How to add more exploration in your life (w/ Alex Hutchinson)
3/30/202641 min
“When was the last time you did something you didn’t do yesterday?” asks journalist and explorer Alex Hutchinson. Alex joins Chris to examine whether the desire to explore is baked into our genes, how he intentionally tries to get lost in his neighborhood, and what he learns from following his curiosity.
Featured guest
Follow Alex Hutchinson on Instagram and at alexhutchinson.net/Buy The Explorer’s Gene by Alex Hutchinson
Connect with the team
Follow Chris on Instagram and at chrisduffycomedy.comBuy Chris’ book, Humor Me Watch How to Be a Better...
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsChris Duffy· Host0:00
[upbeat music] This is How to Be a Better Human. I'm your host, Chris Duffy, and today, I want you to join me on an adventure, an exploration into the unknown. Okay, what did you think of when I just said that? Were you imagining, like, a grand treasure hunt, or did you think of a scientific expedition into a remote wilderness? Those do sound exciting. But what if adventure and exploration were more immediately accessible? What would it do for our lives and our sense of ourselves if we could break out of the ordinary on a more regular basis? Today's guest, Alex Hutchinson, thinks that we all want and need the unknown in our lives, and he's got lots of research and data and ideas about how we can find it. To get us started, here is a clip of Alex reading a passage from his new book, The Explorer's Gene: Why We Seek Big Challenges, New Flavors, and the Blank Spots on the Map.
Alex Hutchinson· Guest0:50
"Is a hike through a national park really exploring? One view is that true exploring involves venturing into territory where no human has preceded you. If there are footprints, you're not exploring. Alternatively, you could argue that exploring is simply another word for trying something new. If the TV show you're watching gets boring and you change the channel, you're exploring what else is on the airwaves. Neither of these definitions really captures what the concept means to me. The Latin word explorare means to reconnoiter, inspect, or investigate. It was formed from ex, which means from or out of, and plore, to wail or lament. The original meaning is thought to have been to scout the hunting area for game by means of shouting.