Saturday 7 May 2016

Book: What Do You Want to Do Before You Die, by The Buried Life

Provoked, I picked up this book from the library shelf on which it stood. The title with the 4 guys in the picture suggested a wild journey, and it was.

They are 2 brothers, a neighbour, and a close friend; each had his own reason for uncomfortable questions in life. Jonnie endured his parents’ surprising divorce and became skeptical in what he held to be true. Dave, reeling from the wild life as a competitive break dancer, felt finally ready to change the joint-a-day and overweight life he had. Faced with adulthood and the tragic drowning of his close friend at the graduation camping trip, Duncan found no solace in his backpacking trips and wanted more. Ben, a competitive rugby player who was invited to play at national level, turned it down and went into depression and felt powerless in his future direction.

They wanted to feel a sense of control, the joy of truly helping others and to connect. So in 2006, they asked themselves – “what do I want to do before I die” – a bucket list was born. It had crazy ideas like “singing the national anthem to a packed stadium”, “opening the 6 o’clock news”, and “be dumped by a stripper for being too slutty”. They found a mossy, ‘77 Dodge Coachman, named it Bedadu, and crossed the country realizing these dreams. To add some purpose, they made it a goal to help someone else realize their bucket list item for every one they cross from their list.

As they gone on, words spread about their journey and they gathered a small following, some suggested newer items to the list (a WWII vet urging them to teach youngsters not to forget the terror of war), some to offer help in any way, others wanted to join in for the ride. This book is a collection of some of the items they’ve managed to cross off from their own list or for others. The items grew more ambitious – they swindled security and crashed an MTV party and played basketball with president Obama. But it’s the more somber moments that remained memorable for me – their visiting the Folsom prison, helping a man raise money to organize a ranch for kids in need. These were cherish reminders for me that what some others yearn to have – a shelter, nurturing from parents, relative health, I only deign to dispense. It puts many things in perspective.

They’ve since gone on to give speeches and interviews at various events, urging others to consider what really matters to them in the face of mortality, and how might one matter to others. The fame also culminated a feature show with MTV. So far, they’ve managed to keep themselves poor while being famous, in the hopes that it’d keep them grounded, not be slave to the advertising deals that might distract from their goal of finding that which is meaningful and ambitious.

The older adult in me wonder what they’d do after this. Would anything less exciting become too mundane for them, even if it’s useful for society? I certainly hope not. But for what it’s worth, their journey provides a thought experiment, a deeper inquiry into whether one’s living “the buried life”. And that’s a valuable lesson.