Why? I'll tell you why.

I just got off the red eye flight from San Francisco. What took me and a bike 66 days took a pilot and a plane less than 5 hours. The flight cost me around 250 dollars which is a small fraction of the total cost of the bike trip. It was rather comfortable and I was even able to sleep most of the way. If something is faster, easier, and cheaper, why would anyone do anything else? Well, I'm not going to tell you why anyone would do something else but, I will tell you why I did.

If you go back to my blog post from May titled “I'm in Love!” you may remember a fellow rider named Dick. He told me something that I will never forget.

It is not what you do, it is why you do it.

This got me thinking more about why I was on this bike ride or why I do anything that I do. Thousands of people already can, and hundreds more each year will be able to say that they have ridden their bike across the United States. But, that is the what. This is the same for everyone. We all know what we do but, very few know why they do it.

The why is not the same for everyone. The why is much more difficult to answer. It gets more personal and makes you think, which is why it is seldom even asked. Knowing why is important. It gives a purpose, a cause, or a belief. Even if you cannot immediately figure out why, it is important to think about it until you do.

Before I met Dick in White Hall, Virginia I was already thinking about why. I just wasn't thinking about it as much. Before the bike trip started I was thinking about it. What drove me to do it? What inspired me? If I had no inspiration, I would not have taken the trip. Certain people, their actions, and in particular, what they have written about their actions, provided me with inspiration. Also, the inspiration did more than get me to go on this adventure. It kept me going on it and makes me want to do more in the future.

Right around the beginning of 2010, I was contemplating the idea of the bike ride. This summer would be an ideal time to do it. I began reading non-fiction travel books and came across Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer. After finishing the book, I had no desire to go climb Mount Everest but, I felt I could relate to the men and women who have been on that mountain. We were both looking for adventure. I also have noticed that some people think it is crazy or irresponsible or a waste of time to go on an adventure. To climb Everest costs around $70,000 and according the to account of Krakauer, the climbers are in complete misery the entire time. I wondered, why would someone want to do such a thing?

After a brief search on the internet, I had found my answer. George Leigh Mallory answered it in 1922. He was the first to summit the highest mountain in the world and so was the first to have to answer the question,”Why?”

The first question which you will ask and which I must try to answer is this, 'What is the use of climbing Mount Everest ?' and my answer must at once be, 'It is no use'. There is not the slightest prospect of any gain whatsoever. Oh, we may learn a little about the behavior of the human body at high altitudes, and possibly medical men may turn our observation to some account for the purposes of aviation. But otherwise nothing will come of it. We shall not bring back a single bit of gold or silver, not a gem, nor any coal or iron. We shall not find a single foot of earth that can be planted with crops to raise food. It's no use. So, if you cannot understand that there is something in man which responds to the challenge of this mountain and goes out to meet it, that the struggle is the struggle of life itself upward and forever upward, then you won't see why we go. What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy. And joy is, after all, the end of life. We do not live to eat and make money. We eat and make money to be able to enjoy life. That is what life means and what life is for. 

It was February when I read this. It was then that I knew I must go on my bike ride. The bike ride is also no use. I will not see anything that hasn't been seen before or go where nowhere else has been. This is not exactly inspirational. The bit that inspires me are the final sentences.

What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy. And joy is, after all, the end of life. We do not live to eat and make money. We eat and make money to be able to enjoy life. That is what life means and what life is for. 

Thank you, Mr. Mallory.

I also read an article written by an athlete/fitness instructor named Mark Twight from Salt Lake City. He trained some of the actors in the movie 300, which is how I found his website. The title of the article is Twitching. Here are my favorite bits.

The life you want to live has no recipe. Following the recipe got you here in the first place.

Mix one high school diploma with an undergrad degree and a college sweetheart. With a whisk (or a whip) blend two cars, a poorly built house in a cul de sac, and fifty hours a week working for a board that doesn't give a shit about you. Reproduce once. Then again. Place all ingredients in a rut, or a grave. One is a bit longer than the other. Bake thoroughly until the resulting life is set. Rigid. With no way out. Serve and enjoy.

But there is a way out. Live the lifestyle instead of paying lip service to the lifestyle. Live with commitment. With emotional content. Live whatever life you choose honestly. Give up this renaissance man, dilettante bullshit of doing a lot of different things (and none of them very well by real standards). Get to the guts of one thing; accept, without reservation or rationalization, the responsibility of making a choice. When you live honestly, you can not separate your mind from your body, or your thoughts from your actions.

If anything, Mark gave me something to fear. I feared twitching. I feared that as the years add up, so will my regrets. I was very afraid of this. Fear is a form of inspiration.

Then, I read Richard Halliburton's The Royal Road to Romance. He feared the same thing!

Youth! Youth! There is absolutely nothing in the world but youth!

A wave of exultation swept over me. Youth – nothing else worth having in the world...and I had youth, the transitory, the fugitive, now, completely and abundantly. Yet what was I going to do with it? Certainly not squander its gold on the commonplace quest for riches and respectability, and then secretly lament the price that had to be paid for these futile ideals. Let those who wish have their respectability – I wanted freedom, freedom to search in the farthermost corners of the earth for the beautiful, the joyous and the romantic.

I think on this short (in both distance and time) trip I managed to find all of these. On my first day, I found a generous second family in Woodbridge who let me lick my wounds for four nights in their home. Then Jarus and his parents, Janet and Buck, who lent me his seat post rack. The great conversations I had with others all along the way including Bobby “the Mouth” Graves, Dick Vail, Captain Don, Donnie the Vintner, Ron, my tire supplier, Peter and Andreas, Juan the pig farmer, Jim the pilot/geologist, Brian, and of course my riding mates Terry, Ryan, and Cooper.

I found the beautiful and the romantic riding the Blue Ridge Parkway, driving that lady's truck to Burger King in Buchanan, hiking up Mt. Rogers, swimming across the Ohio River, camping with a broken tent and a 40 degree sleeping bag at 11,000 feet on Monarch Pass, then leaving the tent behind and spending a night at the bottom of the Black Canyon on the Gunnison River, the beautiful rocks of Utah, the mountains of Nevada along highway 50, and finally the ocean and the beach in California.

When I look back and reminisce about the people I met and the places I have been, it inspires me to meet more people and travel to more places. While experiencing all this, I couldn't help but pick up a few bits of knowledge.

Money does not deserve nearly as much attention as it gets. So does the name on the tag of your clothes, the square footage of your house, and the make of your car. These things will provide comfort, nothing more. If you can realize this now as I have (most people never do) the sooner you will have a satisfied mind. Being comfortable has absolutely nothing to do with being happy.

Stop listening to what our backwards American culture tells you to do. Live with an open mind just like Marcus Aurelius said nearly two thousand years ago.

The business of a healthy eye is to see everything that is visible, not to demand no colour but green, for that merely marks a disordered vision. Likewise hearing and scent, if healthy, should be alert for all kinds of sounds and odours, and a healthy stomach for all manner of meats, like a mill which accepts whatever grist it was fashioned to grind. In the same way, then, a healthy mind ought to be prepared for anything that may befall.

Don't limit yourself to the path most taken. Do what you want. Fulfill a dream. Have a romantic, fantastic experience.

But beware, there are plenty of excuses not to, most having to do with time and money. The ones who make these excuses are just afraid of not being comfortable -- of stepping out -- of coloring outside the lines. How soft you all are! You should be more afraid of not doing it! Have some self-respect! Take pride in your life! Demand that of yourself! Ask yourself why and be honest! Live with conviction knowing that where you are and what you are doing is exactly what you want.

Or, twitch until the end, wondering how things could have been. Live a life of regrets suffering from an unsatisfied mind. The idea of an adventure appeals to everyone. People have said they have lived through me this summer and I have many followers on the blog. If it is so appealing, why don't more people do it? It is because the adventure is the what. Perhaps, if people understand why an adventure is so appealing, they might actually be inspired to have one.

While on my bike trip, I did not bring any music to listen to. So, I would sing to myself when the riding was not too tough. The only problem was I knew all the words to only one song. I sang this song hundreds and hundreds of times. It is my favorite song and here are my favorite verses.

Money can't buy back your youth when you're old
Or a friend when you're lonely or a love that's grown cold;
The wealthiest person is a pauper at times
Compared to the man, with a satisfied mind.

When my life has ended, and my time has run out,
My friends and my loved ones I'll leave, there's no doubt.
But one thing's for certain, when it comes my time,
I'll leave this old world with a satisfied mind.

I hope that all of my followers can find inspiration in at least some small part of all this. I especially hope this inspires my cousins. If I can inspire anyone, then I will really feel a sense of accomplishment. It is not to inspire them to go on a bike tour or some other grand adventure. It is to inspire them to live the life they want and to stop twitching.