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| Image found on the Internet |
“Exploration, however, no longer seemed aimed at some outward discovery; rather, it was directed inward, to what guidebooks and brochures called “camping and wilderness therapy” and “personal growth through adventure.” – David Grann, The Lost City of Z
Under this lens, one can appreciate the story David Grann tells primarily of Col. Percy Fawcett, a man obsessed with finding a lost city of the Amazon jungle and disappearing forever because of it ; David Grann’s own obsession with finding out what happened to Col. Fawcett by following his footsteps; and in reflection, all of society’s needs to obtain, whatever shape it takes.
Every single person on this planet is fixated on something. Where it is the preoccupation for money or fame, the passion to create, the infatuation with someone else, or the mania, fetishes, and addictions for ideas, personal desires, or the psychological or physiological need for something…we all obsess.
It is with this understanding that makes David Grann’s book, The Lost City of Z: A Tale Of Deadly Obsession In The Amazon strike far closer to home than one might imagine. One does not need to roam actual jungles, facing danger at every turn, to see that a jungle is just a metaphor for losing our own way in our rush to obtain that which we desire.
The absolute horrific conditions in which Col. Fawcett found himself, fighting disease, poisonous insects and plants, infections, hostile Indians, and predators of every nature are aptly (and grotesquely) described at length, but then to imagine that Col. Fawcett did not run from such hardships of the mind and body, but rather embraced it, and returned as often as he could speaks volumes about how humanity keeps returning to the same metaphorical well of poison for a cool drink we desire. What is it that drives us on despite the hardships and dangers, what was it that drove Col. Fawcett back to the Amazon despite a near guarantee to lose his life?
“But before long he found himself unable to sit still. “Deep down inside me a tiny voice was calling,” Fawcett said. “At first scarcely audible, it persisted until I could no longer ignore it. It was the voice of the wild place, and I knew that it know was part of me for ever.” He added, “Inexplicably—amazingly—I knew I loved that hell. Its fiendish grasp had captured me, and I wanted to see it again.” – David Grann, The Lost City of Z
And his obsession became the obsession for others after he went missing, including the author (a modern New York urbanite) and others. In visiting a local Indian woman who may have had some knowledge about Fawcett’s last known whereabouts,
“…she said, other people came from far away to ask about the missing explorers. She stared at me, her narrow eyes widening. “What is it that these white people did?” she asked. “Why is it so important for their tribe to find them?” – David Grann, The Lost City of Z
Indeed, why? David Grann does a marvelous job in relating his initial discovery of Col. Fawcett, the details of Fawcett’s life, the various expeditions into the Amazon, and the shock that Fawcett may have been right all along about the Lost City of Z. I won’t spoil the ending, but I recommend that for an evening or two, you put down your own obsessions and vicariously live someone else’s. And who knows…maybe you will find what you have been desiring all along: Understanding that our obsessions are place holders for something more primal.
“Civilization has a relatively precarious hold upon us and there is an undoubted attraction in a life of absolute freedom once it has been tasted. The ‘call o’ the wild’ is in the blood of many of us and finds its safety valve in adventure.” - Col. Percy Fawcett, Exploration Fawcett
