On Being an Explorer

The pull was strong. I could not explain why, but I found myself drawn, as it seems so many of us here to the Cavern, to the City, to the Ages.

I don't remember if it was the games, the stories or something else, but I was eventually able to find my way to the Cleft. I still remember the first time I placed my hand on the book to what became my Relto. It was after the first restoration failed, and I felt very alone.

I equally remember the first time I found other people after about a year of short trips into the City. Something about being with people, about sharing this Journey with others made it easier and easier to find time to be in D'ni.

I remember the first time I went with a group into an age and realized that we really were traveling through possibilities. The subtle differences between the possibilities of each place. Living the dream of each Explorer bringing a part of a larger, dynamic whole to each mystery. Even those things that have become normal and common (if one can use such words to speak of the experience of being an Explorer) taking on new life and energy in the presence of the whole community. That erased a lot of the feeling I was carrying around about having missed the first restoration.

I was also in the Cavern the day the DRC announced they wanted to establish liaisons to represent the Explorer community.

At first, I thought this was a DRC attempt to help organize the larger groups and was expecting more announcements from the different major organizations. It wasn't until later that someone set me straight. And then I realized that I though what I did because there really did not seem to be a voice for the unaffiliated Explorer. It was a strange and awkward moment for me. In my mind, up to that point, there was only one Explorer community. The groups that had evolved during the restoration and right after were not a factor to me. But suddenly I found myself worried. I felt like I was going to be marginalized. I felt the same for other who were just then discovering D'ni for the first time.

The good news is that the community (mostly) pulled together and picked Liaisons. Not all was perfect in the process, but I felt that at least an attempt was made to be inclusive. The shame of it was when we did it again six months later. IIRC, less than 300 people participated in the election that reelected the slate of Liaisons.

Today, I still think about the organization of the overall community of Explorers. And I still have a lot of my same fears. We have old Explorers returning, other still making their way. We have new Explorers feeling the Call to Gather. We have those who follow the Gathered, either to follow their family and friends or just to provide support. How many of these hear the Call themselves? We have those who have learned of the city, and enter the city to see what the uru is about, if only because the crowd Gathering.

Every community of any size needs leaders. Every Journey needs those who will help navigate the path and guide. Every group of people collect their thoughts and finds a voice.

I'm worried about unaffiliated Explorer. Not everyone chooses to be alone. Many would choose to uru with those that see the Journey the same way.

In a very real way, I believe the DRC did the community a favor.

Let me explain.

In my life on the surface, I fight a battle every single day against people that want me to do something or give something to them. It may be information on how to do their job. It may be information on how to accomplish some feat. It may be someone just they to get me to do something so they don't have to. It bothers me, especially when it keeps me from doing my job.

I call this asking to be spoon-fed.

The DRC did not spoon-feed us. They told us what they wanted us to do, and they left us to do it.

The importance of action. I do not know how to say any more about it. Just The Importance of Action.

The Explorer community is robust and expansive. Many new Explorers are looking not to explore alone. There are already a number of great communities centered on a number of neighborhoods in the Cavern. How much of the problem of keeping the community from tearing itself apart will come from helping Explorers understand the organizations that exist already today. How many more events in the Cavern, either run by the DRC, DRCL or just random Explorers, will be successful with just a little bit more organization?

Every community needs leaders. And there are already a good number of leaders in the city.

We have groups that have organized to explore together. We have groups that have organized to help their fellow Explorers either with the Journey or by helping communicate the happenings in the Cavern. We have concepts that have taken form. We have parties and gatherings and social events. We have birds of a feather gathering to further surface hobbies and concerns here in the Cavern.

How many Explorers are just in the first neighborhood they landed in; one that may not be the best fit for their Journey? How many are still there because of the vagrancies of time do not know that the next neighborhood over could truly be their home in the Cavern?

I started a thread on one of the forums that a lot of Explorers seem to read asking the neighborhoods that are open to new members to actively recruit new members.

The DRC needs to continue the restoration, to do the work to open new places to explore, to keep us safe while exploring. The DRCL role is not to make life easier for the Explorer, but to be our voice when the DRC is ready to hear.

It is up to each and every organization to be ready to speak, in its own voice. And those voices will be stronger, and the issues they raise easier to act upon, if and only if individual Explorers feel that they actually have one. That through the organization they build for themselves, they create and focus their voices.

I do not expect to find a new home for myself. I only hope that we can reduce an intractable number of randomly moving parts into a collection of wholes. Explorers working with Explorers to achieve common goals.

And maybe I'm still dreaming. I am but one drop or water. And I feel on this, I speak for myself.

Alone or together . . .