Note: This post took two days to write. Originally I finished it in about 1.5 hours as started below, but then it deleted most of itself and it's drafts when I tried to upload it, so I rewrote everything but the intro the next morning at a wild-fire smoked filled rest area just north of the Idaho border. I was very proud of my original post, maybe that's why I had to lose it. Hopefully this rewrite does it justice.
I'm in sitting outside a gas station in a tiny town off I84, right on the border of Utah and Idaho. I've been driving for about 10 hours, and probably have 10 left before eventually reaching Eugene, but that will be after some sleep since it's already 10pm.
So obviously I decided to not continue the Divide this summer after RAGBRAI, and instead will finish it next summer after RAGBRAI. I'm going to go into pretty good detail why here, mainly because this blog helps me understand myself, and I will feel better after writing this all down. Read if you'd like, if not, just know that it was a difficult decision, that I'm feeling fine physically, but the timing wasn't right. Skip to the end if you want just the philosophy I've been thinking about.
If you've been reading this blog for awhile you know that I started wresting with this decision awhile ago when I was having issues with hand pain and the Divide being different from what I am hoping it would be. However, that was a passing issue, and I pushed through that. It was just a phase I needed to go through to get to a different mental state. Sometimes it's hard to recognize those transitional phases in the moment, but in retrospect it was obvious.
One secret to life, I think, is learning when to recognize when issues are transition like that, or actually a big deal that you should respond to. It's learning to recognize when you just need to climb over some rocks in your valley of life, or need a course correction to a different side of the valley, or if you'd hit the actual wall. (That metaphor will be explained more later on).
There are a many benefits that come from making either decision, but they aren't big enough benefits to rise to the level of reasons for either decision, and for the most part I knew about them before I left anyway. These are different from reasons. There really are only two reason supporting either decision, but I'll list the benefits first for clarity.
Benefits of coming home now and finishing the Divide next summer:
- I get to have more variety in my summer, and do fun things with friends and have Eugene adventures. Variety is good.
- I can get a lot of stuff done before school starts up again, like build a dog trailer and try and get juggling club going again, etc. Also, I can go to a dentist, which would be nice.
- This is almost a reason, but not quite: I got injured on RAGBRAI and had to get stitches in my right elbow and bruised my left ankle pretty good. Riding over road seams really hurts, so riding on the rough divide road would be hell for about 3-5 days. However, I could probably push through that and even maybe enter a new mental state... or it could just suck... but I wouldn't have quit on this alone without at least trying.
- I can get a fatter front tire on my bike for the rest of the ride, and Mark might even join.
Benefits of finishing the ride now:
- I'm in really really good shape. I've done 2,000 miles of hard riding, most of which were loaded loaded and at altitude. I am healthy and feeling great. There is no way to be this trained up again for when I finish the ride next summer, because you only get this fit when touring.
- There are currently no fires or smoke issues.
- Logistically it's easier and cheaper.
- It's way more bad-ass.
- I'm not getting any younger, and this is a hard ride.
- I may be able to catch some of my new friends who are now ahead of me again, because I ride faster than they do.
All of the above are good arguments and benefits for either side, but not deciding reasons, so let's get to the meat of this:
The reason I'm coming home now and finishing the Divide next summer:
I used to think of life as a wide plain that you could go anywhere on, as long as you were willing to do the work and accept the consequences. Then my marriage imploded, I had a mental breakdown, I dwelled on suicide for a few months, went to lots of therapy, almost got killed when I was hit by a car, and emerged with a different world view: Life is a wide valley. You can steer to either side of the wide valley, but you can't leave it. Some things just aren't possible.
For example, I couldn't have not got divorced. Nothing I could have done would have stopped that. A future with my ex was not in my valley. Which is not to say that I regret it either, both our lives are better now and we are in better relationships. I think I could have steered to a better part of the valley in the years leading up to the divorce, but the divorce was inevitable and ended up being good in the long run.
Right now Andrea and I are in the the beginning stages of a wonderful, loving, strong relationship that we both hope will last a long time. We have worked very hard to build up the foundations and things are going well, but it's still a young relationship in many ways. Our relationship is in a stage where it still benefits from a lot of nurturing, and being gone for two months risks starving and damaging it.
We aren't having any problems right now (don't worry), but it has become clear to me while on this trip that two months away could be detrimental to what we are trying to build. We both have a lot of damage from our old relationships that we haven't fully healed from yet, and being gone this long this soon is mucking with that healing process and what we are trying to build.
There is no way for me to finish this ride and not risk what we are building - that option is outside the valley of my life. I only have the option to steer towards our relationship, or steer towards finishing this bike tour. I can't escape that choice.
And, with that realization, I choose US. It's an obvious and easy choice once you accept that you've hit a wall in your valley and you can't have both. US, Andrea and Me, continuing to build a strong relationship, is completely the right choice.
Next summer it should be a lot easier on both of us for me to be gone, but right now it's just too soon. I'm grateful to have been able to realize that. It's been hard to realize because it's not for sure something that could cause damage, but I believe the risk is high enough that the risk/reward no-longer comes out in favor of staying away.
Well that seems cut and dry, doesn't it? So why is this still a hard?
Reason for finishing the Divide this summer:
It's hard because I'm not done yet. I'm not done exploring, adventuring, and experiencing. I'm not done thinking thoughts that take more than a minute, day, week, or month to think. I'm not done having a conversations with the heat, wind, and hills. I'm not done learning from the world. I still feel like I'm on the edge of discovering... something... My soul wants to keep going. It *feels* right to continue.
But, logically, it's not the right choice. Luckily, for me, logical always eventually wins out over feelings, so I will find peace in this reality (and in fact, rewriting this the next morning, I'm more at peace with it when I wrote it last night.) In a way, I'm grieving the loss of the reality that I thought I was in. We both thought that this would be easier for us both, and both have realized that it's too risky, and now that my world view has shifted I'm grieving the old, errored world view.
I'm also hopelessly addicted to adventure. I don't want to go to sleep in the same town every night yet. There is so much more to see and experience, but I can have other types of adventure in Eugene.
And so this brings me to what is perhaps the most important part of this journey for me: The learning. What have I discovered so far on this journey, and now that I am finishing, can I continue this part of my journey even if I'm at home?
The Philosophy
It's scary that after a night's sleep, this part of my post is already harder to write. I'm already losing my connection to where I was, which is why I wrote it out last night. But, that's the challenge, I suppose.
Some things can't be taught. In fact, one could say that understanding can never be taught, and a good teacher can lead a student towards understanding, but the revelation comes from within the student. The more complicated the subject, the harder it is to lead someone down a path towards understanding. When your subject is enlightement, a human teacher probably can't lead you. You have to open yourself up to the world as a teacher, but first you must learn to listen to it. (Yes, I know that sounds pretentious, but I don't have better words to use.)
What I have learned bike touring couldn't have been taught to me, and I can't teach it to you. I can't even put it into words here that make sense, because it's a feeling and awareness. What I can do is talk about the path I'm on, and maybe it will help you on yours. I certainly have been helped by different books, etc (more on that later).
Back in Steamboat Springs when saying goodbye to Casey, I wrote that I felt like I was on the verge of discovering "something," but I wasn't sure what it was. I think it had to do with what I'm going to write about next, and that discovery is still on the tip of my mind. I hope to catch it someday.
For years I've said that bike touring slows down time. I've said "Days feel like weeks, weeks feel like months, months feel like years. You have more experiences in a day than you have in a week of your normal life. Time slows down and you live. You really live.'"
I've always attributed that slowing down of time to all the novel experiences you have on a trip, but I realized on this trip that it's more than that. It's also due to a lack of distraction which opens up your mind to perception, as well as the mediation I get from riding.
I wrote a few weeks ago about all the non-verbal communication I've been having with the hills, gravel, wind, sun, etc. Long distance biking assisted mediation have really open up my perception, and it facilitate having thoughts that take a long time to have. I don't ride with music or any other distractions, and in these moments I am present and aware, I'm living in the now, and open to what the world is telling me, rather than distracted and numb.
(Side note, I'm a scientist. I know that having nonverbal, feeling-based discussions with a hills as you climb them sounds silly on it's face, but I don't have the words to describe what it really is, so please accept that much of what I'm saying is metaphor.)
I realized on this trip the first two steps to LIVING life rather than just going through the motions (and one day I hope to discover more steps.)
Step 1 is finding your bike touring. Find what helps you slow down time, and awaken to the world. Find a way to think thoughts that take longer than a day, week, or month to think.
Step 2 is finding a way to continue that slow-down of time even when not bike touring. I realized this should be my goal during a conversation at Brush Mountain Lodge with other travelers, who all are out here to have similar revelations. This mental state shouldn't just be something I visit every now and then, I need to find a way to make it always. I didn't really think it was possible before, and maybe it's not, but I plan on trying.
The world is so distracting. Facebook, Netflix, news, work, day to day life, etc. With a distracting, addicing phone in your pocket it's hard to think a thought that takes longer than even a second, much less a minute or a week or a month. This lack of deep thinking causes feelings of emptiness, hopelessness, anxiety, and numbness. It traps us in a cycle of reaction, pain, and panic. We feel out of control because we are blindly stumbling through life with our eyes closed and our soul asleep.
Without long, deep thinking we all get stuck up our own asses, lose our perspective, and get trapped in shallow cycles.
If you think deeply and listen to the world, you live in the world, but if you distract your life away numb your brain, you live in your own ass. Most of society is living in their own asses right now, and that's why they act like they are surrounded by shit.
I've read three very influential books lately "Sapiens" is a history of humans on earth, and I read it before I left. It talks about the cognitive, agricultural, and scientific revolutions, as well as pretty much the entire meta history of society. On the trip I re-read The Alchemist, which can be pretty over-the-top, but is a good philosophical tool and provides some useful vocabulary for having these discussions. Right now I'm reading Siddhartha, the story of a young man in India searching for enlightenment in the time of the Budda. I recommended all three.
I came across this passage in Siddhartha after I had the thoughts that I had above:
"Gradually, like humidity entering the dying stem of a tree, filling is slowly and making it rot, the world and sloth had entered Siddhartha's soul. It gradually filled his soul, made it heavy and tired, and put it to sleep."
I feel like, for now, my (metaphorical) soul is awake. I feel like I was able to take a big step back out to the edge of the cycle of the world and see it for what it is. I feel like most of the people I see are trapped in different cycles. I'm right on the edge of the world, and fear being pulled back in. I don't want to go back up my own ass.
So now, my goal, for life, is to find a way to live life with the awareness that bike touring has taught me is possible, even when not touring. To find a way to keep the frivolity and media of the world from putting my soul to sleep. To find a way to stay awake and continue conversing with the world.
It will be difficult. Just spending 12 hours driving in a car (cars remove you from the world in extreme ways) has already numbed my soul a bit, and I enjoy things like Netflix and want to find balance with it. I also don't want to check out of creating positive change in the world, however I see that the way that many of us are trying to create that change is just feeding the same toxic cycles and destroying ourselves.
(Positive change doesn't come from Facebook, friends, and memes are toxins. Memes are 1/2 second thoughts that replace your own thoughts and poison your mind and sedate it. Memes are butt plugs that trap you in your own ass.)
Rewriting this post, I already am having more trouble putting this into words than I did last night. I'm also not a "sit down and meditate" kind of guy, but I can try to minimize distraction. I can try to cultivate boredom. I can try to continue thinking.
And so that is what I will do now. I am going home to nurture a wonderful union. While there I will also try to continue having a conversation with the world, and when I come back here in a year the world and I hopefully won't greet each other as friends who've been apart for a year, but rather as buddies who have been traveling together and hanging out all winter.
When I return I will hopefully be in in the midst of thinking a thought that takes longer than a year to think. What a wonderful adventure that will be!
I'll see you all then.
