Tag: vague direction

Categories
Philosophy

Burnout: How To Cure It (With Lessons From Pjorn)

In my experience the stages of burnout go like this:

  1. Oh yes! I’m so excited to be starting this. Think of the possibilities!
  2. Hmmm. It’s not gaining as much traction as first hoped. But hey, life’s alright.
  3. Are these doubts going to subside? Ah forget that, let’s keep cracking on.
  4. We’re struggling, something just fell through, and I just spent all day mentally elsewhere (trying to think of every character from Sesame Street). 
  5. Shall we go to the pub for a beer and talk turnaround strategy?
  6. These blankets are so warm. I’m not getting out of bed. No. Stop it. Get up!
  7. Sorry guys I’m done. Too much stress. Can’t do this anymore.

True burnout has happened to me once. There were three of us building a company. Looking back now, it’s easy to see that by the end of it, none of us were content with what we were doing and were all on a track for the dreaded B. It was just a matter of who reached stage 7 first. 

This is not about doom and gloom though, quite the opposite. Occasionally burnout is well-needed, as there’s a few positives that happen as a result which are hard to see at the time. One positive is that taking action after becoming burnt out might lead us to seek experiences that are truly exciting and personally profound, and those experiences might lead to new things. For example, a good pal has been slowly making his way around the Pacific for over a year, working on farms, and teaching and volunteering on boats, and as a side-effect of that experience he’s now found permaculture as something that fires him up. It takes getting drained to learn about ourselves and our values sometimes.

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Another benefit of burnout is, as we now know what the signals are, they should be easier to spot and resolve in the future. Because whilst there’s a time for embracing it, there’s also a time for trying to stop it happening. 

These are the signals (IMO) that show we’re at risk of burning out:

  • If we only spend time working or sleeping, it’s bad news.
  • If we wake up and aren’t stoked more than three days in a row, it’s bad news.
  • If we convince ourselves that what we do is the be-all and end-all, it’s bad news.
  • If we struggle to generate new ideas, it’s bad news.
  • If we need a break two days after getting back from a break, it’s bad news. 
  • If we agree with stuff that we shouldn’t agree with just because we’re too drained, it’s bad news. 
  • If we start to become jaded, cynical and pessimistic, it’s bad news.

Hopefully you don’t have too many of those symptoms, but if you do, spotting them early offers the best chance of exterminating them. But how? What is the metaphorical burnout fire extinguisher? HERE is the (non-medical, ahem) CURE to burnout in one word: Fun. Play. Enjoyment. Oops that was three words.

The best thing to do to stop burnout is to take time to have fun and come back with a fresh mind and a new outlook. “Adults are just obsolete children”, said Dr. Seuss. Good one doc. See, now this post is medically proven. We can’t gain perspective when we’re ‘in it’ so the best way is to step back and play and enjoy doing something that’s completely unrelated to whatever is causing anxiety. Take a train to Hypothetiville without a phone. Strum on your ukulele. Do something that makes you laugh. Do one of those things where when you’re doing it you aren’t thinking about anything else and reach a flow-state. For Obama, putting balls on the golf course is a way of relaxing and gaining perspective. 

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Without realising it, sometimes everything can become very “serious”. A bubble of importance is created around what we do. That seems silly if we consider the benefits of “the non-serious”. Light-heartedness and fun don’t need to be justified, but we can justify them if we want as they have these side-effects: increased creativity, optimism, happiness, fascination, contentment. And those things lead to more focus and better work. So all in all smiles and fun and laughing are pretty vital. 

There’s a guy called Bjorn from Sweden, he was in a documentary that was on the other day. You probably know him but I’ll leave it as a riddle to see if you can work it out. When he was starting out, he’d go off to a cabin in the woods and write songs with the goal of becoming a pro musician. His songs became hits quickly and because of that he was able to keep going to the cabin in the woods and keep writing cheesy love songs and keep having fun doing it. Bjorn’s initial efforts paid off rapidly, which isn’t the case for most people. He was obviously skilled and had dedication, but that’s the case for lots of people. Luck played a part. 

The thing about luck is that most of the time people don’t get lucky the first time around. That’s just how probability works. Other than rare exceptions, the only way to get lucky is to stay in the game long enough so the odds of probability increase. (n.b. this is not a good approach for gambling addicts).

So because first-time luck is rare, there’s probably a single Bjorn to a thousand Pjorn’s. Who’s Pjorn? I’ve got no idea. Pjorn is just a guy chasing a dream of a creative career, building something from scratch and trying to carve a path in the world. Only at some point he will probably come face-to-face with the dreaded burnout, and he might quit and stop having fun. There’s a lot of BS out there that would now say that perhaps if Pjorn had just kept going just a little bit, he would’ve made it happen. But that might not be true. No-one other than Pjorn has a valid opinion. Pjorn is the best judge of when to give up and move on. Quitting when you become burned out is totally fine if it’s the right thing to do. Pjorn knows more than anyone when enough is enough.

The thing that Pjorn should remember – regardless of whether he’s burnt out and quits, or tries to extinguish his burnout before it becomes an issue by having fun every day – is that stuff takes time. That doesn’t mean he has to stick to doing the exact same thing for years and years if it becomes a drag. It just means he needs be flexible and willingly sign up to the long haul and trust that things take time. For people like Pjorn, the long haul is the only approach that comes with decent odds. It takes time to increase experience and skill, but probably more importantly it takes time to increase the odds. Whether those are correlated is another matter.

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Burnout doesn’t mean we need to run away entirely, although there can be benefits in doing that. It can be less dramatic, and simply a time to re-assess whether what we’re doing each day is what we really should be doing each day. No-one other than the burnt truly knows what to do.

It took a long time to move on from my burnout. There’s a horrible dark period that happens during and after it which isn’t enjoyable at all unless you actively remember to step back and have fun. But I’m grateful it happened, as whilst we can learn from stuff that’s comfortable, it’s really the uncomfortable that teaches us the lessons we won’t forget. 

I don’t want burnout to happen again any time soon, but sometimes wonder what would happen if it did. What would be the actionable result of going back to that place? Would it be an escape? Perhaps it would be a big walk with a rucksack full of ramen. It’s impossible to say. But for now, being settled, having fun, looking out for symptoms of burnout and trying to kill them, and being content in the knowledge that things take time is quite OK.

Maybe that’s growth. Maybe that’s the conclusion Pjorn reached too.

Categories
Adventure Interviews

An Interview with Andy Kirkpatrick: The Dark Side To A Life Of Climbing

Andy Kirkpatrick is a climber, an author and a comedian. His draw to suffering in hardcore, vertical and freezing locations, combined with the technical and mental skills to get by in such places, and an ability to tell the story of those experiences in a relatable and funny way, is unique. 

There’s a dark side to big trips that doesn’t seem to get talked about much. Whether that’s climbing, cycling, rowing, walking, pulling a sledge or whatever else. Maybe it’s not even exclusive to outdoor-type things, and is present in anything in which someone spends a long spell doing the same thing. Perhaps the reason for it not getting talked about much is because it’s scary to put too much of our true selves out there for anybody other than ourselves to see. But I guarantee, that if someone is on a solo trip their mind is not always full of metaphorical butterflies and rainbows.

Of course those moments are real too. There’s happy times when rainbows shine and a butterfly lands on your shoulder. However, sustained periods of time spent in your own head can make dark thoughts seep in through the cracks, and the negative mental side can drip and drip like a leaky tap. Self-doubt, selfishness, lack of confidence, uncertainty about why you’re there and whether you’ve made the right life choices up to this point, can become a huge weight – like a bucket that’s been out in the rain overnight. Maybe that’s type 2 fun and is part of the appeal, but it doesn’t make it any less of an issue in the moment.

Andy has a way of talking honestly about the dark side. His books, Psychovertical and Cold Wars, are amazing insights into much more than climbing. They do have vivid descriptions of things like rockfalls and sketchy gear placements being the difference between staying alive or falling to a horrible and gruesome death, but they’re way more than that and talk about (with often brutal truthfulness) life outside climbing – stuff like going through a divorce, cash troubles, being a parent who’s a climber and dealing with the risk vs reward dilemma, etc.

Recently he joined a team last-minute to climb a first ascent in Antarctica, and without much of a break went off to climb Moonlight Buttress in Zion with Alex Jones for BBC Comic Relief. Sounds awesome, right?  We spoke about both sides – positive and negative – to the life of a climber. Hope you dig it.

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What draws you to a life of climbing / trips?

I’m actually more of an indoor person, and probably spend more time not doing stuff than most people. What I like is saving up all my time then having a big blow out of an adventure, and really stretching myself. 

Do you ever struggle with contentment – the grass is always greener dilemma?

I’m never content, and always feel I should be doing something differently to have that ideal life, and that nothing is ever good enough. But then I think that the truly happy people are either too stupid to realise, they aren’t happy, they have low standards of happiness, or their happy life is a sham! 

Can you describe your happiest memory on a trip?

I’ve had so many it would be impossible to pick a single one, but the evening on top of El Cap with Ella [Andy’s daughter] after we topped out was very special, and I did a trip with Karen Darke – kayaking in the Patagonian archipelago – that was very tough, and I remember the last few minutes of the trip trying to make it to a remote beach in a gathering storm. That was one of my happiest memories. The end was in sight and I just felt so in control of the kayak.

And the time you were most scared? 

Again almost too many to mention. I don’t get scared too much in the mountains (I got scared jumping into the sea yesterday though). People often ask me how many times I thought I was going to die, and I replied it’s not when you think you’ll die, but when you know you’re going to die that means something. Trying to solo the Troll Wall a few years ago, I had a car sized flake I was on move a few centimetres before stopping, leaving me just hanging there waiting to die. That was scary.

What’s going on in your head during a ballsy solo?

The level of attention, focus and awareness of everything around you is incredible, very much like a bomb disposal man must feel. When you’re climbing, there is only that. 

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Your post about The Real World – seems like you’ve had a tough time recently. People might look at your trips, Antarctica and Moonlight Buttress a little while back, and think of them as being the stuff of dreams, glossing over the other impacts big trips can have. How do you view the less glamorous side?

I think the more someone seems to be doing the most amazing things, the more their real life is taking the strain. When you are in a normal relationship with someone who has plenty of stability, then going away adds a lot of strain. As long as you don’t take the piss, and you have a solid relationship, then it can work for a while at least. I think there is some kind of understanding, that you can follow your dreams as long as your dreams allow your partner some level of normal security over time. It’s fine if your dream is being a heroin addict but just don’t expect your partner to support you in it. In my last relationship I thought I’d found the perfect match, in that we both liked doing crazy trips, and joked we were like heroin addicts, so it was all fine. The problem is, a heroin addict, no how much they love you, will always put their fix first, so once we began doing our own thing we just applied too much strain on the relationship (if either of us had been ‘normal’ then it would have worked I think).

Which do you get the most from; solo trips or group trips?

I guess I had a long period of soloing, and I suspect that, partly, it was because it was both easier to do things without people, and that I didn’t feel up to climbing with others (I have very low self-esteem but incredibly high self-actuation – a perfect mix for a soloist!).  But in the last two years I’ve climbed with a lot more people, and have found it incredibly rewarding, even if it sometimes means we’ve failed when I think I’d have done it if I was soloing. Stalin used to say ‘No people no problem’, but I’ve come to the conclusion that, although true, it’s the difficulties and differences that give the experience it’s colour and texture. 

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It seems like a majority of people living big-trip careers portray their expeditions with ever-present positivity but gloss over any negative stuff  – whereas in reality there’s probably a lot at play – loneliness, head-games etc. You have a way of putting it all out there – everything from your innermost personal life to the honest mental side of expeditions. 

I have a real problem with being way too honest, which is fine when it comes to me, but not when it comes to others (this has put a lot of strain on relationships with those I’ve mentioned). Most people are very private, and the ones who are public either only want to show their filtered selves (sort of an Instagram version of themselves), or are just too self obsessed and don’t filter anything at all – but can’t express it in a creative way.              

What’s it like writing in such an intimate way? (Speaking of that strain you mention, your posts sometimes reminds me of a climber-version of James Altucher, who admits his pieces can be so personal that he’s lost friends and family over them and people worry he’s going to kill himself)

I think that’s very true, and often what you write is what’s really going on inside you, and what people see at other times is just a mask. There is much I don’t write, and blogging takes a while as well, so many good ideas/experiences just get forgotten. But having the balls to write a tweet about the sadness of removing your partner from your favourites on your phone, is as raw, honest and insightful as anything a hundred times longer.

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Do you think the raw honesty has been a positive or negative, overall? 

It can come across as being ungrateful or winging, when you tweet something like “Las Vegas is a depressing dump” – and people say “I’ll swap and you can go to my 9/5 job”. But then I don’t ask people to visit my site, or pay for what I write – it’s there, take it or leave it. I know that some people do find it uncomfortable to read (one guy said it was like an episode of Grey’s Anatomy), but that’s the beauty of the web, you can just hit the back button.

“Sure there are many things that are right, stuff that people always point out, like lots of amazing climbs and trips, books and shows that mean something to people, but sometimes I feel like the king of experiences sat on a throne of ashes”, does the self-doubt that you talk about stick around for long?

The self-doubt is always there, and I do feel like I wasted much of my life not just getting on with things, neither being present in this world or the other. The bottom line for me remains what I achieve as a father – that’s how I should be judged, and I think I came to understand this just in time.

What’s going on during the hard times of a trip vs that same moment in retrospect?

I’m always aware how lucky I am to be having hard times – in fact maybe that’s why I seem to be able to cope, as I want these tough times on a trip. It’s like when I skied across Greenland in 2006, it was bloody boring for 24 days, and it was only on the last three days, when things got almost impossibly hard (due to the broken ice and rivers) that things got fun. When you are being squeezed the hardest it’s like one of those bath toys you had as a kid – as soon as you let go it sucks everything in – and on a trip this rush of life/peace/chocolate hobnobs is transformational.

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The mental vs physical challenge – which is most appealing?

Mountaineering is 80% mental, 20% physical – and fitness means nothing when you’re playing the long game on a trip.

Any type 2 fun going forward?

I’m hoping to squeeze in another crack at El Cap solo in a day, Denali in Winter and the Eiger Direct in the next six months, so same as usual. I’ve been signed up by Montane who have kindly agreed to support me financially (I’ve had plenty of kit from companies but no cash for many years), which I hope will help give me a bit more balance in my life (I’m 43 now – so need to get a move on stupid-trips-wise!).

Thanks Andy. [If you enjoyed reading this, hopefully you’ll enjoy this film we collaborated on a couple of years ago at Visual Collective.]

Categories
Adventure Interviews Philosophy

Nights and Mornings (AKA. Creative Rejuvenation, Insights & Spontaneity)

During that time a while back of living on a bicycle, one of the best parts was talking to people about things like finding a path in life, being content, ambitious, happy, making big decisions and all that good stuff. Those conversations were a consistent positive in a state of heavily fluctuating moods, mentalities and motivations. There’s a few reasons why those moments stick out. One is that it’s cool to relate to people and realise that everyone, no matter who they are, deal with similar thoughts. Another is that sometimes other peoples views can affect our own, and offer insights that have perhaps been overlooked and may be useful/actionable depending on our current circumstances.

To be honest, it seems like an age ago now where talking about these topics was a regular thing, and I’ve been missing those conversations, as well as missing making images just for enjoyment. So I’ve been wondering about simple ways to rejuvenate that. That’s where a new blog project – Nights and Mornings – comes in. It’s pretty simple really, and involves teaming up with an individual or small group, or solo, going somewhere with fresh air, chatting about the stuff mentioned above and someone’s story / taking an unconnected time out, sleeping in a sleeping bag on some grass, waking up somewhere epic, taking a bunch of photos and posting it all here as and when. Hopefully it’ll be fun, a kick up the ass to get away from the computer and stop letting everything else get in the way, and maybe insightful to read. I’ve done it a couple of times recently and it’s been really helpful, so if you’re in a rut I would highly recommend grabbing a sleeping bag and getting outside. Doesn’t need to be anything fancy. (I’m a big fan of Alastair Humphreys’ #microadventure movement)

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For the first one, I teamed up with Ben Robinson who’s been a good pal for years. We grew up in the same village in England, got into lots of mischief, rock climbed (he’s also a lightning fast belayer), bunked off school to rock climb, rode bikes, travelled to cliffs in the US and Europe, and generally spent a bunch of time in the mountains or on pedals. For a couple of years he’s been working in Thailand, as operations manager at an outdoor centre in the jungle, and before that he was living and working in New Zealand in a variety of roles. He is really good at going somewhere for a long-ish period of time and becoming fully immersed in that place and community. A couple of weeks ago he returned to the UK and for the first time in a while, we were in the same place at the same time, so on a whim threw some stuff into his van and headed to an old stomping ground in the fells. (ps. first person to identify the location gets a mars bar in the post.)

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On the draw of going somewhere to start from scratch, and the challenges of returning.

“You can go away and be who you want to be. You can make your life what you want it to be without any external factors. And that’s really refreshing, but then when you come back, and you’re now set a lot lower than what you may have been in another country, and your job might not be as good, or you might feel more pressure, it’s difficult to come to terms with. Everyone gets on with their life, and if you go away for a year or more, everyone’s moved on. No-one stops because you’re not there, and coming to grips with that, at first, was a bit weird.”

On being shy and solving that.

“When I first left to travel on my own, I found it really difficult to go and talk to people. I was really shy at that time which I’d never really felt before, because I’d always been somewhere I knew or with people I knew. Now after a few years of being used to those situations, I enjoy talking to new people, anywhere, but it wasn’t easy. I’d never thought of myself as a shy person before. I lived in Bangkok for a few months, and a lot of that time was by myself, and I didn’t have a big friend base at that time. I felt like an alien. But all it took was time and confidence, even before learning to speak Thai, and now it’s really no problem.”

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On escapism, progress, and perceived reality.

“At the moment I’m just really enjoying being back. Part of me feels like I should be developing here as well, so I’m not just always going away, then coming back to the same situation. Now it’s easy, in the grand scheme of things and logistically, to leave tomorrow and go almost anywhere with just a bit of cash. But maybe it is a way of escaping your situation, and maybe it’s an easy fix to go somewhere new. One time when I came home from Asia was because of the feeling that everyone else was progressing, and feeling pressure that I wasn’t living in reality, where in fact, in retrospect I was making my own reality, just in a completely different way to a lot of other people I know. And I’m not saying that what I do is a really good way to live. For most people it’d be shit never having anything set. But ‘don’t worry so much’ is what I need to tell myself. And I do get worked up about it still, having to have a plan and knowing the next step, but sometimes if you’re always worrying about the next step, then you’re going to worry yourself to death. Obviously you have to be driven and not get stagnant, but you don’t have to get stressed out.”

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On ambition and contentment.

“I’ve always known people who have been very ambitious, about career or education or outdoors. I struggle with not knowing which direction to put my energy. I don’t have an ambition to be a doctor, or climb the highest mountain in the world. I think it’s important that you have things you want to do though.”

“If I think about what I’m ambitious for in life, it’s maybe a bit stereotypical, but I want to have a job that I like a lot, that isn’t like working but is something I’m happy to put energy into. It’s not like ‘oh man I’ve gotta go to work’. If you’re happy to do that everyday, that’s gotta be good. And good people to share my life with as well, and I’m not just talking about a girlfriend or wife, I mean everyone. I’ve learnt now, and it’s obvious looking back, but I’ve realised I thrive by being around other people. I’m not good on my own. So having good people around, sustaining a nice lifestyle, that’d be a happy life. And obviously learning to say the alphabet backwards.”

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On giving advice to a younger self.

“Be happy with who you are. Don’t worry about what people think of you. Have the confidence in yourself to talk to people. It’s not a big deal, it doesn’t matter where you are. You have the power to spark conversations. You can’t wait for other people to do that for you. You’ll probably meet a few assholes, but you’ll meet a lot of wicked people too. There’s so much pressure now, but don’t worry if what you’re doing now isn’t what you want to do forever.”

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On a quote that has been influential.

To be truly challenging, a voyage, like a life, must rest on a firm foundation of financial unrest. Otherwise, you are doomed to a routine traverse, the kind known to yachtsmen who play with their boats at sea… “cruising” it is called. Voyaging belongs to seamen, and to the wanderers of the world who cannot, or will not, fit in. If you are contemplating a voyage and you have the means, abandon the venture until your fortunes change. Only then will you know what the sea is all about.

“I’ve always wanted to sail to the south seas, but I can’t afford it.” What these men can’t afford is not to go. They are enmeshed in the cancerous discipline of “security.” And in the worship of security we fling our lives beneath the wheels of routine – and before we know it our lives are gone.

What does a man need – really need? A few pounds of food each day, heat and shelter, six feet to lie down in – and some form of working activity that will yield a sense of accomplishment. That’s all – in the material sense, and we know it. But we are brainwashed by our economic system until we end up in a tomb beneath a pyramid of time payments, mortgages, preposterous gadgetry, playthings that divert our attention for the sheer idiocy of the charade.

The years thunder by, The dreams of youth grow dim where they lie caked in dust on the shelves of patience. Before we know it, the tomb is sealed.

Where, then, lies the answer? In choice. Which shall it be: bankruptcy of purse or bankruptcy of life? 

– Sterling Hayden

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Categories
Radicles

Good Reads aka Radicles #1

Radicles; rad articles

Here’s a curated list, split into Outdoors, and Career, Creativity & Lifestyle of some Radicles I’ve enjoyed recently. Hopefully one or more of them will fire you up and provide some value in terms of confidence / inspiration / entertainment.

“Stay rad – read a radicle.”

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Outdoory Goodness

Three friends from France team up and cycle around the world for three years, touching every continent. Amazing photos.

“I am a relatively introverted type of person, and I like my share of solitude in civilised life. With the team I sometimes felt suffocated. We had no private space, it was the team first, always. For instance, one issue was that the guys didn’t mind riding long hours in the dark when I would often feel tired and would have enjoyed our comfy tent earlier. But we listened to one another and soon learned to become flexible.”

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Phil Jones is an inspiring dude. Here’s a video by Team Sky about how Phil’s life was transformed by cycling.

“In 2012, Phil Jones sat down to watch the London 2012 opening ceremony. He was morbidly obese (at his peak he had been 27 stone) and had been told by his doctor that he was unlikely to live to his 50th birthday. But when he saw Sir Chris Hoy carrying the British flag around the stadium, everything changed.”

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  • [By Fair Means – by Philip Baues, Olaf Obsommer & Jens Klatt, on Sidetracked]

Three pals team up (is there a theme emerging?) to cycle around the Alps, pulling kayaks behind them, and then paddling down epic rivers. The photos are incredible.

“The first time I think about giving up is at the Col de la Cayolle, in the French Maritime Alps. I am stuck in the snow, hip-deep – one hand trying to push myself out, the other clutching the rope with which I drag my kayak behind me like a pulka. My bike is strapped on top, and every few meters the whole setup begins to totter. But for now nothing is moving – largely because I’m immobile. As I sink again into the powder, I’ve just about had enough. I scream every four-letter word I know, and even create a few new ones.”

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Tom recently put together a bike for a tenner from parts he found at scrapyards and on recycling websites, and cycled from Lands End to Edinburgh for £0.25 / $0.42. No typo.

“You don’t have to ‘be a cyclist’, or model your trip on anyone else’s experience. And anyone who tries to tell you that there’s a blueprint or some kind of standard formula for wandering the world on a bicycle is a liar and a fraud.”

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Career, Creativity & Lifestyle

Elle experiences anxiety, resentment, and doubt so decides to trade in pride and security for authenticity.

“About 6 months ago, I decided to quit my very good job at Google to explore a different way to live life. I had a loose plan of how I wanted to spend my time, but the main reason I left was that I couldn’t stay. I couldn’t put it into words at the time, but something inside of me was telling me I shouldn’t continue down the career path I was on. I felt strongly that it wasn’t getting me closer to where I wanted to be, though that destination was largely unknown, and I had to get off that road. Each month I stayed, I grew more anxious and, in turn, resentful.”

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There are few bloggers who are as honest as James, or as willing to regularly spill their guts in a post. This one riffs about how and why we’ve stopped laughing, and why we should start again.

“A kid laughs on average 300 times a day. An adult laughs on average….five times a day. What the…!? How did we go from 300 to 5? What the hell happened to us? That’s why we start to panic during the day! Did we cross some bridge of crap and tears and now here we are: drones that wake up, go to work, backstab each other in office politics, watch Breaking Bad, and then go to sleep and Die? Every single day? Did someone slip a pill into the Starbucks coffee we drink every day? A no-laughing pill? Laughter is really hard as an adult. It has to be. Else, how did we go from 300 to 5! That’s a HUGE gap. There is no arguing that something really bad and scary and sad happened to us between childhood and adulthood. And laughing is so critical.”

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Sara has been working for Automattic for 4 years and has learnt a lot about how to make remote work, erm, work. (Here’s a Vague Direction video with Automattic’s founder). In the next few years we’re going to see a lot more companies start to accept remote working as a viable (and sensible) option. Here, Sara explains about how important routine and prioritising health is.

“Meetings in the business world are often mistaken for “getting work done.” I know people who have had full-days of meetings to provide status updates a simple email would have sufficed for, and tales even of a team sitting on the phone together watching a single person work so they would be assured the project would be done on time. I had a phone call meeting recently that took a combined half hour of the participants’ time to find a good time for the meeting, and then the call lasted less than 5 minutes. And yes, we could have done it by email.”

– – –

Tony is a busy dude, and finds out what happens when he increases the amount of sleep he gets.

“Too many of us continue to live by the durable myth that one less hour of sleep gives us one more hour of productivity. In reality, each hour less of sleep not only leaves us feeling more fatigued, but also takes a pernicious toll on our cognitive capacity. The more consecutive hours we are awake and the fewer we sleep at night, the less alert, focused and efficient we become…”

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Categories
Adventure Bicycle Travel Philosophy

Brain Versus Body – A Tale of Roast Beef

“When the first snowfall comes, that’s usually it for the rest of the winter.”

The Winnipeg resident’s advice echoed at the forefront of my mind as the heavy snowfall fell to the ground in Sault Ste. Marie, on the eastern side of the grand Lake Superior. The falling powder, low visibility and the baltic chill showed no immediate signs of letting up. It was going to be a glove day, once I’d drummed up enough motivation to go outside.

There was no real reason to not be motivated, as I’d spent the night in a motel. Hardly hardcore but needed sometimes. It hadn’t been a cold night and there had been no suffering, but opening the door and being hit by the chill was a shock, even after all this time experiencing the seasonal change each day. It was enough of a reason to close the door, rustle around in the pannier bags, and find more layers.

After leaving the room and setting out, I rode for twenty minutes. Along the snowy pavements, with the rain jacket hood done up tight over the shell of my helmet. It was a balancing act performed at a slow pace. In the snow, it would be easy enough to fall and slide along the whiteness, especially with the bald tyres that were currently on the bike.

It took focus. Cars would drive by, their lights bright to tackle the fog, and the spray from the snow and the sleet would fire up from their wheels to land on the pavement. Offsets of that spray would hit the few exposed parts of skin that were left, and every time a chill would run down my spine as though someone had poured ice cubes down my shirt.

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It wasn’t a smooth start to the day, and acting on those initial signs had become a bit of a superstition. Over time you lose perspective and in the haze things like superstition seem to hold more weight.

Thank God – the big red logo and the cars in the drive through lane. That would be a good place to drum up motivation. A happy place, a familiar place, a warm place. A place that, like motels, if visited too much, makes you feel guilty that you’re not truly living the ‘adventurous nature’ of a trip like this. But the roast beef sandwich combo at Tim Hortons would warm me up and for a brief while there would be no guilt. There was motivation inside those four walls, there was time to get fired up.

It was only the end of October, but whoever was in charge of Tim’s music selection had decided that they would try to encourage some early Christmas spirit, by playing the corniest of songs to match the fresh Lapland-esque scene that was now on display outside the window. One in particular struck a chord that day. “Baby It’s Cold Outside”.

In the comfort of Tim’s hospitality, some lyrics of that song seemed to sum up exactly, word for word, what was running through my head, like an internal monologue, brain versus body.

{I really can’t stay} – There was a narrow window of time left.
{But baby it’s cold outside} – It really was.
{I’ve got to go away} – Time was a fuse, like it was two lines ago.
{But baby it’s cold outside} – The roast beef combo was looking up from the plate like a mindreader.

The realisation that you’ve not set out on this journey to sit in a Tim Hortons listening to terrible pop songs whilst eating roast beef doesn’t take long to reach. It was time to go. MAN UP YOU BIG PANSY – the monologue was going off – an anti-pathetic alarm.

Once I’d put every layer back on and wrapped a doubled up bin bag around the leather saddle, I finally did set off, precariously rolling along the snow-filled sidewalks. The spray that was being kicked up from the spinning wheels made me long for the wheel fenders that were now long gone, left behind when in the summer they had seemed completely obsolete.

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It’s still a sweaty game, regardless of the cold. Sweaty enough for a wool shirt to become damp at any rate, even if it was flat. Pedalling away from Sault Ste. Marie, the landscape was for the most part level. Had the sunshine been out, there would be little to separate here from those long days in the prairies.

When it began to get dark, the landscape had turned remote, in the kind of way that would be perfect were it not reminiscent of a scene from The Snowman. There was plenty of land, and most land owners would surely be tucked up in their living room for the night. What’s not to like about that kind of stealth-camping freedom?

It wasn’t the kind of day where night riding would be fun at all, yet it also seemed like it would be wise to choose a place to sleep carefully, rather than just rush into it and pitch the tent at the side of the road or in the middle of a field. Pedalling towards the horizon, constantly scanning the farmland, it seemed like there were a couple of options.

One was to pitch in a field – maybe in the corner of one it would be possible to find shelter from the elements. Another was to find somewhere that was truly sheltered. The latter would be good, as it was clearly going to be one hell of a cold night, both water bottles now frozen solid with no liquid inside them, silently attached to the bike frame instead of the normal slosh, slosh, slosh.

What is that? It looks like a barn. It is a barn. Far ahead, slightly off to the side of the road, there was a wooden barn with a green roof. It had three walls, and was open at one side.

As it was still a distance away, there was a few minutes of cycling time to consider a) whether it was trespassing and b) because it clearly was trespassing, whether I was willing to trespass for the benefits of shelter.

A question of morality and legality. The private land dilemma had come up many times before, but this felt a little different because a barn is actual shelter – it’s not like sleeping in the corner of a field. To decide became an internal role-play exercise. Brain versus body yet again.

If I was a farmer, and it was freezing outside, would I care if someone camped in my barn?

The answer was: not really, as long as they didn’t burn the place down or steal anything.

With a decision made, I pedalled over to the barn, finding that inside was a bright orange Hesston combine harvester and some other heavy-duty farming machinery. The ground was dry, and the roof was solid. It was still going to be a cold night, but it would be a sheltered one, at least on three sides.

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You know when you just can’t get a song out of your head? The second verse of that song was running over and over, an irritating loop, impossible to drown out as the dusk disappeared and nightfall arrived.

{This evening has been}
Been hoping that you’d drop in.
{So very nice}
I’ll hold your hands. They’re just like ice.

Under the roof of the barn, nestled in the space between the machinery, shivering as my hands were sandwiched tight under each armpit, the last line seemed appropriate. Half of it, anyway. Just like ice.

Surely it had been a foolish decision to not upgrade to warmer sleeping kit, even if it would only make these last few weeks more comfortable and nothing more? The right gear would change this situation completely. I didn’t have a good reason for why, but enduring these nights seemed like a challenge that was worth taking on. Maybe it was because it was these kind of shivering moments, that didn’t involve motels or Christmas music or roast beef sandwiches, that were the ones I’d been looking for.

On a continent where it can seem like ease and comfort is never too far away, there is value in these moments of relative suffering and isolation, and in a twisted way, they are cherished times. 

With two weeks of this way of life left, this had been the coldest night. It wasn’t the Antarctic or anything. At -9 Celsius, my army pal might laugh and wonder how it compares to the time he skied into a cut out hole in the middle of a frozen Scandinavian lake, however I tried to think back over the previous 11 months – there had been plenty of freezing nights, extreme weather, solid water bottles – but nothing that seemed as brutally cold as this.

It can be easy to lose track of time when days and weeks blend together like they do when travelling by bike for a long time. Time in general becomes a blur. When I woke up in that barn the following morning, and touched the merino wool t-shirt which had become rock hard in the night as the moisture froze, I realised the cyclical nature of this journey (excuse the pun), and of long journeys as a whole, whatever kind they may be.

The bike ride had gone through every season, each one bringing challenges and opportunities. I’m not going to pretend that waking up in the barn was a particularly pleasant one, but it was worth it. Winter 2012 to Winter 2013. 4 seasons ticked off like the boxes on a questionnaire. That full-circle nature had made the trip more vast than it was ever imagined to be. Anything that takes a chunk of time to endure and which, at times, can seem overwhelming to take on, is worthwhile.

Ignoring the frozen t-shirt and perhaps cursing it just a little bit, at that moment, there was no doubt at all that this would be a valuable chapter to look back on once it was over.

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Categories
Adventure Interviews

Moments of Adventure

An unusual, exciting, or dangerous experience. Most of the time these blog posts fade away quickly and it’s hard to know if they’ve been read much, but very occasionally one gains a bit of momentum and gets shared around. A few weeks ago ‘An Open Letter To Self-Proclaimed Adventurers’ caught a little pace and it was surprising to see a few reactions. In hindsight the cloudiness of that post is a bit cringeworthy.

One reaction was “That’s an idiotic piece. Getting kidnapped is not an adventure, going over Niagara is a gamble not an adventure. The only one of the 3 stories that is an adventure is ‘No Picnic on Mount Kenya’.” It was tempting to write back with ‘ur an idiotic piece’ but this is the internet and adding fuel to the fire never works well. Another reaction was “I don’t get it. Does it mean we should all just stay at home because everything’s been done already?”. This was saddening as that conclusion is the opposite of how it was supposed to come across. Oops, sorry!

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Adventure, going off the dictionary definition, is: an unusual and exciting or dangerous experience. Seeking those experiences is totally worthwhile, for everyone. Doing the thing you’ve wanted to do for ages helps you grow. Ticking off that trip or that thing which frightens you but calls out to you anyway. Has everything been done? No, that’s impossible because it’s subjective. From getting over your stage-fright and walking onto a standup comedy stage for the first time, to riding a bike a long way. It is infinite, it is for everyone, it is worthy, it is real, and simply embracing adventurous experiences has a positive impact.

The intended meaning was: If you want to go and have an adventure, go and do it. Don’t be put off by titles, or inexperience, or lack of ‘the best gear’. Do the thing that calls out to you. If you’re a receptionist – you can have an epic adventure. If you’re a teacher – you can too. If you work in insurance – you can as well. And you should! I really hope that anyone reading this will at some point pursue their big adventure (whatever that means) that is close to their heart.

Finally, one person said: “so are you saying that people shouldn’t write about their adventures?”.  No, who is anyone to say that? Crumbs, this blog does just that! Quite the opposite – if you like sharing stories, that is awesome! And reading about people seeking out new experiences is brilliant. From people who frequently go on trips as a career, cool, but everyone else too. Say a caretaker who just ran a fell-race, a student who launched a satellite, a fisherman who plucked up the courage to take part in a rap battle. (Basically, the original post was an ill-thought-out vent about seeing a small few act like they owned something that can’t be owned.)

Moving on to the cool stuff!

If you were asked to choose, can a single moment rise to the top of many? I asked some peeps who’ve chased experiences that called out to them, one thing. To describe their most adventurous moment. Their responses are fun and insightful and sometimes unexpected – enjoy, then get planning!

– – –

Leon McCarron:

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“I’ve had my fair share of pretty ‘adventurous’ (or downright stupid) moments – listening to bears sniff at the flysheet of my tent in California, teetering over precipitous cliffs in Chinese mountains, capsizing a packraft in a remote Iranian gorge… when it comes to doing silly things in exciting places, I’m a pro. But I also know that without a doubt my most adventurous moment of all was very different from those higher adrenalin escapades.

The bravest and more daring thing I’ve ever done was cross the George Washington Bridge out of New York City on my first big trip. Physically there was nothing hard about it, nor logistically – there was even a bike path all the way across. Mentally, however… man, mentally it was a war zone. Every fibre of my being was terrified at the prospect of leaving behind all that I knew; swapping the familiar and the comfortable for a heavy bike, a cheap tent and an endless white line heading west. I would have found it so easy to give up right there, to turn around and make plans to fly home to the UK. Somehow – through stubbornness, stupidity and a small but growing realisation that things don’t always have to be fun to be worthwhile – I pushed on over the bridge, into New Jersey, and into the adventure of a lifetime. Since then, I’ve never looked back.”

 – – –

Rachel Atherton (photo: Laurence Crossman Emms)

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“I suppose people would think that racing mountain bikes down mountains at speeds of 60mph every weekend all around the world for a living was adventure enough but I disagree!

You get so used to whatever you do day to day, no matter how adventurous it may seem, so adventures to me are things that I don’t get to experience, days out on the sea in boats, inflatable kayaks through quaint towns, but my most brilliant adventure that I still love thinking of was taking myself to Europe when I was injured and having a year off, I must’ve been 19, I camped for weeks in my tent with my bike, at lakesides and up mountains, the thunderstorms from the tent were amazing, I rode every day exploring the mountains, collecting wild strawberries and bilberries to go with breakfast, washing in the lakes and waterfalls, stealing vegetables from gardens (!!) and making friends with locals who plied me with homemade alcohol.

It was one of the most exhilarating, free, happy times I’ve ever had. A real adventure because I was away from the normal, away from technology, away from comfort, it was real living, being as close to mother nature as I could be, to me that is what an adventure should be.”

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Tom Allen:

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 “I was dragging my bike through a thousand kilometres of sand towards Dongola in northern Sudan. The Nile lay to my right, shimmering, tempting, as I sweated in the midday Saharan heat. I wondered what was on the other side of the longest river in the world. (Nothing, according to Google Maps.) The idea took hold, and when I arrived at the next Nubian village I tracked down the owner of a small boat and convinced him to give me a ride. And so it was about halfway across the world’s longest river, outboard motor sputtering, cool water spray on my sunburnt face, that I realised that not only did I have absolutely no idea where I was going, but that this leap into the unknown was precisely what made me feel so damn alive. This, right now, was my most adventurous moment to date.”

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Sarah Thomson (photo: Kate Czuczman):

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“To me an adventure means taking a risk. Sometimes you run into trouble, and sometimes it turns out to be the most epic moment of a lifetime. One of my most adventurous moments was whist backpacking with a friend of mine in Indonesia. We awoke early, packed our rucksacks and headed off with no idea of direction. We passed peaceful lagoons, chilled out cafes and tiptoed through local farmlands, attempting to climb coconut trees for refreshment on the way. We walked for hour upon hour until we reached what we believed to be the end of the world! A huge of bank of black sand saw the end of the ever growing palm trees and we both stopped in awe. We laughed and told stories the whole way and yet when we reached this bay of black we had nothing to say, but just sat and soaked in the love of a wonderful adventure.”

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Charley and Sophie Radcliffe:

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Charley: “I am constantly challenging the title of most adventurous moment but they keep having one thing in common: being somewhere I didn’t know I could get – whether I’m leading a hard (for me!) rock route, or running London to Brighton across fields and country paths. The moments that get your heart rate up, make you worry, and then break through the other side.”

Sophie: “For me adventure is all about trying something new, embracing the unknown and having the faith in myself that I’ll get there but also knowing that failure is part of the journey. It’s about sharing the highs and lows with friends, making new bonds, strengthening existing friendships, feeling like you’ve shared something you’ll never forget. It’s about the rewards and how well deserved they feel! The accomplishment, feeling of confidence, the beer and eating of cake. It’s about living and feeling alive.”

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George Foster:

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“I used to think I was adventurous but the furthest I’ve been from civilisation in the form of say a phone or a car or whatever would be a few days camping in Scotland or a couple of days on a mountain in the Indian Himalayas. Not exactly Ernest Shackleton. I guess I may have done adventurous things to those uninitiated with fell running or those whose definition of adventure is markedly different to mine. It’s all a matter of perspective.

If it’s what you’re into, then all my adventures in running have been adventures of the mind. Many hundreds of people have run further or faster. Maybe not so many have done so at night, over hills, in the wind and the sweeping rain. Then again, maybe you have, in which case skip to the next guy!

This is the closest I’ve come to a real adventure. Something where the outcome is far from certain. Running towards the mountains without a headtorch to see what it’s like. The feeling when you float up the steepness and come face to face with the moon. Uncertain starlight giving way to a flood of brilliant radiance and you are able to pick out instantly a boulder here, or there, a puddle left from the evening downpour. All that was invisible moments before, now open for your private viewing.

That doesn’t have much to do with the mind on first glance. I’d argue that it’s experiences like that which remind you why you race on the fells. I need reminding sometimes when I’m racing. Legs melting into screaming lungs. The challenge in a lot of these isn’t to win but often just to finish. That’s the mental side. The not knowing is the adventure. The not letting your body give in when you do know. I think it takes a lot of courage to run up a hill into a gathering blizzard. Courage… and stupidity.

Anyone can have an adventure, though. As I said it’s a matter of perspective. When I’m 94 I’m gonna relish the not knowing if I’ll be able to make it to the toilet without pissing myself. How adventurous is that?!”

– – –

What is an adventurous moment you look back on?

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[p.s. Leon’s book is out on the 7th July and involves getting chased through cornfields from a gun-toting alcohol-soaked rancher, and Tom just released a technical ebook that anyone interested in bike touring should check out.]

Categories
Philosophy

Is Success Make-Believe?

Yesterday I fell down a well. In the well there was plenty of exploring to do. It was just like you’d expect it to be. Skeletons, coins, and rays of sun which hit the water like a spotlight. No not literally – literally falling down a well would be ridiculous. It was the well of new insights.

This is a post about something that I don’t understand, because even though the words continue and are one-sided, goals remain a big driving force. A bunch of you are probably similar and have a large amount of impatience when it comes to your progress. So this post is hypocritical. And it doesn’t have much to do with adventure. But sometimes writing about stuff can be a good way to attempt to understand it, and that’s what this is. (Shoutout to the awesome Delve.tv for the inspiration and insights)

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Loads of us have struggles with ambition vs. contentment, goal setting vs. happiness, being excited about where we are now vs. looking towards where we want to be.

Selection bias is when something is reported but is biased and inaccurate. Reported ‘success’ is plagued with it. The outlets we watch, read, and listen to all suggest that we should invent an app in our twenties and sell it for a billion dollars within 18 months. It’s mostly about winning with speed,  whilst we’re young. But fast-success is like winning the lottery and rarely happens. We gloss over slow-success – the kind that is achieved by plugging away. We gloss over the years of hustle. The years when it doesn’t work.

There’s an actual reason why we only hear about the fast, young success stories. And this is the bit that blew my mind whilst in the confines of that well: a few influential marketers caused us to celebrate young and fast, because it sells more stuff.

Madison Avenue in the 50’s. A bunch of ad execs got together and decided to sell products to younger people. Why? Because you can sell more stuff for longer to younger people. Companies make more money because younger people buy things for their whole lives. It’s not as hard to persuade a young person to buy something than an older person who’s already picked whether they’re Team Coke or Team Pepsi. It’s marketing, and it’s the reason and the root of why we are conditioned to think that it’s normal to reach ‘success’ fast and young. But it’s not actually very normal at all.

Da Vinci was born in 1452. Let’s call him L D V because everyone loves an acronym. He got a painting apprenticeship when he was 14. He then got a few freelance gigs, messed them up completely, and no-one would hire him to make stuff anymore. He had to paint dead criminals to get by. But during his dark days he kept making, kept bashing out work, kept painting. Kept creating for 16 years and still nothing happened. It was 1498 when he had a breakthrough and made something that anyone cared about. It was called The Last Supper and apparently it’s alright.

Same story for most people. Think of someone you know who you think has it all figured out now, delve into their story and I bet you’ll find that wasn’t always the case. There’s generally this long and sustained period of failure before anything happens. We’re happy to ignore that it takes years. We’ll gladly disregard the first 9,000 hours of the 10,000 hour rule because the story’s not as good if that bit is mentioned. We think overnight success when it’s closer to 20-year success.

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It seems like there’s a few takeaways. We should be ambitious, because it’s a powerful driver. If bigman L D V stopped being ambitious, and stopped being persistent towards his mission, then that would’ve been bad news for him, and for the world if that’s your kinda thing.

For the grand missions, we shouldn’t worry or become too impatient if things take longer than expected, or longer than is ‘normal’. Because modern normal has literally been skewed for profit.

If we are driven by a meaningful goal then we should be happy for it to take time, and expect this time to be when people doubt. Doubt is OK if you’re committed to the long-game. Here’s some of my own selection bias: People doubted Google in 1998. Guess what, doubters? They just brought out a self-driving car which will use sensors to stop people being killed in car accidents. No-one in their right mind doubts Google anymore. They remembered to never listen to anyone who isn’t in the ring. They remembered to be stubborn in times of doubt. They remembered that critics who chime in without ever having made anything are trolls.

It’d be really easy to end here with a mega-cliché. The classic one that you know already. Featuring the words journey and destination. Urghh, sorry. Let’s not do that.

Shouldn’t ignoring the goals and taking joy from the process be the most crucial ingredient? Seeing something taking shape should be the reward. Everything else should be a side-effect that isn’t the focus. Maybe we should ignore the pressure for things to happen quickly because that’s what we’ve been brainwashed to believe is normal when it isn’t.

When the meaning behind doing what we do is the right one, the slow plod is the right path. Because without even knowing it we’ll probably look back and realise that, whilst it might seem like a process wrought with irritating plateau’s and speed bumps, we have come a long way and are taking steps forward. Perhaps that’s more important than success or reaching a goal. Perhaps that is enough?

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(p.s. here’s a more adventure-centric post for Sidetracked about going for a walk in Alaska.)

Categories
Adventure

Three Epics

1) It’s October 24th 1901, at Niagara Falls. It is Annie Edson Taylor’s birthday. She has decided to attempt to be the first person ever to survive a trip over the Niagara Falls in a barrel. The falls are 156 meters high. She just turned 63 years old. She is a widow. She’s had a custom barrel made out of oak and iron and put a mattress inside it for comfort. She tested the concept two days before now by putting her cat inside it and sending it over the edge. It was a kitten and it survived and 17 minutes later posed for a photograph with Annie. 

Today Annie gets in the barrel, along with a heart-shaped cushion. It’s her lucky charm. Friends use a bicycle pump to fill the barrel with air, and then put a cork in it in the hope that it’ll remain pressurised at 30 PSI. She is set free from the side of a rowing boat upstream and the current carries Annie over the falls.

Rescuers find the barrel with Annie in it a few minutes later. People are doubtful, of course. If you’ve seen the falls then you know how ridiculous the thought of floating over them in a barrel is. But like her cat, Annie is alive and relatively unscathed, other than a small cut to her head.

She would later say, “If it was with my dying breath, I would caution anyone against attempting the feat… I would sooner walk up to the mouth of a cannon, knowing it was going to blow me to pieces than make another trip over the Fall.” Some people would argue that she needn’t have gone over the side of Niagara Falls in a barrel to come to this realisation.

~

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2) It’s 24th January 1943 at British Prisoner of War Camp 354 in Nanyuki, Kenya. When the clouds break, Mount Kenya appears in the distance. Three Italian prisoners, Felize, Giovanni and Enzo, have for months been hoarding food as rations, sewing makeshift rucksacks and clothing, and scavenging for scrap metal to use as homemade ice axes and crampons. They’ve become sick and tired of the monotony that prison life offers. Life in camp is boring not brutal. They leave a note saying they’ll be back in two weeks and set off to attempt to climb the mountain, using a map they’ve sketched on the back of a food tin.

They escape by taking advantage of the relaxed vegetable gardening duties they’ve been tasked with, and using a key that’s been moulded in tar. They dig up supplies they’ve buried in the tomato patch. No-one notices them leave, so no guard fires a bullet into their backs. Then they begin the journey to the base of the country’s highest mountain. Days up riverbeds and through dense jungle, precariously avoiding animals like rhinos and leopards and charging elephant bulls. When they make it to the mountain, they risk freezing to death with inadequate equipment, and starving to death with an inadequate amount of food. Enzo gets too ill to continue so the other two carry on, leaving him at the base. On the climb, they face rotten snow and mini-avalanches. They can’t communicate with each other because the wind is so strong.

They reach a part of the mountain and realise they can’t go on anymore because of fear of death. It’s Point Lenana, a small peak just 200 meters below the summit. They plant a homemade Italian flag and begin the descent in the same conditions, back to the POW camp where they’ve come from. When they return 18 days later, there is no glory waiting for them. As punishment, they are all sentenced to 28 days in solitary confinement, until the camp commander reduces that to 7 days because of their ‘sporting effort’.

~

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3) It’s August 12th 2000 and four American rock climbers are climbing on The Yellow Wall in the Kara-Suu valley of Kyrgyzstan. Tommy, Beth, John and Jason hear the first gunshots rattle past them at 6.15am. They shout 1,000 feet below, but the gunmen order the group to come down immediately. They draw straws to decide who should go down but John volunteers. From the portaledge, the group watch what happens through a 200mm camera lens. John radio’s up and tells them that the gunmen are requesting that everyone comes down. The group sense that something is seriously wrong.

The two gunmen are Abdul and Obert, who turn out to be rebel soldiers in the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. All the climbers descend and are marched to base-camp where they meet two more people. Su, another rebel. And Turat who had pleasantly checked their permits a few days ago. He was a Kyrgyz Army soldier, but had been taken prisoner by the rebels. The three colleagues Turat was originally with were executed in front of him by his captors.

Abdul orders they will all walk to Uzbekistan, where there is safety for the rebels. It’s 50 miles north. They walk over valleys and up ridges, until at 3pm there’s a gunfight between the captors and local Kyrgyz soldiers. During this fight the captors execute Turat in front of the Americans. Tommy accidently sits on his lifeless arm and the rebels laugh at him.

For four more days they continue through the mountains. Hunger turns to cramping. Jason and Tommy come to the conclusion that they’re now prepared to do whatever it takes to get out of this situation because after Turat’s murder it’s clear negotiation won’t work. The rebels leave Su in charge of keeping the Americans hostage. The group climb a ridge. The plan is for everyone to rendezvous on top. With just one rebel now, Tommy climbs up to Su, grabs the AK-47 that’s strung around him, and throws him off the rock. Su hits a ledge 30ft down, and then rolls off the 1,500 ft cliff into the darkness.

Tommy can’t cope because he thinks he’s just killed a man. He asks his girlfriend Beth ‘how can you love me now? After I did this?’. They stumble 18 miles back to a Kyrgyz army base. They’re shot at by rebels again, but eventually are greeted by Kyrgyz soldiers who hand them tins of food and water. They have escaped.

~

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~

Categories
Interviews Philosophy

9 Realisations on Anxiety, Persistence, Challenges & More

It’s a highly unlikely thing that they’d be shouting. Armed robbers wouldn’t care. They’d probably want wallets and a code to a safe or to find nearby car keys and laptops. Maybe an escape route that avoided Liam Neeson. If they did want all that they’d probably be quite disappointed. But let’s stretch our imaginations for a second. If an aggressive dude was holding a gun to my temple and screaming, ‘if you could only choose one part of last year to do again what would it be’, then I wouldn’t say the bike trip. Or the locations it took place in. Or the foggy mornings and quiet nights. Or anything like that.

To whittle it down to one thing, as per their ridiculous, somewhat improbable and weird-crazy armed robber demands, the answer would be: having the opportunity to talk to a bunch of radfolks™. Because of the moments that were shared and the wisdom that every single person had to offer in their own unique and always badass way. I’ve been delving into the archives over the last few days and came across some things that I’d forgotten about but are valuable.

Things that make a lot of sense but are sometimes overlooked. Easy to forget when you want to get somewhere fast. Easy to forget when you fail or succeed. Easy to forget when your nerves kick in. Easy to forget when you over-focus on one aspect of your life and let others slide. And easy to forget when you get frustrated by thinking you don’t have any of this sh*t figured out and then wrongly assuming others don’t question it all too.

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On The Process, Anxiety & Confidence – by Nick Thune, Comedian

“You look around, and it’s a business where there is no sure path, so it’s hard to realise that it’s this marathon where everybody’s kind of running their own pace. And it’s not about winning, it’s just about getting to the end and pacing yourself out for it. And that’s a thought that you have to look back into when you feel that way. I feel that constantly. I can be really overly confident sometimes, and I know that’s gotten me in trouble before, and sometimes I’ll be so insecure that it gets me in trouble. It’s a weird battle that you’re constantly fighting back and forth.

At 16 my mom put me in with one of their friends who’s a therapist. I just remember the simplest thing he told me is that at any moment you can change your attitude. It’s actually one of the most simple things. And a lot of the time it’s just changing the way you’re thinking about one thing. Like – anxiety is also anticipation, and excitement. If you’re nervous about something, what if you were excited about it? It’s actually the same feeling in your body. And I don’t know if this is actually true – I just remember hearing it and wanting to believe it so bad that I made it true – but the feeling of anxiety in your body is physically the same feeling as excitement, your brain is just choosing to look at it the way you’re choosing to look at it. And that’s something I focus on a lot.”

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On What You Do Every Days & Making Things – by Dora Sullivan, Mayor of Cape Charles, Virginia

“I think the thing that people miss is the fact that it’s not so much about what you do every day. In Greece you could see a street sweeper, and that’s his day job, but it’s what you do after the fact. It’s your circle of friends. It’s family. It’s the rescue dog. And then you’ve gotta dream. It’s so good to dream. So I make things. I look like a bag lady. I go to the beach and pick up driftwood, rocks, glass, fishing lures. I found half an oar the other day. And then I make something. It’s therapy, and it’s the thrill of the hunt and the smell of the sea. At some point, you’re going to have to do one of those dreams. You’re going to have to do something on that list, or you’ll catch yourself in your own lie because you didn’t do it.”

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On Good Energy, Paying It Forward & Challenging Yourself – by Brad Haith, Cross Country Walker

“At 14 years old I was in trouble a lot, and that trouble led up until the age of 16. That landed me in jail until I was 26. After 10 years in prison, when I got out I decided to change my life. And this must come with some insight of wanting to change, so I grabbed a bag, and I wanted to help people. I always loved helping people. So I decided to walk and give out the energy I had that was holding inside me. I had a small backpack, and no food or anything. I just wanted to give out some good energy and break away, like a release from where I was, and travel. It changed my life. I shook every hand I could shake, and met everyone from just about every nationality.

The interesting point in my journey was – it didn’t only change my life, I hope that I changed other peoples lives as well. I think passing it on is important, because once I have received what I have received, it’s not fair for me to hold it in for myself. I think it’s good to share it. My childhood was in jail. Prison. Penitentiary. And it was tougher, rougher. I didn’t have a life. This is why I believe in positive energy, and good natured people. Because when you do something good, it comes back. It’s the cycle of life, I believe. In 13 years I was not hurt once, and I’ve met everyone from all walks of life.

Always challenge yourself. Always. Because it gives a meaning in ones life to always challenge yourself.”

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On Being Tired Of It All & Where To Find Inspiration – by Sierra Noble, Singer Songwriter

“I think that it’s those times where you’re having a bad day and you’re tired and you look in the mirror and it’s just like ‘I look like crap, I feel horrible, I’m exhausted, I don’t feel like doing the show’. It’s in those moments of vulnerability and in a way, openness, that I’m always reminded. When I do the show and afterward go out and meet people, it’s really easy to convince yourself that you feel alone and tired of all of it, but it’s also really easy to open yourself up to connecting with people anywhere, and it doesn’t have to be anyone that you know. It can be a 10 second genuine exchange with a human being, that can completely recharge your being.  And I’ve realized that life is really fulfilled by connection, and humans thrive in connection. And if we cut ourselves off, whether it be our own doing or whether we’re cut off by other reasons, that’s when we stop thriving.

Honestly, not thinking about it is the best thing you can do, and staying open – keeping your heart and mind open. And if you’re even this much drawn to something, go in that direction, check it out, go through the door, check out the room, if it’s cool sit in it for 5 minutes. Be like ‘what’s gonna happen? I don’t know. Oh nothing happened. Next door.’ I find that I get the most stuck when I think about it too much. It’s the same with writers block and all that. People rack their brains for inspiration, when that’s not where you find inspiration. Inspiration isn’t often in our brains, it’s around us, and we have to just stop and listen to the universe around us.”

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On Your Previous Self & Being Good At Something – by Andrew Sinkov, VP Marketing at Evernote

“I don’t think you can actually give your previous self any advice, because if I gave myself advice, I wouldn’t be the person that I am now. So I think the best advice is to just keep on doing what you’re doing.

I think everybody’s good at something. Most people that aren’t sure where they need to go haven’t identified the thing that they’re good at. Everybody has a skill or a passion that really gets them going. And it’s translating that into something real-world that is actually useful and applicable. I think often people don’t realise what they’re actually good at, or what their skills are and what makes them different from the people that are standing next to them, and I think it’s exploring that, and finding an outlet for it. It’s just identifying in yourself the thing that really makes you happy, and finding that there are opportunities out there in all industries that allow you to do that.”

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On Imposter Syndrome, Success & The Edge Of Competency – by Matt Mullenweg, founder of WordPress

“What I see more amongst entrepreneurs who are friends, is the ‘I shouldn’t be here’ – more impostor syndrome. It’s not that you’re scared of success, it’s that sometimes you can really reach a level of success that you feel like you’re not ready for yet, or a level of responsibility. The truth is that none of us have really done this before. And when you accept that, and just do your best, or try your hardest and learn as much as you can, I feel like when you rise to those challenges, that it’s very satisfying, because you’re constantly at the edge of your competence.”

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On Persistence, Risk & Betting On Yourself – by Ruben Fleischer, Film Director

“There’s friends I can think of that were way funnier than me, or way more talented. And I think they were afraid to take the risk. Whereas for me, the one talent I think I have more than anything else is persistence. I just won’t give up. And so when I was trying to be a director, and I put myself $35,000 in debt trying to do that, but I was determined that it was going to work out. I wasn’t going to stop until I’d figured it out. It just was unfathomable. Once I said, ‘I’m going to start directing’, and I just stopped working for other people, and shot short films and low-budget music videos, that’s when nothing was handed to me. I just kept on shooting, shooting, shooting, shooting, and then gradually people started to pay attention, and then it kept just growing very organically. And it has because it’s been almost 10 years now, starting from a $50 music video to features for studios.

There’s a million directions to go – I think that’s the trickiest part. But the more you know where you wanna be, the more people can help you get there. Otherwise, if you truly don’t know, I think you’ve just gotta go experience as much as you can. And if you have an inclination to something, try it and see if it suits you, and if it doesn’t, keep it moving and see what’s next. There’s a lot of successful people who can tell you that they didn’t find it right away, and that it came later in life or that they kind of stumbled into it. A lot of people just happen across it. That was certainly the case for me.”

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On Figuring Out How To Make It Work & Having Support – by Eileen Gittins, CEO of Blurb Inc

“Do something you love. I don’t care what it is. If you love it, you will figure out a way to make the rest of your life work with that. I have to be in it and love that thing. It’s like artists – seriously – where they can’t not paint. A musician can’t not make music. If you can find anything where you feel that way about it, just do it. Because that will work out in the end. You just have to ride it and just know that it’s a journey – it’s not a straight line – and be prepared for that. And have support around you. Family, friends, partners, spouses, whatever – who are in it with you. It’s too hard to do by yourself, you have to have people in it with you.”

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On There Being Nothing That Stops You – by John Canfield, founder of High Above Designs

“A good friend had a ski company and was thinking about making a pack. He said to me, whilst I was still working at my former business, ‘look I need a prototype made’. And I agreed to do it, and I also prefaced it with him that I really didn’t know what I was doing. He was like, ‘that’s OK, you can learn’ and from his entrepreneurial standpoint it was; what you need to know, you will learn.

So he gave me this project, and right as that project started I was fired from my last job for bringing my dog into work. I remember calling him and being like ‘Dan, I’m so screwed. I don’t have a sewing machine to use anymore’. I didn’t have one at home. And he said ‘You should go get one’. And I remember thinking, that’s so simple. His spirit was saying there’s nothing that stops you, there are things that slow you down, and it’s the way you deal with them and the way you move past them. And that was an eye-opener for me.”

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Categories
Adventure Bicycle Travel Philosophy Vague Direction Book

Maple Syrup Criminals and Musical Nostalgia

Blurry windows. Tapping at phones. Window gazers. Sleepers. The Swede sat on the luggage rack and the classic Loud Eater. That familiar streak of towns as we glide through them. On the train, on the move again. And a sudden, distinct moment of nostalgia just hit. A song came on.

“Many days fell away with nothing to show. And the walls kept tumbling down in the city that we loved. Great clouds roll over the hills bringing darkness from above. But if you close your eyes, does it almost feel like nothing changed at all?”

Oh no. I just put song lyrics in a blog post. Sorry. Who does that? But the point is this – Music. It is cool isn’t it? How peculiar is it that a simple song can take you back to a single moment. I remember it as clear as day. It was the day after cycling away from Niagara Falls, staying with firstly strangers now pals, Heather and Mike. They’d put on a surprise spread and it was cracking. There was real Canadian maple syrup. Not the fake maple syrup, the real stuff. The syrup that’s targetted by organised crime bosses because it’s so good. It marked the end of the Canada section, eh. Crossing over again and riding back into the US for the final few weeks.

The air. Oh crikey. It was starting to get cold. At the time, ‘starting to get cold’ was a less harsh thing to write than ‘it’s f*cking freezing’. Sometimes I felt like a fraud for doing that, softening up the reality of certain days. That was prior to learning that an honest blog makes for a better blog. 

Every morning was more bitter than the previous one. This song came on. The roads were empty. Headphones set to loud – dangerously loud when cars passed by and dangerously fun when they didn’t. When you got going it was perfect. There’s need to soften up a day like that when you get going. Being cold and warming up beats being too hot any day. Ten minutes in and it was perfection. Every pedal-stroke, every mile, and every new song set on a backdrop where the colours could’ve been put on the front of a Happy Autumn postcard.

“But if you close your eyes, does it almost feel like you’ve been here before?”

It does. Sorry again for the lyrics. But the song. It brings back good times. And bad. The whole spectrum. It was the most epic 368 days I’ve had chance to be part of so far. The people and the journey made it what it was. A trip full of intense highs and scraping lows. There’s no bike to look after now though. Not on this mini-trip. I remember the rage it caused sometimes, the desperate desire to get rid of the stress of looking after it so much. Not leaving it anywhere out of sight because it contained everything. Or taking a foolish gamble and locking it up with fingers firmly crossed. Sometimes just hiding it in the nearest trees. But now that worry is missed of course, because that kind of stress changes with time. Like memories do.

Anyway enough of that. There’s just rucksacks now. Two small rucksacks that once again contain everything. There’s a specific reason for being here. An end goal. That is to see this through, to do it and not talk about doing it. I’m going somewhere new, the capital city of Croatia of all places, to finish the Vague Direction book. Creative doubt has kicked in. It’s been kicked in for months in preparation, but that’s sometimes a good thing. I don’t know if it’ll be worth it but would prefer to risk finding out and then going from there. Figure that even if it’s a flop it beats talking about it and not doing it. And it’ll be a weird type of closure.

This trip isn’t as long as last time. Nowhere near. Just enough time. Somewhere without the old distractions, but with new ones to get distracted by. And a deadline of 8 weeks to finish the inside of a book before getting kicked out of by Bizerka the landlord. Because of all that it wasn’t sad leaving this time, just exciting. It’s not for a long time, and it doesn’t revolve around constant movement, so it will be different, but just as new.

The reason behind doing this is simple. The most creative I’ve ever felt was during that year on a bicycle. Ideas flowed like they don’t do in a more regular way of life. Speaking of which, Stanford just released research saying a persons creativity increases 60% when walking. Gonna hedge a very non-academic bet and guess that those kind of results aren’t exclusive to walking. Fresh air and taking a step away from wherever you’re used to have to play a large part. Stepping away from wherever you’re used to. Typical days make it easy to forget about those factors and get too settled in a routine. We all have unique ways to find creative flow and I’m hoping that going somewhere new will provide a way to get immersed in that state.

So after however many months it’s been, it’s time to turn the same playlists back on and delve back into last year. Can’t wait to get this going again. Who knows what nostalgia will kick in when the hip-hop comes on.

“Long as there’s batteries in my Walkman, nothing’s the matter with me, sh*t look on the brightside, least I am walking. I bike ride through the neighbourhood of my apartment complex on a ten-speed, which I’ve acquired parts that I find in the garbage – a frame then put tyres on it, headphones on look straight ahead” – Eminem.

 

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