Motivation is the most important single factor in selection, and high motiva- tion is the chief asset of polar candidate. Good motivation furnishes the mental flexibility necessary to CHEERFULLY meet long periods of boredom, drudgery and sometimes hardship, interspaced with occasional periods of emergency or terror. Why do men go to the ends of the earth? For many reasons.
Desirable are those who go with a specific interest, to be professional ex- plorers, for scientific research, or the adventurous pioneer-mountain climber type who HAS to go "just because it is there." Less desirable because they are early and easily disillusioned are the idealist, the ambitious, and the glory seeker.
The "escape artist" is harder to spot, and he is usually either a good man or almost totally useless on the ice. Some evade family troubles with sweethearts, wives, or in-laws. Some evade responsibility, legal, financial, social, or famil- ial. Some go to get away from a "lousy" duty station.
Least desirable and most difficult to weed out are those with strong subcon- scious suicidal, homosexual, martyr, sadistic, or masochistic complexes to whom a rugged life of isolation sometimes appeals. Disillusion removes all reason for being there, and they become dangerous to themselves and to others.
The "drifter" with nothing else to do at the moment may be pushed or per- suaded into an expedition, and surprisingly often is a good man, for his dearth of anxiety, emotion, and preconceived ideas, and the charms of isolation and beauty of polar regions puts reason in his being.
"Money savers" are of two types, the admirable who save for education or to pay debts, and those who splurge quickly on their return. They behave the same way on the ice.
Probably most happy on the ice is one "escape artist," the rugged individ- ualist who finds modern urban life intolerable with its TV and newspaper bally- hoo of sex, togetherness, world crises, and crime; a frustrating hurry, hurry schedule of clock punching work hours, and frantic recreation stimulated with benzedrine, caffeine, and tobacco, narcotized with tranquilizers, alcohol and barbiturates, flavored with jungle wailings called jazz; and anxious, noisy, noxious bumper to bumper traffic in between. Many men who have never met the Almighty in church, meet him occasionally at the operating or delivery table, but really get to know him at the ends of the earth.
