This wasn't written with the seasoned explorer in mind but I think some could relate. It's a long post but to convince you I'm not trying to get views on my blog I'm going to post the text instead of a link. Hope this resonates with some people.

Some people are at a loss as to why someone would want to risk their safety and legal record to explore abandoned buildings. Beyond “it’s fun”, the answer isn’t simple.

Recently when I was exploring an abandoned psychiatric hospital I was reminded of one of my favorite Ray Bradbury short stories called “Night Meeting”. In this story an old man looking for a more fulfilling life on Mars encounters a Martian while driving home. Most of the native Martians had long since died off, leaving only a few to roam the human populated red planet. After exchanging greetings, the old man and the Martian realize that they both appear as phantoms to each other. The old man offers the Martian a cup of coffee but it falls through his ghostly hand. They’re baffled by this realization, arguing that they themselves are most definitely alive and real. The old man explains that he landed on Mars over a year ago with a large number of other humans and that they found thousands of dead Martians strewn throughout the ruins of their ancient cities. The Martian assures the old man that they are alive and their cities thriving.

You are a figment of the Past!”

“No, you are from the Past,” said the Earth Man, having had time to think of it now.

“You are so certain. How can you prove who is from the Past, who from the Future? What year is it?”

“Two thousand and one!”

“What does that mean to me?” Tomas considered and shrugged. “Nothing.”

“It is as if I told you that it is the year 4462853 S.E.C. It is nothing and more than nothing! Where is the clock to show us how the stars stand?”

“But the ruins prove it! They prove that I am the Future, I am alive, you are dead!”

“Everything in me denies this. My heart beats, my stomach hungers, my mouth thirsts. No, no, not dead, not alive, either of us. More alive than anything else. Caught between is more like it.”

As I maneuvered around shattered vials and soggy insulation, I remembered the old man and the Martian. I was caught between. I was the old man. I saw the decaying building around me, the peeling paint, the dark moldy hallways, the empty rooms. This building once held thousands of patients and hundreds of doctors. They walked these same halls hundreds of times. I traced the doctor’s daily path from the main entrance to his personal office. I could almost see his footprints. I imagined this ghostly doctor emerging from one of the dark rooms and being surprised to find a bundled up teen with a flashlight in his hand and a camera strapped around his neck standing in the middle of the hallway. Both of us, suddenly yanked from our places in time. Something almost impossible to perceive in our normal lives because of its ubiquitous nature. Outside of Ray Bradbury’s world of night-time encounters we experience time like an imperceptible train. Always moving in the same direction and never stopping. Unaware of the wind rushing by outside, or the mountains riding the horizon. I think if we could hear time as it passed it would either be a deafening whoosh or absolute silence. Hopping off the train has become a sort of hobby for me. Or an addiction, I can’t really tell the difference. After exploring my fair share of abandoned buildings, I can confidently tell you what time is like. It smells like must, mold, and asbestos. It looks like peeled pain, shattered light-bulbs, and used fire-extinguishers. It feels like rusty girders, jagged windows, and grimy walls. And it sounds like silence. I would advise not to taste time as I imagine it would either make you sick or kill you, but you don’t have to take my word for it. That is my answer to, “why would you do something so stupid?”. To experience something as elusive as time.

"Because it's there..."

time is... irrelevant.

That's pretty deep. I've been looking for ways to explain why I do this hobby to others: my family, friends, the cops...

One cool thing I've noticed about "experiencing time" is going up condos under construction - the bottom few floors are fully furnished, with nice marble and carpeting and often people living there already. Climb a few dozen storeys to the construction zone, and the carpets go, the paint on the walls go, the locks on the doors turn into holes meant for locks then the doors themselves become frames, then just holes in the wall. Climb still higher, and you lose the walls entirely; the overhead lights turn into exposed bulbs hanging from an extension cord; the elevator morphs into an open shaft and some caution tape, and the railings on the stairs turn into makeshift 2x4s nailed together and then disappear entirely. As you near the top, the entire structure of a recognisable building gives way to exposed steel beams - and then at the top even that gives way to nothing - what was there before construction started. Climbing up highrises under construction is like going back in time through the stages of construction, and is, like yours, a neat, ethereal experience for me.

As deep as the swimming pool in the basement of the Dayton Executive Hotel.

Posted by Harvestman As deep as the swimming pool in the basement of the Dayton Executive Hotel.