fear of. However, once you actually try and successfully complete the tasks or objectives that you feared, the fear then disappears immediately, as being fearful of doing something doesn’t mean you’re scared of the thing itself. I think that it is actually the fear of not knowing what will happen next and the fear of messing up or even the fear of the future that puts us in these feared states. This means that once you’ve completed your objective, in this case was hiking up Mount Edith Jr, you will know what the hike is like. You will know what you will see and all the dangers of the hike, which means uncertainty no longer exists, resulting in your fears to go “poof”. In turn all the fear is replaced with excitement, joy and the feeling of being proud of conquering your fear and what you have achieved.
Another example of fearlessness comes from one of the smaller members in this expedition. He would constantly take risks that come in forms of rebellion, disobeying orders and showing no respect to some members. The reason I say that is because it is an act of fearlessness as he has been punished many, many times. Even with all these punishments he seems to not care and “follows his own pace” instead of working with us as a proper unit. In my personal opinion this can be considered a bad example of fearlessness. Since he does not fear anything that happens to him, he continues to disobey orders. Not only does this result in constant punishment, but it also causes our efficiency to decrease and our atmosphere to be less cheerful. We therefore have to constantly check on him and make sure nothing bad occurs from his fearlessness.
I’ll admit that I personally am always afraid of some things. When this trip first started, I was worried about the trip and everything that might go wrong. I also got worried about meeting bad people at places where Asians were disliked, worried about Inuvik, tombstones and Mount. Edith Jr. Now, I am worried about life back in Hong Kong. Although I already know, or at least think I know how this will work out, I still worry about my unfinished summer homework, meeting old friends, getting new friends etc. This is why I think that everyone is always fearful of something, whether it be something stupid such as meeting my old school mates, or more logical fears such as skydiving or even death. If someone tells you that they are afraid of nothing or is totally fearless, they are definitely lying to you. There are many reasons why people hide their fear. For example, some of them might not even know what they fear of until they are in that situation. Others might fear embarrassment and some just want to keep it private as it might ruin their image. So to say one doesn’t fear anything is hard to believe.
However, being completely fearless is also a bad thing, since fear also gives you safety. If people were to become completely fearless, they would have no sense of personal safety, which would then lead them to stupid acts of violence. This constant risk taking behaviour could then possibly make you harm others and many loved ones. So in order to have a fun-filled and exciting life, you must be able to maintain a balance between being fearful and fearless, as every situation requires one of them.
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