Human Side Podcast 18: Corporate Slavery

To relinquish a hard-gained freedom and happiness for the stability and certainty of making money. But to discover the only certainty is misery. How is it that two men who learned this truth years earlier have returned to the West and gone back to work for it?

Human Side Podcast 04: Bicycle Touring

Two veterans of the road discuss bicycle tours in Europe and the Americas.

About the Road

Why you ride & Why you stop

 

He goes on the road with his bicycle because he needs to work something out for himself. He needs to rid himself of something through solitude and suffering, and then through solitude and suffering begin to put something else in its place. He goes on the road when he is spent, has nothing more to write or to say. When there is nothing left to write or to think there is no risk on the road. To die is nothing to this man with nothing.

But when he begins to develop new ideas, when the gods have been generous with him, then to continue on the road is to risk everything. He must stop and protect himself and take the time to develop these ideas without interference. He must surround himself with security, for when there are ideas to be worked out everything is at stake. When his projects are completed and there is no more work to do, he may again go on the road and make himself worthy of new gifts from the gods.

 

But he also goes on the road to find the good place. He finds good people, and if he is lucky he finds a good woman, and he stops at the good place and he stays there. The good woman is just as much a divine gift as any idea and he will learn much from her. The road led him to her and to the other good people and in the village he will get his work done. His work and the woman and the good people who are of the good place was why he went on the road. Now that he has found them to go further on the road would be a mistake.

Who You Were

You Can Be Again

Fish Bone: A Dialogue

12:33 AM
Moraline: i remember this all you can eat buffet in ushuaia at the end of the world. it was a touring cyclists dream. i went in there and ate for nearly 2 hours. there was meat, fish, salads, asado, barbecued everyhing. great buffet. but then, i ate this smoked fish, and i realized i had a bone stuck in my throat
i kept trying to swallow it.
i felt i was going to choke and die
right there dead in ushuaia in this buffet.
12:34 AM
i could feel myself about to choke and die. it bothered me but then it didnt
then i realized i had to live. i had to get this bone out of my throat.
i had to stop trying to swallow it.
i went in the bathroom and stuck my finger down my throat until i threw up. huge fucking bone. incredible size. thick and very long
problem was i threw up 2 hours worth of eating. i was fucking hungry all over again!!
12:35 AM
so i started all over on the buffet and sat there another 2 hours eating. the owner couldnt believe it. guy was pissed off at me. but it was all you can eat.
how could this fucking skinny motherfucker sit in my restyaurant and eat for 4 fucking hours?
Saint-Maximin: coughing in uncontrollable laugter
laughter
12:36 AM
have you published a short story on this?
Moraline: its funny now, but i really could have died. the bone was as long as my pinky finger
Saint-Maximin: it is a good story--choking on a fish bone at the end of the world
Moraline: funny thing is in my throat it didnt feel that big. i thought it was only a small bone and i could perhaps swallow it. i tried very hard to swallow it too
12:37 AM
Saint-Maximin: choking is a terrible feeling. jesus, bulemia
12:38 AM
Moraline: what is worse puking up all that good food you spent 2 hrs eating. what a pain to have to do it all over again when youre hungry
12:39 AM
Saint-Maximin: yes, they are "livre" which is all you can eat--typically 9 reis for a down to earth joint and then 15 reis for a more well to do joint. they also have "por kilo" or by the kilo but it's a rip-off
jesus, 4 hours of eating a 15 minutes of vomiting.
yeah, you can still drink the hot chocolate though.
Moraline: this place in ushuaia was actually kinda expensive. 70 pesos i think. about
30 dollars
12:40 AM
but i ate a ton of food
yeah, i dont mind the hot chocolate
Saint-Maximin: yes but at the end of the world, and especiaally when you get to recharge in the toilet, that's a good deal
12:41 AM
Moraline: it was high quality food. and i ate a ton. worth it. and that fish too i had avoided all day until the end. i saw those bones. stupidly i tried it and nearly died from it.

My Message for Suscal

I met Alberto in the small park near my hotel as I walked up the hill for breakfast. We talked for awhile and then Alberto asked me to prepare a message for the people of Suscal and to deliver this message during the evening church service. I agreed to do it.

 

I thought I would make remarks about the simple beauty of their mountain culture and the strength of their religious beliefs and how this made their happiness. This I would contrast with the unhappiness of my country and its conspicuous consumption and rejection of religion.

 

But as the day progressed and I thought more about speaking to these indigenous people, I realized I knew nothing about them. I was only presuming they were happy. I knew nothing of their lives. They wore black wide-brimmed hats and the women had purple or pink handmade dresses and they were all very short and dark and Indian looking. That was all I knew of them. I didn’t understand them in any deep way. Not like I knew America. America I knew well. America I could speak about. But why should I tell these people about America? Why not leave America where it is and leave these Andean mountain people to themselves? Indeed, I had come to South America to receive messages, not to deliver them.

 

I realized I could not address the congregation. I knew this would disappoint Alberto. I would not know how to explain it to him. I decided it would be better just to miss our meeting at 6pm. If I ran into him before I left I would say I had fallen asleep. I had disappointed people before and I would certainly do it again.

 

It was better this way. To not make these people any more interested in America than they might already be. I carried with me an intoxicating and dangerous poison and I did not want to spread it. The Spanish had come and changed these people and American culture could easily finish them off. I had not come here to encourage it.

 

With or without me these people were being changed. In Suscal I saw as many internet shops as food shops, each filled with young people going online. Facebook and videos and games were what they looked at. It wasn’t any different than in Western countries.

 

After speaking with Alberto I ate breakfast on the avenida principal and a boy and girl at another table watched me as I ate. Neither of them wore the traditional clothing. The young man was dressed in baggy, hip-hop style jeans and the girl in a t-shirt and jeans. When I spoke with the woman who ran the restaurant the boy and girl laughed. My Spanish is of the Colombian north coast and it no doubt was a surprise to hear a strange, long-haired, blue-eyed man speaking it. I thought to myself: though they dress as gringos at least they are not so knowledgeable of gringos as to no longer stare and laugh at them. Verily, when the young can no longer stare and laugh at a foreigner Suscal will have been altogether lost.

God of the Mountains

 

I had been traveling with a woman. I had been paying other men for shelter and to prepare my food and I had been moving around the country in buses. I had made myself a tourist.

 

sacrificial area for the mountain god

 

But standing before the sacrificial alter of the Moche people and looking up at the great mountain above their pyramid, the mountain in which dwelled their highest god, the god of the mountains, I was reminded of sacrifice and my own sacrifices to the god of the mountains. The Moche elder slit the throats of the bound and naked men and drained their blood from the jugular into a golden chalice that was then brought to the Moche priest for the high offering and the blessing of the god of the mountains.

 

Moche representations of the god of the mountains

 

I had offered my blood too. I had given sweat and much pain and blood to that self-same god. I had gone up into the god's mountains alone and found him. I had traveled up under my own power and carried my house upon a bicycle, asking nothing of other men and bringing my own food and cooking it. I was far from it now, using buses and taxis and hotels and paying other men to cook for me. But I could get back to it again. I needed to get back to it again. I had payed men to be skillful for me for too long. I had lived among men for too long. I needed to ride back up to the mountain god and make a new offering.

On Solitude

It is in solitary living that he opens himself to the first experience of the world, without the derivative and all-too-human notions of subjectivity or consciousness or science or religion. Solitude does not mean living in a little room in a city and avoiding one’s friends and family. It does not necessarily mean living on a mountaintop either. Solitude is removing oneself physically to a wholly other world, a different world than one knows. Different language, customs, topography, animals, food, the weather, the sun and stars, the love of a foreign woman, the seasons, buildings, trees, and gods and rivers. In such a place a man lives entirely alone. He has little to grab onto, or that grabs onto him. There is no longer the familiar. This is solitude.

As a result of the surrounding novelty, he has the experience of the world in its glory and wonder. He becomes as the child. He makes the discovery of the world as gift.

If he is traveling by bicycle or on foot his solitude is even purer. He lives in concern for his need of food and water and shelter. He asks that no one other than the food sellers be skillful for him. He addresses this new world with his own skills. He lives nearer to the world’s mystery and thereby awakens the gods to care for him.

Indeed, gifts from the gods may be bestowed upon this solitary man. Ideas and visions and new ways of life as mysterious in origin as the world itself.

You Can´t Put Your Arms Around A Memory

Argentina 2011

A Wounding above Zaragoza

He lay in the ditch. He had fallen. The brakes had failed and he had gone over the bars and into the dirt and rock wall. But he had not gone off the mountain. He was not slain. He was only wounded. I will lay and bleed a little, he said aloud. Then I will get back up and true this mangled wheel and I will ride down from this mountain.

Stare at the Gringo

The Colombian and Ecuadorian both stare long and hard at the blue-eyed gringo on the strange bicycle. But their gazes are different. The Colombian looks upon the blue-eyed gringo and his funny bike with surprise and curiosity. He may smile. He wishes to know more. There is thought and wonder behind his gaze. The Ecuadorian, however, looks upon the gringo and his strange bike with bewilderment. The Ecuadorian’s look is empty. There is nothing behind it, not even the dimmest of curiosities. He is speechless before the gringo. He looks and thinks nothing and could say nothing if the gringo stopped and spoke to him.

Security Notes for Bicycle Touring

[This list was originally written for Maximin and is by no means complete]

1. Make copies of your passport. A photocopy to carry with you as well as a picture on your netbook and emailed to yourself in your email. (Also note that US passports sell on the black market for 10k, so should you be really hard up for money it can be sold.)

2. Power of attorney. You can give it to someone you trust in the USA. Can be useful for any banking issues as well as tax problems and medical issues if you are incapacitated. Simple power of attorney forms can be gotten at your local library. Also very easy to terminate.

3. Your bank card is essential to survival. Always carry it in your secret pocket and have the international phone number of your bank emailed to yourself and on your netbook so you can cancel the card if stolen. You also need a USA address on file with the bank that your new card can be sent to. A person at this address can then send the new card to you in S America. This is easier if you have given power of attorney to this person. Also tell your bank of your travel plans. This way they can monitor your card use and put a hold on it if used irregularly. Additionally, many banks if not notified of a S American trip will immediately put a hold on your card or cancel it. Set daily withdrawal limits and credit card daily limits. No doubt the default daily limits on the card are much too high for S American bicycle touring.

4. Adaptor connector for camping stove. This allows you to use the needle-headed butane canisters that are sold in hardware stores. The adaptor screws into the stove and then twist-locks onto the top of the butane canister. Essential when traveling by bike as camping stores are often hard to find to purchase the specially designed screw-on camping butane canisters. Also, hardware store butane canisters are cheaper than the camping canisters. I lost my adaptor and don’t think I’ll see another one outside of Argentina, a country of people who enjoy camping. I consider this my most serious loss of gear. 

5. Another well known security precaution in hotels is to leave your TV on while out of your room. Make sure its loud enough that someone putting their ear up to your door can hear it.

6. A knife is a good weapon. A switchblade is best since it only takes one hand to pop it. You can slowly bring out money from your left-hand pocket with your left hand--getting the thief to watch that hand--while bringing out the switchblade in your right from your right-hand pocket, popping the blade and keeping it hidden by your thigh, and then, as you slowly hand the money towards the thief, handing it to thief’s hand holding the knife, you stab the fucker in the throat, while pushing his knife away from you with your left hand. But only do this shit if you feel you must. Switchblades are also good for cutting things when camping and for cooking too, as well as cutting your cardboard boxes for transporting your Bike Friday. Switchblades are illegal in all states except for New Hampshire. It may be something you purchase when arriving in S America.

7. A better weapon for defense is a sort of heavy stick that unfolds and you can whip people with it. I don’t know the name of it and I wish I had one. Perhaps they make them to fit in pockets. With this you can whip it out and keep a knife-wielding attacker at a distance while you fuck him up. You should strike for his knees or shins first, bringing him to the ground, then you can hit him some more or begin to stomp on his face and kick him. Then, later, if you’ve taken a particular dislike to him, you can get out your switchblade and cut into the bitch. But keep in mind that if you should bring out your knife you had better be prepared to kill with it. This is true especially in Colombia where letting a guy live is certain to mean a life-threatening future problem. He’ll be coming back for you with all his friends and well armed.

8. Carry a bit of money in your regular pockets to give to a mugger. A wallet with a few bills in it is even better. Its always best to avoid violent confrontations. Most of these guys are professionals.

9. A good pair of shit-kicking stomping boots. These may be heavy and you would only wear them when off your bike, but they are great for fighting. Just kick a motherfucker in the knee and he’s going down. The groin is a good spot too but can be hard to kick just right, so go for the knees or shins (shins are very sensitive). He’ll go down (or at minimum be unable to walk towards you) and then you can stomp the shit out of him. You should always attempt to get a guy on the ground first, especially the big guys. Got to take out their legs. A good pair of shit-kickers does that easily. Then stomp until he’s no longer a threat. You can also kick further than you can punch, meaning a kick is an offensive move that also keeps you protected, while a punch always leaves a man open to the counter. Perhaps you can purchase these boots when you find a place you want to stay after touring for awhile. Obviously its really a luxury to carry these things in panniers while touring.

10. In any violent encounter in S America be prepared to fight 7 guys. Miguel the Ninja of Buga told me this and I believe it is a good rule to follow. So get the lead guy down and then be quickly turning to take on the next guy. You need to work quickly, and that is why getting a guy in the knees and getting him down is important so you can turn and fight the next one.

11. Be aware that the thieves with knives and guns often look for couples. Its an easier robbery to grab the girl and then rob the both of you. Be aware of this when walking with a girl. You’re actually safer without her.

12. If the thief has a gun give him what he wants. Don’t fight.

13. Some robberies may involve them stealing your clothing, including your pants. This means your secret pocket and its contents is being taken too. You may indeed choose to resist depending upon what you’re carrying and your assessment of the attackers and situation.

14. Walk on sidewalks at the edge of the street, not against walls or buildings. That way if someone comes at you from in front or behind or from an alley they’ll have a harder time pushing you against a building or into an alley to rob you. You also have an opportunity for escape by being able to run into the street. Also, a cop in a car has a better chance of seeing the robbery.

15. When walking at night back from the bar or club or walking in a bad area I have often put a good-sized rock in my back pocket. If you can throw hard and accurate it makes a great weapon against a guy with a knife. Hit him good, then run.

Back in the Saddle

Last night, the night before my first ride in over a year, I unfortunately had the great idea to get drunk and go to whorehouses with Miguel, the Colombian ninja. We visited two of them, the first filled with the ugliest whores I've ever seen. I had them play "4 No Se Ve" by Nejo and Dalmata, telling the fat whore that should be the theme song of the place. She didn't understand. The second whorehouse was better and we wasted the night drinking with a table full of whores. Cops raided the place and Miguel and I just barely got our knives hidden in our shoes before we were searched.

I woke up terribly dehydrated and hung over and forced myself to get on the road. I threw up 3 times on the Pan American, bonked once, and stupidly didn't stop for lunch when I passed a roadside comedor. I had to ride 40 km with only a banana until the next roadside restaurant. I arrived shaking and starved but felt too awful to eat much. I told the waitress to watch my bike and passed out on the table for an hour and a half.

I tried a new way into Cali thinking it would be better than the old, shitty, dangerous, pot-holed, traffic-crazy route I normally take. In fact it was much worse and involved significantly more riding. I got lost in some shit poor barrio on the ege of  the city but then somehow came upon Eclipse, a sex motel I had taken some girls to. I remembered that cab ride back to Grenada clearly and made my way across the city as the sun went down behind the mountains. Ran into a coke dealer on Sexta I hadn't seen in years. He pissed off the wong guy and someone had fucked up his hand. His pinky and the finger next to it were curled up into his palm and useless. Cali hasn't changed.

завръщане у дома

[Homecoming]

After his college graduation and against the advice of his mother, Simms went to Europe. Simms planned to ride by bicycle from Brussels to Bulgaria, and to live in Sofia until the money ran out. Simms was not on the road three months before the accident.

They told Simms that he crashed out descending a pass in the mountains north of Milano. The subdural hematoma had required a craniotomy and two burr holes were drilled into his skull to relieve the pressure on his swollen brain. Simms was hospitalized two months at Milano before being returned home to Chicago. The doctors told him his memory of the ride would not fully return. His bike and all his gear was lost.

All that remained was a single photograph included with a greeting card sent by a Belgian couple to his parent’s home that Christmas. In the south of France Simms met the couple after a long, hot climb in the Midi-Alps above Nice. They waived Simms down and offered him a lunch of cheese and sausage, bread, and fresh cherries. In the picture he is wearing a green wool turtleneck sweater and standing over his fully loaded bicycle in a pine forest. Nice and the Mediterranean do not show. The pine trees might have been the pines of the Wisconsin north woods. Simms is smiling broadly.

Soon after being returned to Chicago, Simms recommenced his training. He went riding on the bike paths around the city, he swung his kettle bell, he shadowboxed, he hit the heavy bag and jumped rope, he did pushups and situps and pullups, and he ran the hill at the park. He was slowly getting his body back into shape. He told his mother to tell no one that he had returned. He did not want to see any of the people he knew. He did not consider his being returned to America to be important. He wanted to maintain his European frame of mind and he did not want to be disturbed from it.

The way they lived was better in Europe. The buildings were old and beautiful and the people had history. In France he had enjoyed eating food for the first time. Just remembering the cassoulet made him hungry. And all those wines. You didn’t understand it if you haven’t been there. The Americans didn’t have anything on them. America was strip malls and parking lots. Americans were obese and badly dressed. After seeing and talking to French girls, he couldn’t tolerate American girls. He didn’t know how he tolerated American girls before. He didn’t want anything to do with American girls now.

When Simms walked through the neighborhood he watched the American girls going to work. They were large and serious and their skin was pasty and they did not wear makeup and many wore their hair short. After work the American girls went into the bars and intoxicated themselves and looked for men to have sex with. He knew what talking to them was like. She would ask what he did for a living and where he lived and if he owned his own place and then, if she wasn’t too drunk, she proceeded to test him in more subtle ways. It was a game. If he played the game correctly he would have sex with her. But sometimes her girlfriend came and dragged her off. That was how it worked in America.

Even if an American girl offered herself he didn’t want her. He was done with that. He didn’t feel any attraction for American girls. American girls were only interested in their careers and reality tv shows and shoe shopping. He didn’t need a girl anyway. He had training and study ahead of him. There wasn’t time for American girls. Besides, they wouldn’t like it that he lived at home. They wouldn’t like it that he didn’t have a job. That was how they judged you. He knew how it would go. He could tell lies but there was no getting around it when he needed a place to take her. He wondered what Bulgarian girls were like. He’d heard they had moustaches. They couldn’t all have moustaches though. If they were anything like French girls he would be happy. He’d get to Bulgaria finally and see for himself. Simms went out on a long ride and tried to forget about girls.

Each day when he finished his training, Simms practiced his Bulgarian and studied the country’s history. Afterwards he liked to listen to his little brother practice the cello. His little brother admired him very much and wanted to hear his European stories. His father was only mildly interested. His mother did not want to hear about it. Through the winter Simms trained and studied and he began to feel quite good again. He ordered new panniers, a sleeping bag and a tent. He began to think that in the summer he would return to Italy and resume his ride for Bulgaria.

One evening Simms was studying in his room when his brother knocked at the door and asked he come down to the dinner table. His mother and father were waiting for him. The table had not been cleared from dinner and his parents were finishing a bottle of wine. Simms took his seat across from his mother.

“Thanks for coming down, Billy,” his father said.

“Now, William,” began his mother, “Its time we had a talk about what you’re going to do.”

“Sure,” said Simms.

“Your father and I think that you should begin paying rent if you are going to stay here. We agreed that $250 per month is appropriate. It will help to motivate you to find a job.”

“Sure,” said Simms. He looked at his little brother and winked.

“William,” said his mother sternly, “We paid for a very expensive education for you and you graduated at the top of your class in the business school. The dean told us you could work at any of the top investment banks.”

“That was before,” said Simms.

“I am sure Goldman Sachs would still want you, William.”

“They wouldn’t. They only want you right when you graduate.”

His mother turned to his father.

“What do you plan to do then, Bill?” his father said.

“I don’t know.”

“You must have some idea.”

“I’m going to Bulgaria,” Simms said cheerfully.

“That’s enough, William,” said his mother, raising her voice. “We’ve heard just about enough of that. That little adventure is over and you’re going to get a job like everyone else.”

“Let’s not be too hard on the boy,” his father cautioned.

“No! I am going to be hard on him. He goes off not wearing a helmet and falls off his bicycle and we have to take care of his mess. Who do you think paid to fly you back here, William?”

Simms was quiet.

“I worked all those years with head injury patients and I always told you to wear a helmet and what do you go off and do? Where was your helmet, William?”

Simms thought to describe the feeling of the wind in his hair, barreling down a mountain, all that freedom and how Dennis Coello didn’t wear a helmet either. Neither did the Dutch. But he didn’t say anything. He knew from experience not to say anything.

“Well?” His mother glared at him.

“I’m going to Bulgaria,” Simms told her.

“No you’re not!” she shouted. She turned to his father, “Tell him! Tell him he’s not!”

His brother stood up from the table and left the kitchen.

“What’s in Bulgaria, Bill?” asked his father.

“It’s the cheapest country in Europe,” Simms said.

“Bill, I think you should consider working here awhile.”

“Its not what I want to do.”

“He’ll be eating out of garbage cans! Who does he think he is! In life you can’t do whatever you want to do!”

Simms looked calmly at the woman. She was red-faced and furious. He suddenly felt distant from the whole scene, like he was observing it all from far away. He watched the woman as she stood up from the table and drawing back her arm, swept it across the tabletop, sending the plates and glassware and utensils crashing onto the floor. It all seemed to happen in slow motion.

“You’ll see!” the woman shrieked, “You’ll see!”

“I want you out of this house tomorrow!” she screamed at him.

Simms watched her leave the kitchen. The man who was his father did not move. His head was down. Without looking at Simms, he stood up from the table and followed his wife upstairs. A door slammed. Moments later Simms heard her muffled yelling from their bedroom. Then it was quiet.

So that was it. He would have to leave. He was not in great shape but the roads were flat from Illinois in whichever direction he rode. He had gotten into shape on the road before and he would do it again. He would pack his panniers tonight and leave in the morning. There were good maps and America would be wonderful to see on a bicycle. There were forests to camp in and, though they were far off, there were mountains. Mountains, thought Simms, he was looking forward to seeing the mountains very much.

Fearful Day

And he became frightened again. Buffered by the protection of the West the fear was quick to renew itself. He researched the far away place where the people and culture was altogether different, mostly unknown, and when he imagined going there he saw only the danger. He could not go there. He felt a reaction against it. He knew that if he traveled there he would die.

Yet he had just recently been in places of legitimate danger and had not once been scared to die. It was so easy to hide within the security of old habits, the institutions he had lived with for much of his life, and now returned to these institutions he felt convinced of the fearfulness that accompanies them.

But he remembered that when you accepted death and trusted it as an outcome, you found that death was always more distant than you had imagined it. When you no longer feared it, it went away. Though it might come for you, it would come for you when you willed it. Because when you did not fear it you did not look for it anymore. Death became a trusted outcome, a powerful confidence.

And when he remembered this he felt differently. The traveler must continue into the new territory. He will go to the Guajira to live among the Wayuu.

Cambio

December 2010 Cali, Colombia

April 2011 Cafayate, Argentina

Cooking

Monteros, Argentina

Dancing

Monteros, Argentina

Monthly Totals

1. Showers: 3


2. Longest streak without bathing: 9 days (a current streak and probably my lifetime longest)


3. Nights slept in tent: 27


4. Mosquito bites (approximate): 25


5. Spider bites: 3 (he was living inside my tent until I assassinated him)


6. Fly bites: 7


7. Flea bites (approximate): 125 (25 from a hostel in San Juan and the rest one bad night on the desert)


8. Speared by cactus: 2 times


9. Speared by thorn trees: 4 times

It was a good month.

What Am I Doing Here?

There were previously big projects. A journey to Ushuaia. Then a journey over the Paso Los Libertadores. Now there is the emptiness that follows their completion. I sit in a dirty hostel in Mendoza listening to Europeans strum guitars, drink beer, make plans for dinners and clubs and talk of coming bus rides to other cities where they will do it all over again. I belong to the mountains and long roads, the camping in the high hills, the quiet nights looking up at the foreign constellations from my tent window, the wind quieted, and I am never alone. But here in a city with no project for my body, I am alone. I am not ready to begin the sitting and writing I plan to do. The tent, the stove, the gear is all useless. It is desolation.

At least in Ushuaia I could camp, and I camped with others who had traveled very far to where the road had ended. There was nothing filthy about them. They were only honorable, because men who go long distances on the road have honor. We could communicate where we had been and what we had learned and we were comrades. But here, with these pleasure-seekers and vacationers it is emptiness and we share nothing. They come quickly to a country and see its cities in a few weeks time and return to jobs and girlfriends and boyfriends and security. It makes me miserable to share their air, to sit near them, to hear their conversations. It is a mistake to have gotten off the bike. I have stopped riding too early. I must discover a new project. There is somewhere to go, somewhere far away and difficult to ride to and I will go there. I will be happily alone again. Only riding alone can take it out of me.