Jordan Kivitz

“After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, and so on – have found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear – what remains? Nature remains. And your very flesh shall be a great poem.”
- Walt Whitman

Where I consider home: Anywhere there is love and truth.
Why it matters for me to be on this expedition: To be alive is not a measure of how long someone has lived or what kind of crazy stunts one has pulled, but how deep a connection one has to knowing thyself through the transformative actions one has taken. For this expedition is like a match on sandpaper, further igniting my understanding of what it means to listen, to communicate, to teach, and to learn. As humans, we have the potential to create so much beauty, but we mask this while hiding behind the fear created by our own thoughts. It is trust that transcends fear, trusting that we are capable of more than we think. This is something I hope to understand – what am I afraid of and how can I learn to trust myself in the face of these fears, thus achieving my highest potential?
Influential book or movie: On my bookshelf there are many authors who have each done their part of furthering my comprehension in an array of subjects. However, it is probably the book I least understand that has changed my life the most; the title is, Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman. It sat on the shelf for many years always peering at me like a group of small children seeing through my eyes and into my soul with unwavering acceptance. Eventually picking it up and flipping the pages, I noticed it was a “Song of myself.”
If I could change one thing in the world it would be: That everyone, as we grow up, can remember what its like to be child. And within this memory, understand that there are other things in life just as important as putting food on the table, and having a safe place to sleep; things like jumping into a puddle with good shoes on, riding a bicycle for the adventure, rolling in the dirt and getting muddy, playing in a tree, and eating dinner with our hands and no napkins. A great teacher once said, “Don’t take life too seriously, you’ll never get out alive.”

To read about Jordan’s experiences on the expedition, click here.