Insouciant

I felt kinship with Sir Richard Francis Burton and his ilk for too much of my life.  It is not wholly my fault. The images with which I was filled as a child and adolescent by movies and television shows reinforced much of what I saw as correct behavior.  Free spirited individualism.  That's what they told me in elementary school.  What would the world be like, they said, if everybody was alike?  Be adventurous.  Explore.  Oppose despots and tyrants. But there have been few like Burton.  If you do not know of him, you must.  I fell upon this bit today.

These allegations coupled with Burton's often-irascible nature were said to have harmed his career and may explain why he was not promoted further, either in army life or in the diplomatic service. As an obituary described: "... he was ill fitted to run in official harness, and he had a Byronic love of shocking people, of telling tales against himself that had no foundation in fact." Ouida reported that "Men at the FO [Foreign Office] ... used to hint dark horrors about Burton, and certainly justly or unjustly he was disliked, feared and suspected ... not for what he had done, but for what he was believed capable of doing". Whatever the truth of the many allegations made against him, Burton's interests and outspoken nature ensured that he was always a controversial character in his lifetime.

 You know how that worked out for him.  No?  Oh, you must.  You must.