Touring and life-changing epiphanies, approaches, meetings, ideas....
 

At the end of a long journey from Prudhoe Bay to Tierra del Fuego, while he was riding the final few miles, someone said that he was expecting at any moment that some great insight would occur -- that something would be revealed to him, or 'the key to some abstruse mystery' would appear.

He and his wife couldn't explain why they were taking this long trip, and taking so much time away from their work and their established lives.

There may have been an undercurrent, or an intuitive, not entirely conscious element in the trip -- deeply looking or searching for something . . . , feeling some dissatisfaction with life as it is usually lived, and looking to find or come across something else.

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A French woman uprooted her life, feeling a very strong intuition that something had to change. She wrote a book called My Ride to a New Life. In it she describes looking for some new idea, or a new way of life, or a new approach to living.

And perhaps, in her case at least, a mate along with it.

Some people have at the backs of their minds the possibility of new insights or realizations, and new levels of clarity, and new energy of living. Bike touring is part of this, for some people.

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Maybe it is better left on an intuitive level, not overly burdened with (or taken over by) analysis, words and ideas. On the other hand, maybe the road can be opened up even more by looking into this sort of material.

[For example, I wonder if it might be possible to explore these sorts of intuitions more, give them more room to breathe and function, and give them more freedom and autonomy. Some of us feel them at times, but don't quite validate their existence and way of being -- we seem trained to go with other tendencies, directives and ideas.]

I uprooted my whole life to go on my first big tour ... and to move my whole life to a different track.

I had reached a point where I had a choice. I could continue doing what I was doing, what I had been doing for nearly a decade ... working at the same job, or type of job; living in the same sort of place; doing the same sorts of things during my free time, etc.. OR ... I could give it all up, and do things I have wanted to do since I was a child ... I could follow my dreams.

It took me a about a year to make the decision ... not an easy one to make. In fact, when the idea that I really could do something completely different with my life was first presented to me, I thought it was ridiculous ... people don't do those sorts of things!

And then I gave it all up ... sold or tossed about 60% of my stuff, moved the rest of my stuff into storage (where most of it still is 3 years later ... I really must start going through it and getting rid of more of it), and headed to Australia for 3 months. When I returned, I started University to pursue my Bachelor of Eduation. I'm now in my 3rd year. But that tour was the catalyst ... and it showed me that I could live quite happily with next to nothing in the material sense.

My goal is to get the degree so I can travel the world and teach wherever I happen to end up, or be at the time.