How do you explain gold fever to those who dont have it?

[Jeff95531]

How do you explain gold fever to those who don't have it?

The short version I give is:
I saw, I liked, I learned, I did, I saw more, I liked it more, I learned more, I did better...Repeat.

To me, it is the passion, the very definition of the pursuit of happiness.

 

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[Gene Slater]

I guess gold fever is a drug.

 

[Steve Herschbach]

It is like that girl (or guy) you get obsessed over and will do any stupid thing for.

 

[Gold Maven]

Hard to explain. The best way is to inflict them with it, and then they will understand.

 

[TerryC]

If someone asks you... just stare off in the distance and mumble something to them about not getting too close as it is highly contagious. Then ask them if they know the grams-to-pennyweight conversion factor. There is no help for us afflicted! TTC

 

[GrizzlyGremlin]

Powerful addiction with no rehab. With a tad of mental illness mixed in.

 

[Goodyguy]

It's a sickness that can't be cured
With a fever that can't be broken

You must find gold or as feared
You'll burst and I'm not joke'n

The only thing that'll fulfill your dreams
and keep you from gettin' old

Is bein out there on rivers and streams
and pannin' some precious Gold

You'll hunt and pan and sluice all year
and when the truth be told

The only cure that you'll hold dear,
is when you hit that motherlode.


GG~

 

[DizzyDigger]

I've been a collector of Robert Service's work for decades, and when people ask about
"why" I go chasing for the elusive yellow metal this is what I ask them to read. The poem not only
describes WHY we go searching for gold, but also allows the city-dwelling urbanite a bit of a window
into the prospectors soul, and who we are as people.

I tell them (as they read) that the last paragraph is who *I* am, and if they can understand what
Service is saying there, they will also understand what has driven me throughout my life. Searching
for not just the gold, but the marrow of life itself!

The Spell of the Yukon
By Robert W. Service

I wanted the gold, and I sought it;
I scrabbled and mucked like a slave.
Was it famine or scurvy—I fought it;
I hurled my youth into a grave.
I wanted the gold, and I got it— 
Came out with a fortune last fall,—
Yet somehow life’s not what I thought it,
And somehow the gold isn’t all.

No! There’s the land. (Have you seen it?)
It’s the cussedest land that I know,
From the big, dizzy mountains that screen it
To the deep, deathlike valleys below.
Some say God was tired when He made it;
Some say it’s a fine land to shun;
Maybe; but there’s some as would trade it
For no land on earth—and I’m one.

You come to get rich (damned good reason);
You feel like an exile at first;
You hate it like hell for a season,
And then you are worse than the worst.
It grips you like some kinds of sinning;
It twists you from foe to a friend;
It seems it’s been since the beginning;
It seems it will be to the end.

I’ve stood in some mighty-mouthed hollow
That’s plumb-full of hush to the brim;
I’ve watched the big, husky sun wallow
In crimson and gold, and grow dim,
Till the moon set the pearly peaks gleaming,
And the stars tumbled out, neck and crop;
And I’ve thought that I surely was dreaming,
With the peace o’ the world piled on top.

The summer—no sweeter was ever;
The sunshiny woods all athrill;
The grayling aleap in the river,
The bighorn asleep on the hill.
The strong life that never knows harness;
The wilds where the caribou call;
The freshness, the freedom, the farness—
O God! how I’m stuck on it all.

The winter! the brightness that blinds you,
The white land locked tight as a drum,
The cold fear that follows and finds you,
The silence that bludgeons you dumb.
The snows that are older than history,
The woods where the weird shadows slant;
The stillness, the moonlight, the mystery,
I’ve bade ’em good-by—but I can’t.

There’s a land where the mountains are nameless,
And the rivers all run God knows where;
There are lives that are erring and aimless,
And deaths that just hang by a hair;
There are hardships that nobody reckons;
There are valleys unpeopled and still;
There’s a land—oh, it beckons and beckons,
And I want to go back—and I will.

They’re making my money diminish;
I’m sick of the taste of champagne.
Thank God! when I’m skinned to a finish
I’ll pike to the Yukon again.
I’ll fight—and you bet it’s no sham-fight;
It’s hell!—but I’ve been there before;
And it’s better than this by a damsite—
So me for the Yukon once more.

There’s gold, and it’s haunting and haunting;
It’s luring me on as of old;
Yet it isn’t the gold that I’m wanting
So much as just finding the gold.
It’s the great, big, broad land ’way up yonder,
It’s the forests where silence has lease;
It’s the beauty that thrills me with wonder,
It’s the stillness that fills me with peace.​

 

[NeoTokyo]

Whelp, I would say that if you see gold every time you blink or go to sleep then you might have the sickness. :P

 

[calnatv]

I explain it by telling them its "REAL"

 

[Hoser John]

A sweet hot burning desire to be totally engulfed in a testerone adreneline filled adventure complete with danger,excitement,need ,want and desire and by god gimme them sweet buttery yellow golden globs of oro puro. Truck loaded and ready to go already again today,addiction works too-John

 

[Joel1316]

When spending $500 in gear to find $10 in gold makes perfect sense : )

 

[Jeff95531]

LOL Joel1316

 

[Fullpan]

When you can wrap your mind around the fact that Mother Nature will give you "brand new money", no strings attached, no payroll deductions, no Social
Security deductions, no time cards to punch, no set "break-time" to follow, not having to tolerate work-place idiots, not having to endure the morning and 5:00pm commute, its easy to see the addiction creeping in, and easy to ignore the fact you always
seem to be spending more than you recover. It becomes a poor man's attempt at entrepenureship. And the gold is always pretty
no matter what the size is!

 

[elkie13]

A friend once asked me what I would do if I found a huge nugget or something. I said I'd upgrade my equiptment so I could find more gold. Seeing that my friend clearly thought that I was nuts, I took them out and showed them how to find gold. My friend now carries a pan in thier trunk. GoldMaven may be right about this one, best to just infect them as well.

 

[Terry Soloman]

Which picture gets you more excited?

 

[Goodyguy]

The one on the right gets me more excited but I cant take my eyes off the ones on the left for very long.
If I could pick one to take home and keep, it would be the gold for sure.

GG~

 

[TeamNugget]

When spending $500 in gear to find $10 in gold makes perfect sense : )

Thats not that bad, I found $10 in gold and spent $1500 on equipment and haven't found anything since. DOH

 

[DizzyDigger]

Which picture gets you more excited?

The one on the left, without question.

The one on the left is a beautiful thing, and you can hold it all you want,
sleep with it and take it with you anywhere. Not once will it ever complain,
or have even the slightest desire to go clothes shopping. When you are finished
enjoying the pic on the left, if you sell it (and if your crazy) you can still get everything
in the pic on the right....at least for awhile.

Much better solution for me would be to sell the nugget and then go buy a new pickup. It
would most definitely be a lot more fun, and much less expense/trouble than the gals on the right.
Life experience has taught that, no how beautiful/hot etc. a gal seems to be, there is some
poor bloke somewhere that is absolutely sick of putting up with her crap.

 

[Sample Pan Dan]

Lol Dizzy, very very true. And thanks for the Service poem, it speaks to the soul.