Just the FAQs

 

Some frequent questions people ask me about my bicycle trip:

1. Why the heck are you doing this?
"You're brave." = I think you're foolish crazy.

My answer varies depending on what mood I'm in and who I'm talking to. The answers are mostly bullshit, because I can't explain to someone in two sentences to make them understand. You could read this whole blog and still might not get it.



2. How do you not work for six months and have money?
= Aren't you spoiled because your family is loaded?

I let people know that I live cheap as fuck. It costs less money to keep me alive than the American consumer spends on Starbucks in the morning and candy at checkout lines.

But they still want to know where the money I spend is coming from. So then I rob them. Just kidding. My parents were cheap and thought they would get away with not giving me allowance when I was a kid. Now they are paying for it.

A follow up question that people don't ask: Don't you feel ashamed relying on you parents and not taking care of your own future?

No, I don't ask them for money and I don't really want their money. They're giving me this money with the intention of forcing me into a 'normal life', not to help me pursue what I want.

It's not something every parent can afford, it's a lot more than nothing, but it is less than livable income. I challenge you to live on $15 a day. Your housing alone costs twice as much. They want to dictate my life through what they give me, and that's why I don't want it.

If my parents didn't give me money, I wouldn't ask other people for theirs. I'd sell the car. I would starve or use soup kitchens.

I could work as an independent non-profit organization. Perhaps become a more practiced musician. Maybe I'd finally get to teach somebody Calculus in exchange for a sandwich.

This trip would look a LOT different. I probably wouldn't have a bike. I'd run it. Maybe I'd have to wait longer inside cities. I'd have to plan VERY carefully which route to take and look diligently for sources of food.

Maybe I'd still do it. Maybe I'd have visions on my journey or maybe die from dehydration and hunger. Some day I still might.

Do I rely on my parents? If I were relying on my parents, I'd be living in their basement, listening to their worries, going round to employers asking for a job. No, that is not my life and I am not dependent on their care.

But aren't they supporting you financially? I realized it doesn't matter. Whether or not they are giving me the money or I receive it some other way, that's not my purpose.

If I am to have any future, I am to pursue life. Providing for myself to prolong the amount of time I am alive, unlike most people, is not my number one priority. I could care less whether I am alive, but as long as I am - the only point is to use my life for something.

Depression is a sign that I am not fulfilling my needs or potential, and not all the money in the world can fix it. Medication is not a treatment, but a crippling of the mind to submit one into complacency. The only cure to a deficient life is life itself.



3. Do you realize that I'm cool because I see you're bicycling?
I can tell that you're traveling because I know about bicycles because I ride one sometimes.

Some people who come up to me and talk aren't interested in me at all, but just want to show off to me about their experience with bicycles.


Uh... okay.
Wait, tell me again. Why am I supposed to be kissing your ass?

You're bicycling now, but see, at some point in my life I did something marginally resembling the same thing. Which entitles me to tell you about it.

I guess you win!


I picture them as little children in my mind and humor them. Tell me they did something like I don't know how to do it. I poured orange juice. "That's very good. Good job. You're great."

I wouldn't go up to some guy on a paved trail just because he was riding his bike and be like...


Hey, I saw you riding a bicycle. Well, I ride a bicycle too.
I'm going a thousand times farther than you will today. You think about that.

He be like, I got a job and I just bicycle on the weekends with my wife and children...

I be like, um... uh... I have Ulix, kaybai!






Me 'n Ulix



4. Don't you get tired?

Seems like a rhetorical question to ask.

I mean, how am I supposed to answer that? Nope, not human. I am a machine from a post-apocalyptic world that has no bicycles, sent back through time to ride bicycles.

Or I should answer like the Terminator. 'Affirmative.'

A more pertinent question for me would be:

         "Don't you get smelly wearing the same clothes every day?"

To which I should answer,

         "Your clothes. I need them. Now."

         "Take off her clothes too."

         "Now kiss." "MAKE THE SMOOCHING SOUND!"

Some questions rarely asked of me, ones I'd enjoy being asked are:

How are *you*? Are you enjoying your trip?

- Most days, regardless of whatever misfortune befalls me, I feel great. There's at least one moment of every day that I feel proud and alive. And if not, I keep moving ahead, knowing there are moments to come.

What are some memorable experiences that you've had?

• Humping up a giant hill on a hot day in Paradise, CA then downing about six large fountain sodas and needing to pee really bad.
  
  
• Scary nights bicycling outside of town: Frogs and bats and graffiti bridge where I imagine people get murdered; A silent one-legged stray dog running up the road; farmer dogs chasing at my heels.


• Seeing the horizon break free of a tree line, with white clouds spread from cheek to cheek. Feeling the front wheel tipping over the crest of a hill, and knowing I am about to get throttled by wind.


• Opening my mouth as I descend and hearing wind whistle on my lips while I sing.


• Dancing in a supermarket after an eleven hour haul going on empty, because there is so much food around me. Hehe.


• Meeting unconventional people and hearing their stories. Travelers and enthusiasts and homeless and ones just getting by.

Some questions I would ask:

Have you found what you set out looking for?

- Nope. But I'm glad that I looked and know confidently that it's not there. There's no holy grail or magic fix to anything. But we ought to rule out the easiest possibilities. So we can wholeheartedly accept that solutions are difficult and be willing to pursue them.

Are you glad you made this choice? Would you do it again?

- Of course. Good or bad, it's the decision to take.

Not "Why are you doing this?" but "What does this trip mean to you?"

- It means life is bigger than any set of circumstances. Trapped in a life and can't get out? There is no prison of the mind that cannot be escaped.