When I was 12, I had the opportunity to visit the United States, where my father was building a scientific submarine. The aerospace company he was working for also built the lunar module for the Apollo space programme and I met the astronauts who had been to the moon.
I was struck by how much of what they did was actually controlled by computers and experts on the ground. Although they were highly trained, they acted to some extent like human robots. I later learned that some of them eventually suffered from depression and alcoholism and this made me ask questions.
Would all adventure henceforth be managed by computers, with nothing left to human initiative and the human spirit? Then I began noticing the hang-gliders hovering over our Swiss mountains. It was all so very simple. There was no engine, no speedometer or altitude meter. Everything depended on the instincts and reactions of the pilot and the vibrating of the cables - and he or she could fly like an eagle!
When I first experienced the thrill of hang-gliding, I discovered something that I had not learned at school. It was the stimulus and heightened awareness of coping with the present moment. School wanted to prepare me for the future by teaching me about the past. Hang-gliding and other adventure sports-parachuting, surfing, skateboarding etc - set you back on yourself. In split seconds you are forced to adapt and to do what you have to do.
This is an ideal preparation for life. Scientific studies show that only ten per cent of what happens to us is what we can see and prepare for. The other 90 per cent is chance and the unexpected. So to know how to train your inner resources to react and respond to their fullest in the present moment is vital.
I have used these experiences in my psychiatry - helping people to be fully connected with and to themselves. I have used acrobatic hang-glider flights to explore the short vital moments when we have to encounter the unexpected. Of course you do not have to go hang-gliding to connect properly to yourself and to find heightened consciousness, but that is the way I myself discovered its importance.
Then I made another discovery. I was invited to co-pilot a balloon in a race across the Atlantic. At first it seemed the opposite of hang-gliding - no wind in your face, no turbulence, but rather seeking out the wind currents and accepting to go at their speed. We won the race. It basically meant accepting to be pushed by the wind.
Next came the challenge of attempts to balloon around the world. Our first flight in Breitling Orbiter took five years to prepare and ended early and abruptly in the Mediterranean after we discovered a leak in the kerosene tank. We accepted this as a challenge, made improvements and lifted off for a second time from Chateau d'Oex in January 1998 for what turned out to be (and still is) the longest manned balloon flight ever made. We eventually came down in Burma, having been refused permission to fly over China.
Why can't we live our lives as an adventure? We long to abolish the unknown and live only with certainties, but our certainties can soon turn to prejudice and intolerance. The unknown is always only just around the corner and there is no escaping what it may contain - bereavement, illness, unemployment. There is no choice for us but to go with these wind currents. What we can do is to ride them and use them with our inner capacities fully sharpened and developed.
As we go into the new century we need to be ready to go with the winds of trust, conscience and intuition. If we are open to the unexpected and are alert and adaptable, life will become a wonderful journey.
Dr Bertrand Piccard, now preparing for his third attempt to fly around the world in a balloon, is a psychiatrist in Lausanne, Switzerland. The above is taken from an illustrated lecture he gave at Caux in August.
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