I learned this morning of the sudden and truly bizarre death of Dave Freeman,47, the adventurer and travel writer who brought us all the backpackers Bible: 100 Things to do Before you Die. He died in his home after a freak fall. The book was read by huge numbers of young people, all planning where to go in order to squeeze the most out of their time on Earth.
“This life is a short journey,” the book says. “How can you make sure you fill it with the most fun and that you visit all the coolest places on earth before you pack those bags for the very last time?”
Freeman’s relatives said he visited about half the places on his list before he died, and either he or Neil Teplica, the co-author, had been to nearly all of them.
“He didn’t have enough days, but he lived them like he should have,” Teplica said.
The book’s recommendations ranged from the obvious — attending the Academy Awards and running with the bulls in Pamplona, Spain — to the more obscure — taking a voodoo pilgrimage in Haiti and “land diving” on the Island of Vanuatu, which Freeman once called “the original bungee jumping.”
After her trips to America and India, my daughter Jahnavi had started ticking off items in the book – rather triumphantly – satisfied that she’d been in Krishna consciousness her entire life but had still managed to go to places that many world-travellers wished to go.
In a very strange way, in a way that shows us just how this world creates a sad irony for all those who leave it, Dave Freeman left all too soon. Yet the ancient Indian mystic voice whispers that each of us often knows deep down that last great secret – when we will depart – and we struggle to somehow fit it all in, in just a brief life.
Of course, the secret of life, the experience that will truly allow us to understand the universe, is not actually to be found running with the bulls in Pamplona, or even throwing tomatoes at that other festival in Spain (much as I would like to do that). The greatest journey we can go on, through the most fascinating landscape, is deep within us.
I pray that Dave Freeman continues his journey after a very brief nine months, and that once again he is given an opportunity to explore that greatest travel destination. May he find what he’s truly looking for soon.
