WHEN TENZIN GYATSO, the 14th Dalai Lama, was asked to comment on the forthcoming anniversary of the conquest of Everest, he recalled the famous words of the mountain’s most famous victim. “Because it’s there” — George Mallory’s reason for embracing the challenge that would kill him — has become a stock answer for anyone unable, or unwilling, to search for deeper truths about their motivation to pursue strange and dangerous dreams. The Dalai Lama spoke for the rest of the world — that fortunate, content majority — when he said: “For most Tibetans, ‘Because it’s there’ was a very good reason for not making the attempt.”

When I heard that the solo rower Andrew Halsey was struggling against contrary winds and tides in his second bid to cross the Pacific ocean, I suffered a terrible moment of déjà vu. My colleagues smiled at the idea of this eccentric splashing around in a small boat in huge seas, risking his life, his slender funds and the happiness of his family — in pursuit of what?

Not money, for sure. Nobody ever got rich rowing an ocean; it’s not sexy, like yachting, with its multimillion-pound vessels and marketable, media-friendly stars. And there’s no chance of Andrew scoring a first: his fellow Briton Peter Bird ticked off the USA to Australia passage, a journey of 294 days, in 1983.

So altogether pointless, then. After a call from a concerned Kenneth Crutchlow at the Ocean Rowing Society, worried because Andrew had told him he intended to succeed this time or perish in the attempt, I sat down in front of my computer screen. I saw not the ordered world of Microsoft but the seascape threatening hourly to engulf a small boat; a boat held true to its course by a man driven by demons.

In 2001 I set off with a friend to row across the Atlantic in a race organised by Chay Blyth, the man who, with his fellow para John Ridgway, set the modern trend for tackling oceans by oar power alone when they rowed from America to Ireland in 1966.

My partner left the boat after ten days and I plugged on alone. In all I spent 48 days and 1,100 miles at sea before succumbing to physical and mental pressures I had never experienced before and accepting a lift from a passing yacht.My 24ft boat — the boat I had spent months and a small fortune building myself — was declared a hazard to shipping and burnt before my eyes. It was, I told myself and anybody else who would listen, the right decision at the time.

I regretted it within hours and, until I have undone the deed, I will regret it daily for the rest of my life. The determination to finish the job now informs almost every aspect of my life — the decision to undergo serious back surgery, without which I would have stood no chance of rowing so far again; what I eat, how much I drink, how often I run, swim and row; what restaurants I won’t visit because of the smoking. My girlfriend despairs and so I try not to talk about it too much, but she hears the constant drumbeat.

And so I can taste Andrew’s anguish at the prospect of failing for a second time. I understand what he means when he says do or die. This is no crusade; no great quest for riches, or cures or peace. It is a shallow, selfish and, I believe, ultimately destructive collision of id and ego, and most people fail to understand it.

Quite why such a force grips some individuals and spares others is, to side with Mallory, beside the point. We all have demons and we all choose to prove ourselves — or, rather, to authenticate our self perceptions — in different ways. Some pursue academic or artistic excellence, others wealth. Some seek primitive physical dominance over others, in sport or bullying, others tattoo their personality on their arms.

I believe it is no coincidence that a large number of those taking to the sea in small boats are middle-aged. As a young reporter on the Milton Keynes Gazette, I sat puzzled through many inquests as the kindly coroner, Dr Rodney Corner, tried to ease the grief of wives and families suddenly abandoned by seemingly happy and successful husbands. Men for whom violent collision with a train or a lonely death in a fume-filled car, parked in a layby on the way home from work, held more allure than the rest of their lives.

What was missing in their lives? What is missing in modern life that drives so many to pursue such fate-tempting and, to all intents, pointless ambition?

My grandfather, like so many of his generation, would not have understood the compulsion to bungee jump. He’d have steered clear of white-water rafting as daft. But then, at 15 he had the Somme to test his mettle. My only battle is for a seat on the 7.04 to Liverpool Street.

Perhaps it does come down to this, an atavistic urge to keep faith with the past, with people for whom adventure was not a diversion but survival, or a matter of faith. We might grow taller and smarter, live longer and enjoy better health and more comfort, but perhaps we also fear that, in so doing, we are somehow losing touch with the essential self. Could we spend two years or more crusading with the Lionheart? Could we take the mental strain of sailing towards what could quite possibly be the edge of the world?