Lost in the Valley of Death: A Story of Obsession and Danger in the Himalayas
Harley Rustad
Harper
Nonfiction, Biography/Survival/True Stories
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: For most of his life, Justin Alexander Shetler was driven to test himself against the wilderness, always pushing to climb higher and hike further and endure harsher and more primitive conditions. He was a restless soul, always searching for a connection or transformative experience that would give him peace and meaning, which always seemed to be just beyond the next bend or over the next hill. Justin chronicled his travels on social media, garnering a devoted following, even as he often dropped off the grid for more extreme adventures. As with so many restless souls seeking adventure and enlightenment, he eventually found himself in India, a land long elevated to mythological status by outsiders. Here, in the wild and nearly lawless hinterlands of the Parvati Valley, Justin hoped to discover the spiritual answers and peace that had always eluded him. He found a cave to live in, and a sadhu, or holy man, to teach him. Then, in late summer of 2016, the 35-year-old adventurer announced online that he was going on a trek to a holy lake high in the mountains in hopes of a transcendental experience. If he didn't come back, he told his audience with a winking emoji, don't look for him.
Those were the last words he would ever share.
As his days of silence grew to weeks and months, family and friends around the world began to worry, and realized something was very wrong. The Parvati Valley, after all, is not just known for its spiritual sites and natural beauty, but for a thriving (and illegal) cannabis trade and numerous unexplained disappearances. The sadhu he was last known to be associated with had a less-than-holy reputation, and some were concerned by how Justin seemed so enraptured by the man. And the local police were unmotivated to look into the whereabouts of yet another foreigner who was most likely just there for the high-quality hash and had probably fallen afoul of a trafficker, if he hadn't just slipped off a trail into the ever-hungry Parvati River. As overseas efforts to search out the truth coalesced, many reflected on Justin's life and the path that led him to India, and if that path suggested a way for him to still be alive when all evidence suggested otherwise...
REVIEW: Yet another random audiobook selection, this is the story of a man living a life without guardrails who seemingly finally took one risk too many. Rustad chronicles his life from a restless, nomadic, and troubled childhood where wilderness schools and programs were his only refuge to the man who never quite grew up or figured out how to settle or find peace, unwilling or unable to form deeper human connections while his inner turmoil and unanswered spiritual questions tormented him. He tried and discarded numerous spiritual teachings and personas, none seeming to offer what he needed or wanted, never at home in his own skin or life. Even his online persona was curated to present an image of himself that was more truth-adjacent than unvarnished reality, which ultimately hindered efforts to search for him, as too many believed he was indestructible or had just hared off on an even more extreme adventure than he'd started on. There is a faint hint of a possibility that maybe that is what he did - as more than one person pointed out, if anyone was capable of cutting all ties with civilization and living completely off the grid and out of contact, it was Justin Alexander - but Occam's razor suggests a more straightforward and ultimately tragic end, for all that no body was ever found. Along the way, Rustad explores how and why so many people seem compelled to turn to the "other" culture, or rather their outsider's distorted view of that culture, in search of greater meaning: for instance, appropriating sweat lodges and vision quests and mishmashed teachings from various Native American cultures without regard for the real roots and nuances and meanings of those rituals and teachings, or even honoring where they originated. India may well be the ultimate target of this mentality and has been for centuries via rhapsodic travel writing and literature, transforming the country in "Western" minds into something so exotic and steeped in spirituality and larger than life that there is an actual (unofficial) term for visitors who become overwhelmed and experience mental health episodes: India Syndrome. (The fact that there are certain native plants and drugs with potentially devastating effects, sometimes used by the unscrupulous to facilitate crimes, also may play into some outsiders' ideas that simply setting foot in India is enough to trigger a transformative spiritual experience.) Something about India exerts an inexorable pull on certain people, many of whom never return home for various reasons (not always accidents or foul play; every year, local authorities round up dozens of foreigners who simply chose to overstay their visas, unable to bring themselves to leave).
There are times when Rustad seems to be repeating himself, and later on he reveals some pretty important information on young Justin's formative years that might explain some of his unresolved pain and unprocessed traumas, the holes he was forever trying to fill, which casts his extreme life and probable death in a whole new light. He also ventures into the weeds a bit discussing other unresolved disappearances in the Parvati Valley that foreshadow Justin's fate, even as he offers a glimpse of just what it was about India in general and the Parvati Valley in particular that was so alluring. Ultimately, though, Rustad does a decent job summing up a man determined to live as full a life as possible and push himself as far as he could go, always hoping that the next adventure would be the one to give his life meaning and find peace, for all that he often seemed to be chasing phantoms so ill-defined he couldn't even say for certain just what "meaning" or "peace" would look like if he glimpsed them. One can only hope, whatever happened to him, that he found that peace he was searching for in the wilds of the Himalayas.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Adventurer's Son (Roman Dial) - My Review
Gone to the Woods (Gary Paulsen) - My Review
The Lost City of the Monkey God (Douglas Preston) - My Review
Showing posts with label survival. Show all posts
Showing posts with label survival. Show all posts
Friday, August 30, 2024
Wednesday, October 18, 2023
The Third Man Factor (John Geiger)
The Third Man Factor: Surviving the Impossible
John Geiger
Hachette Books
Nonfiction, Psychology/Sociology/Survival
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: A scuba diver in a deep cave loses track of her guideline... only to sense a presence that helps keep her calm until she can escape. An injured mountain climber, lost in bad weather, is tempted to give up, until someone who could not possibly be there urges them onward toward rescue. A sailor attempting a solo circumnavigation senses and even sees and hears a stranger aboard their ship, helping them through rough weather. An explorer lost in hostile jungle terrain follows a phantom figure to safety. A man in the World Trade Center during the 9/11 attacks feels a presence just behind him, guiding him to safety before the towers collapse.
It sounds like the stuff of fiction, but these and other encounters like them are recorded thousands of times and more: people in high-stress, emergency situations and survival circumstances who sense or even see a phantom person, an entity that sometimes just watches and sometimes actively seems to offer advice or assistance. The figure can be a simple sensation of an unseen presence, a figure lacking features, an associate or loved one, or even a complete stranger. Even famed explorers like Shackleton experienced this, though many hide encounters for years or decades to avoid ridicule. The "Third Man Factor" is a real phenomenon, for all that nobody seems quite sure what the cause or trigger is. Author John Geiger relates several stories of Third Man encounters, along with studies and theories on their nature, from spiritual guides to evolutionary survival tactics to neural misfirings.
REVIEW: I've heard a few mentions of Third Man-like experiences in other survival stories, but this book is the first I've read dedicated solely to the phenomenon, which often falls into a gray area between spiritual or religious beliefs and neurochemistry. Actually studying it in action is difficult to impossible, given that it generally takes extreme situations to trigger, though some progress has been made on simulating similar experiences in lab settings. There's also some indication that it is related to the sense of a presence during sleep paralysis episodes and "imaginary friends" generated in childhood, and also possibly the misplaced sense of self that can also be seen in out-of-body experiences and "phantom limb" feelings in amputees; indeed, more than one person reporting their encounters seems to realize at some point that the "other" is an extension of themselves. Unlike delusional episodes or hallucinations, the people experiencing the Third Man often know that the "other" cannot possibly be there in truth, but the presence can still sometimes mean the difference between life and death in a very literal sense. "Third Men" (sometimes manifesting as female, or of undetermined gender) may well be an extreme survival tactic concocted by our social ape brains, for all that they sometimes seem like inert entities or even, rarely, vaguely malevolent (as in the "sleep paralysis demons" some report); just the sense of not being alone can help one rally in the face of impossible odds. The stories Geiger relates can occasionally bleed together (how many mountaineering disasters can a reader be expected to keep straight?), and sometimes the Third Man entity/experience involved seems more tangential than instrumental to helping the victims pull themselves together and get out of trouble, but overall it's a decently interesting look at an unusual psychological phenomenon.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Girl With No Name (Marina Chapman et al.) - My Review
Nation (Terry Pratchett) - My Review
Lost in Shangri-La (Mitchell Zuckoff) - My Review
John Geiger
Hachette Books
Nonfiction, Psychology/Sociology/Survival
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: A scuba diver in a deep cave loses track of her guideline... only to sense a presence that helps keep her calm until she can escape. An injured mountain climber, lost in bad weather, is tempted to give up, until someone who could not possibly be there urges them onward toward rescue. A sailor attempting a solo circumnavigation senses and even sees and hears a stranger aboard their ship, helping them through rough weather. An explorer lost in hostile jungle terrain follows a phantom figure to safety. A man in the World Trade Center during the 9/11 attacks feels a presence just behind him, guiding him to safety before the towers collapse.
It sounds like the stuff of fiction, but these and other encounters like them are recorded thousands of times and more: people in high-stress, emergency situations and survival circumstances who sense or even see a phantom person, an entity that sometimes just watches and sometimes actively seems to offer advice or assistance. The figure can be a simple sensation of an unseen presence, a figure lacking features, an associate or loved one, or even a complete stranger. Even famed explorers like Shackleton experienced this, though many hide encounters for years or decades to avoid ridicule. The "Third Man Factor" is a real phenomenon, for all that nobody seems quite sure what the cause or trigger is. Author John Geiger relates several stories of Third Man encounters, along with studies and theories on their nature, from spiritual guides to evolutionary survival tactics to neural misfirings.
REVIEW: I've heard a few mentions of Third Man-like experiences in other survival stories, but this book is the first I've read dedicated solely to the phenomenon, which often falls into a gray area between spiritual or religious beliefs and neurochemistry. Actually studying it in action is difficult to impossible, given that it generally takes extreme situations to trigger, though some progress has been made on simulating similar experiences in lab settings. There's also some indication that it is related to the sense of a presence during sleep paralysis episodes and "imaginary friends" generated in childhood, and also possibly the misplaced sense of self that can also be seen in out-of-body experiences and "phantom limb" feelings in amputees; indeed, more than one person reporting their encounters seems to realize at some point that the "other" is an extension of themselves. Unlike delusional episodes or hallucinations, the people experiencing the Third Man often know that the "other" cannot possibly be there in truth, but the presence can still sometimes mean the difference between life and death in a very literal sense. "Third Men" (sometimes manifesting as female, or of undetermined gender) may well be an extreme survival tactic concocted by our social ape brains, for all that they sometimes seem like inert entities or even, rarely, vaguely malevolent (as in the "sleep paralysis demons" some report); just the sense of not being alone can help one rally in the face of impossible odds. The stories Geiger relates can occasionally bleed together (how many mountaineering disasters can a reader be expected to keep straight?), and sometimes the Third Man entity/experience involved seems more tangential than instrumental to helping the victims pull themselves together and get out of trouble, but overall it's a decently interesting look at an unusual psychological phenomenon.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Girl With No Name (Marina Chapman et al.) - My Review
Nation (Terry Pratchett) - My Review
Lost in Shangri-La (Mitchell Zuckoff) - My Review
Friday, August 4, 2017
How to Survive Anything (Tim MacWelch)
How to Survive Anything: From Animal Attacks to the End of the World (And Everything In Between)
Tim MacWelch
Weldon Owen
Nonfiction, Survival
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Compared to past centuries, the world is a relatively safe place thanks to the wonders of modern civilization, but no safety can be taken for granted. Natural disasters, earthquakes or storms or wildfires, can still bring devastation. Civil unrest can erupt into riots or worse. New diseases can crop up. Author Tim MacWelch and the editors of Outdoor Life magazine have compiled this collection of tips and tricks to help you and your family plan ahead, survive, and endure numerous scenarios.
REVIEW: While not terribly in-depth, this book gets marks for covering a very broad variety of disasters, offering (mostly) practical advice without venturing into fringe survivalist territory, debunking some common myths and misconceptions on the way. (No, drinking urine in the desert isn't an ideal hydration option, nor is a car sufficient insulation from a lightning strike.) The disasters are ranked from relatively minor and likely issues, like floods or getting lost in the wilderness, to less likely, longer-term disasters, such as a downed power grid, major meteor strike, or pandemic, ending with the obligatory "zombie apocalypse" chapter. As I mentioned earlier, what it lacks in depth and detail, it makes up for in overall range, so I gave it the benefit of the doubt.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Survival 101 (Marcus Duke) - My Review
Field Guide to the Apocalypse (Meghann Marco) - My Review
Hatchet (Gary Paulsen) - My Review
Tim MacWelch
Weldon Owen
Nonfiction, Survival
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Compared to past centuries, the world is a relatively safe place thanks to the wonders of modern civilization, but no safety can be taken for granted. Natural disasters, earthquakes or storms or wildfires, can still bring devastation. Civil unrest can erupt into riots or worse. New diseases can crop up. Author Tim MacWelch and the editors of Outdoor Life magazine have compiled this collection of tips and tricks to help you and your family plan ahead, survive, and endure numerous scenarios.
REVIEW: While not terribly in-depth, this book gets marks for covering a very broad variety of disasters, offering (mostly) practical advice without venturing into fringe survivalist territory, debunking some common myths and misconceptions on the way. (No, drinking urine in the desert isn't an ideal hydration option, nor is a car sufficient insulation from a lightning strike.) The disasters are ranked from relatively minor and likely issues, like floods or getting lost in the wilderness, to less likely, longer-term disasters, such as a downed power grid, major meteor strike, or pandemic, ending with the obligatory "zombie apocalypse" chapter. As I mentioned earlier, what it lacks in depth and detail, it makes up for in overall range, so I gave it the benefit of the doubt.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Survival 101 (Marcus Duke) - My Review
Field Guide to the Apocalypse (Meghann Marco) - My Review
Hatchet (Gary Paulsen) - My Review
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