In the first of our People Pillars you were introduced to The Kelli. You'll notice that the actual Kelli was somehow absent from the Ray 100. The next three Pillars should not be. Many would consider The Clark to be the same as saying The Best Friend. I am here to tell you that it is far more complicated and sophisticated than that and that oftentimes this is not the case. I don't think we really know what a best friend is anymore. Just look at this article from the New York Times: found here. For those of you that aren't big link clickers...I shall summarize. Some study by school administrators in St. Louis has led to them recommending that children not have a best friend. This isn't the dumbest thing that I've ever heard out of St. Louis...but it's close. If you have a friend, then you have a best friend. That is instinctually the way humans work. We are beings that are capable of discerning the difference between things and ranking them. If you haven't yet learned that I like to rank things from the significant number of posts I do that are in list form, then you are either new to this blog or very dumb. I have a best a friend and I'm perfectly capable of telling people exactly where they fit into my life. That being said, I will still help out a friend in need even if they are my 450th best friend. If your run out of gas on a desolate road and you need somebody to bring you a gas can full of unleaded, give me a call. I don't care if we haven't seen each other since junior high. If I can be there, I will be there. 
Much like The Kelli was named after my hair stylist Kelli (who has stated that I may reveal her place of business as Mitchell's Salon for anybody looking for a sweet cut), The Clark is also named after a person. I never knew this person personally, but you may have heard of him. He may have even been mentioned in my History of Bromance post from last month. His name was William Clark and he was known to bro around town with another bro by the name of Meriwether Lewis. You see, Meriwether Lewis was a politician by nature. Which means he was good at connecting with people and probably had a good number of friends. His 19th Century Facebook account would be stacked. And history gives us little indication that William Clark was his best friend. William Clark wasn't there when Lewis died, Lewis wasn't the Best Man at Clark's wedding, and Lewis didn't invite Clark to join his Masonic lodge. But when you look back at them through that rosy lens of history, you see that their most important contributions to America came in each other's company. And let's look at their University. Lewis University is named after Frank J. Lewis, not Meriwether Lewis. Clark University is named after Jonas Gilman Clark, not William Clark. But Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon is named after both of them, to share, because of an epic little road trip that they took back in 1804 called The Lewis and Clark Expedition. 
And that is what the Clark really is. It's a travel buddy...an exploration mate. It's somebody who stimulates your sense of curiosity about new and exciting places and who is willing and able to venture towards them with you*. The first several Pillars of the Lush Life involve securing comforts for yourself. Well, much like Maslow's Hierarchary of Needs, once you achieve the lower rungs....you are then able to reach for the higher fruit. In this case, as we progress with the Pillars of the Lush Life this means stepping out of our comfort zones that we have worked so hard to achieve. In my freshman year at Xavier University I took a Rhetoric class. And for our first paper in this class we had to write about our home towns. For me this meant La Canada, California. I wrote a somewhat scathing review of La Canada, to much the same effect that Ariel of The Little Mermaid would write about the Baltic Sea or Jasmine of Aladdin would write about the Imperial Palace in Agrabah. It wasn't that it was a bad place to grow up. It's just that it's small town appeal inhibited my sense of adventure and need to explore. My life views on my home town can best be summed by two quotes. The first is from Belle in Beauty and the Beast, "There must be more than this provincial life.**" The second comes from Pocahontas in Pocahontas, "Why do all my dreams extend, just beyond the river bend?" If we've learned anything from this paragraph it's that Disney princesses love new and exciting adventures and that I have a little bit of Disney princess in me.
Now that La Canada has pulled me back into it's grasp, I can see that La Canada isn't an awful place. It has it's flaws, but the main problem was me and that my needs in life just didn't mesh with what La Canada could provide. I have always considered myself to be an optimist, but in this class of 24 people I was one of only two who wrote negatively of the town that hosted my upbringing. Yet as I read other people's papers, (we had to read everybody's paper and use them as citations for a later paper on "a sense of place") which talked about their town's quaintness and safety and comfort...I realized that I hated all of those places more than I hated La Canada. I spent my entire life up until I was 18 living in either La Canada or Glendale. And during that time not one of the ten best nights of my life occured in La Canada or Glendale. I had some good times, but it just seemed like the great times always happened when I ventured far from the fold. If I had to pick the five best nights of my life they occurred in Washington D.C., Phoenix, Milwaukee, Los Angeles, and New Orleans. Only one of those is within an hour of anywhere where I have ever lived for an extended period of time. I have my best times when I am out exploring, adventuring, and trying new things. And while I love to go new places and try new things, I like to meet new people. But I also like to have a "constant", to borrow from LOST. I like to have somebody to merge my traveling, adventuring side with my home life. And this is The Clark.
It would also be a misnomer to say that you can only have one of The Clark in your life. The lucky amongst us have multiple people who fill this role. I like to think that I do. Sure I lone wolf travel a lot. I constantly go places with only myself because as we get older it's hard to mesh other people's schedules into our plans. However, four of the aforementioned best nights of my life all featured The Clark. One even features multiple Clarks. Let's examine this one in particular. I am of course referring to the night in wonderful Cedarburg, Wisconsin that I mentioned earlier in The Ray 100. My friends and I would ritually go up to Cedarberg for the holidays. And on the first trip up there I went with Nick Rosati, Andrew Smith, and Erin Swietlik. These three are multiple examples of The Clark. They're adventurous, have an intellectual curiosity, and know how to have a good time. But there are dangers to having multiple The Clarks. That danger lies in you bringing too much of your comfort zone with you. The ease of communicating with people that you know can inhibit your ability to reach out towards new people. This wasn't a problem in this case. I got to meet several new and interesting people on all of my trips to the Great White North. But oversaturating your travel group with The Clarks does carry this inherant danger. 
That's why when you travel you need to look for an ideal person or person(s) to be The Clark. In some ways it's as complicated as finding a mate. The Clark needs to be somebody who shares your interests. However, that needs to be balanced with their ability to make you do things that you wouldn't normally do. They need to be somebody who you know well and have a considerable history with, but they need to be somebody who is still capable of surprising you after all that time. You have to have space to explore and make new experiences and it is The Clark's job to create these new places. The Clark should be a planner, but should be somebody who leaves room for spontanaety and who reacts well when plans fall apart. Oftentimes on adventures you plan for certain occurances and others just happen. For instance, last time I went up to Cedarberg, Wisconsin I planned to gamble at their casinos, drink a lot of beer, and ogle their women. Check, check, and check. What I didn't plan was to serve pancakes dressed as a Milwaukee Brewers bratwurst with a dude that I had just met less than 24 hours earlier who was dressed as a Milwaukee Brewers Italian sausage. But that was the highlight of the trip...though the gambling, beer, and women were all great as well. And that dude now follows my blogs. Things happen on trips that you aren't accounting for, which is what makes trips worth doing. And certain people help facilitate this more than others. So have whoever you want as a best friend, but when you're looking to go exploring: make sure you bring The Clark.
Editor's Notes:
*I was always taught in English and Rhetoric classes that your thesis statement should come in your first paragraph. And here I put it in my 4th paragraph. Suck it, Grammar Jabronis.
**If Belle wants adventure and new experiences that why does she openly state in the same song that she likes reading the same book a half a dozen times? Try new things, girl.
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