New Mexico & Colorado on a Royal Enfield Himalayan Motorbike

Git' Gone

DAY: ZERO.1
MILES: ZERO

I go through phases where I become completely obsessed with some random thing. There have been countless phases and countless obsessions. Mountain biking. Running. The perfect (and lightest) guitar amplifier. The perfect and most compact video gear. Narrowboating. Ultra-light hiking. Motorcycles. YouTube. Lee Hazelwood. Most of these obsessions are pursued with 100% intensity for a time until I suddenly hit a point where my interest wanes to varying degrees or in some cases like mountain biking and running - I’d be doing the thing full tilt every day and then just stop altogether never to return like dropping off a cliff. The obsession about making myself a regret-free deathbed doesn’t seem like it’s going to wane anytime soon.

I spend many of my waking hours (and some sleeping hours) thinking about death. I always have. It has fascinated me since I was a little kid. In my opinion, death is hands down the most interesting and vital topic there is. It’s more important than anything else. It’s really the only subject any of us should be thinking about. “I am going to cease to be.” That is a wild concept! But why is it a wild concept? It’s one of the very few sure things we’re offered. Knowing, and more importantly, remembering that we’re headed toward it until we get there is more valuable than every word of bullshit nonsense that’s ever come out of all the motivational speaker’s mouths put together. Nothing should motivate us more than knowing we’re going to die. I place high value on that knowledge.

Some think that this is a morbid obsession. But it’s not. Thinking about death is a lever. When you pull it, it helps to bring your life into focus. It causes you to take an honest look at how you're spending your time. Because there’s a deadline. A DEAD line. There is a line you’re going to reach and once you finally cross it, you’re not going to be alive any longer. You lose your ability to do what you want. You lose your ability to do anything at all. That is the best call to action we could ever have. Keeping that at the front of your mind is the best way to insure you do and feel and experience as many of the things you want to do and feel and experience as possible. We’re on a timer and if you lose sight of that, you’re going to waste precious moments. 

Now, thinking about this all the time doesn’t necessarily mean that I haven’t wasted infinite precious moments. I have and I will continue to do so. The need to make money is at the top of my list of necessary yet ultimately time-wasting endeavors. Money is a fucking hassle. It could be argued that I’m wasting precious moments writing this right now. Or maybe I enjoy writing enough that I believe it’s a decent way to spend a few precious moments. That’s the thing. Using your life to its potential is subjective. But as Sylvia Plath has pointed out, “potential has a shelf life...” (we’re on a timer.) Getting the most out of the time you have is up to you and it doesn’t mean you have to do grand, amazing things. But whittling as much of the bullshit (whatever that is for you) out of your life to try to carve down through the rotten knotted wood enough to reveal what truly makes you happy, what brings you joy, what makes you feel alive - is a decent pursuit even if you fail at it. It shouldn’t be so difficult to feel alive. That should be the default. But feeling alive isn’t the same as being alive. It’s just not. I want to feel alive and as I age this is becoming more urgent. As time moves faster I’m starting to panic. This is how it’s got to be. You can’t be as worried about getting everything you want to do done when you’re a little kid or even into your twenties and thirties. But the closer you get to the finish line, the more critical the task of doing it all now becomes. It’s like walking on a giant see-saw. You start at one end and it’s all uphill and slow and you can barely see death at all it’s so far away and so high up. But as you shuffle and make your way up the steep incline, suddenly the incline changes from up to down and gravity takes hold in the opposite way, and you try to slow your pace but death is there as large as life and getting larger every second and there’s nothing you can do about it other than finally realize that at some point it’s going to be too late. And that is a valuable realization that can and should be used as a tool.

I’ve expressed this before. I believe strongly that it’s our mission and our responsibility to create things to give ourselves the illusion that life means something. I hope it’s obvious that I don’t believe there is any inherent or actual meaning in life at all. (Life is pointless, be happy.) It’s our task to create meaning where there is none. And the things that bring meaning can be anything at all. It could be family. Could be friends. Could be creating things. Could be having a career you enjoy. In my case at this particular moment, it’s riding a motorcycle by myself out into the wilds of America for a few weeks. 

A motorcycle adventure is in no way meaningful unless it means something to you. And it means something to me. I don’t know why. It’s just one of the many things I’ve been drawn to and have chosen as something to give my life the illusion of meaning. It’s something I look forward to. It’s something I would regret not doing - and regretting not doing something is the worst flavor of regret there is. It’s the malted tuna fish milkshake of regrets.

So in a few days, I’m grabbing my tent and sleeping bag and the bare minimum necessities and I’m headed West with a Royal Enfield Himalayan motorbike. I’m hoping for a bit of rejuvenating scenery, a little mayhem, a dash of chaos, a tiny smidgen of danger (very tiny), and the chance to be alone in a way you can only be alone when you’re in the middle of a desert or on a mountaintop or cruising through the deep woods on a rough dirt road with no other living human being close enough to interrupt for long enough to go a bit mad. Because that’s when I can think thoughts that I can’t think any other way. And if I don’t think those thoughts now and then - I don’t feel alive and death looms larger than usual. Death is a certainty but its looming should inspire action, not fear.

A motorbike gets you from point A to point B (when you’re lucky). But internally, it gives you the chance to bounce around from point A to point W to point G to point X to point 5.72 to point ^@# to points you can’t know exist until you’re thinking them. I want to light a tiny bottle rocket inside my head and let it ricochet randomly against the inside of my skull wherever it wants for as long as it wants. I want it to wake me up and do some soothing damage and leave my head filled with a lingering thick smoke that I can still smell when I’m back at the desk doing things that I would never do if I didn’t need money.

That’s what I’m after. And I think it’s due West of here…