Sir Richard Francis Burton

When I turned twenty-eight, I thought myself old. I’m sure everyone thinks this on their birthday. Your older friends laugh and call you young and your younger friends confirm that you are, indeed, old. Outside of that artificial day, I was well aware of the trend already. When I go to a party or a bar or stay in a hostel, I am sometimes the oldest one there. Friends of mine are engaged, married or have children. My muscles ache more and I cannot recover from alcohol as quickly. Perhaps most importantly, it is quite apparent that twenty-eight is nearly thirty and thirty is a very adult age.

So, I sit here today unmarried and unemployed feeling old yet I am required to restart my life anew. Rebooting, again. At twelve, I moved to Maryland. At eighteen, I went to college. At twenty-two, I went to Asia. At twenty-four, I came to DC for graduate school. At twenty-six, I began working for the government. At twenty-eight, I am forced to change again.

Being lost is something that is expected in a boy, but a man is supposed to be determined and directed. Isn’t he?

There was an Englishman named Burton who was expelled from university at twenty-one years of age. He joined the military and at thirty-two years of age decided to sneak into Medina and Mecca. Avoiding certain death if caught, he learned perfect Arabic, got circumcised and made the trip in disguise. At thirty-five he worked for the Royal Geographical Society, went to Africa and eventually found the source of Nile. At forty, he joined the British Foreign Service and went to Equatorial Guinea. At forty-two he founded the Anthropological Society of London. At sixty-five, he was knighted and died at sixty-nine. He also spent his time writing and translating and famously translated “A Thousand and One Arabian Nights” and the “Kama Sutra.” He wrote about travels to India, Africa, Brazil and even Utah.

Lord Derby, some British parliamentarian, said of Burton, “Before middle age, he compressed into his life more of study, more of hardship, and more of successful enterprise and adventurer, than would have sufficed to fill up the existence of half a dozen ordinary men.”

Burton’s adventures are certainly impressive, but his motivation is the thing that is surprising. He could have stopped after a single adventure. His fame and wealth would have been sufficient. He could have specialized as well. Instead, he went everywhere and tried to experience everything.

At no point did Burton give into his sloth or his age. If he can take on stuffy British academics, odd foreign lands and religious zealots, perhaps I can deal with the Man in DC.